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Development of Biophysical Metrics for Ecosystem Services Assessment for Regional- and National-Scale Analysis
Citation:
Phifer, C., P. Ringold, F. Andrews, T. Angradi, W. Berry, T. Canfield, A. Gray, C. Horstmann, J. Latimer, A. Nahlik, D. Peck, D. Santavy, L. Sharpe, AND Tamara Newcomer Johnson. Development of Biophysical Metrics for Ecosystem Services Assessment for Regional- and National-Scale Analysis. World Conference 2019 ESP 10 Hanover, Hanover, Lower Saxony, GERMANY, October 21 - 25, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
This work identifies metrics of ecosystem goods and services that are directly meaningful to people. As such it reports on a framework that can help to standardize the way in which ecosystem goods and services are implemented. This is expected to make the use of ecosystem goods and services more tractable and therefore more widespread.
Description:
Interest in using ecosystem services (ES) concepts for decision making is high and increasing worldwide . The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a thought leader in better integration of ES into decision-making and policy formation. However, within the US, there is no clear set of national metrics in that can be used to facilitate the rigorous, discipline crossing boundary analysis needed to include ES in government policy at regional and national scales. To address this, EPA ecologists adopted the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services framework (FEGS) to define, classify and evaluate ecosystem goods and services with the goal of developing metrics for decision-making. The FEGS approach helped to operationalize ES analysis by: 1) focusing on components of nature directly enjoyed or used by people, and 2) focusing on the direct beneficiaries of ecosystem goods and service. Working within this framework, EPA scientists and collaborators developed beneficiary-specific example metrics of ES for seven ecosystems in the US, including rivers, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, coral reefs, forests and agroecosystems. These metrics were derived from interactive, interdisciplinary workshops hosted by EPA, in which social and natural scientists discussed, debated, and delineated FEGS boundaries and identified metrics that were valued and understood by scientists and non-scientists alike. Workshop participants considered a full-spectrum of ES and related metrics that may facilitate total economic valuation, including metrics for both direct-use and non-use values, by focusing on specific beneficiaries and their values. This is the first phase of a long-term project to incorporate ecosystem services into decision-making and policy formation within the EPA. Future interdisciplinary research will test, evaluate, and refine these first-generation metrics of ecosystem services.