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Using USEPA'S Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) Classification With EnviroAtlas As The Basic Framework To Describe Natures Benefits and Beneficiaries
Citation:
Landers, D., A. Nahlik, C. Rhodes, AND A. Neale. Using USEPA'S Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) Classification With EnviroAtlas As The Basic Framework To Describe Natures Benefits and Beneficiaries. Presented at Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting (JASM), Portland, OR, May 18 - 23, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
This abstract introduces the FEGS Classification System (FEGS-CS) to a new audience and highlights new functionality by linking it with the EnviroAtlas and announces the Sustainable and Healthy Community approach to demonstrate operational status of the FEGS-CS in the form of community coordinated place based studies. This knowledge is likely to result in more utilization of FEGS-CS and therefore standardization of terminology and better communication in the ecosystem services field.
Description:
Ecosystem Services have received increasing scientific focus for a decade, yet the natural and social scientists working on mainstreaming these concepts are still struggling with the task. FEGS (Final Ecosystem Goods and Services) are an informative and useful concept as they embody both biophysical components of nature and human beneficiaries. We present a FEGS Classification System (FEGS-CS), that explicitly links the goods and services produced by the environment with potential beneficiaries (i.e. people). We explore approaches to demonstrate application of FEGS to several place-based community studies implemented by the USEPA Office of Research and Development. An important remaining challenge regarding the FEGS-CS framework is to identify beneficiary-specific information necessary for valuation, and to determine how such information may be obtained. The current FEGS-CS web site can link customized land use classes with beneficiaries and FEGS. We intend to add a geospatially explicit component by linking the FEGS-CS with the EnviroAtlas which contains a wealth of spatially explicit ecosystems services indicator data. By integrating and using the two products together, a user can benefit from a standardized classification framework which can be connected to spatially explicit information relating to a particular place. EnviroAtlas data includes percentages of area in different land cover classes, condition of stream buffer areas, water consumption, demographic (beneficiary) data, as well as many other ecosystem services related data. We expect the products of these efforts to more precisely identify and measure who uses which ecosystem services in what places than we have seen previously in the ecosystem services literature.