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The EPA Ecosystem Services Tool Selection Portal
Citation:
Harwell, M., L. Sharpe, K. Hines, C. Schumacher, S. Kim, G. Ferreira, AND Tamara Newcomer Johnson. The EPA Ecosystem Services Tool Selection Portal. Sustainability. MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, 16(5):1739, (2024). https://doi.org/10.3390/su16051739
Impact/Purpose:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) researchers are developing resources and tools to help communities incorporate the benefits of local ecosystems (ecosystem services; ES) into their environmental decisions and planning. One such tool is the EPA Ecosystem Services Tool Selection Portal. The purpose of this Portal is to guide environmental decision makers, ES scientists, and others in selecting among a suite of ES Assessment tools, frameworks, and methodologies for application in a range of structured decision-making contexts. The aim of this Portal will be to guide users working on ecosystem services assessments through a decision tree approach to learn about useful EPA ES tools. This manuscript describes the Portal, its functionality, and presents 3 case study examples on how it can be used.
Description:
The dynamics of any given environmental decision-making context are complicated, including how to consider social-ecological systems connections. Decision support tools designed with a user in mind make it simpler and more natural to integrate science into the decision-making process. This can also help to better facilitate restoring and maintain ecosystems in a robust and resilient condition while providing the environmental benefits (ecosystem services) that people want and need. While an individual ecosystem services assessment tool is developed for a given set of purposes, having access to information about a suite of potential tools can be insightful. A wide range of approaches exist for connecting ecosystem services to a given environmental decision-making context/process. In order of less to more complex, they range from: using best professional judgment; finding examples from other efforts to apply; testing individual tool applications; and using a systematic, decision-tree approach to navigate among potentially relevant ES tools and frameworks applicable to that decision making process. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed a decision-tree approach for a user to navigate the question of how to choose among a suite of ecosystem services assessment tools for three decision contexts: (1) ecological risk assessments; (2) cleanup of contaminated sites; (3) and other (generic) structured decision-making processes. This ecosystem services assessment tool selection navigator was developed with/for the intended user, including developing crosswalks between describing tool functionality and the language of the user for what they require in a tool.
