Ecosystem services governance in the Wienerwald region

The society benefits in a number of ways from services (demand) provided by nature such as clean water, a pleasant landscape for recreation, food, or fuels. Many of these so-called Ecosystem services (ESS) are impacted by human action such as agricultural land use or infrastructure development. Societies often regulate these actions and therefore the supply of ESS e.g. by introducing agri-environmental policies or spatial planning. The citizen science project ServeToPe tests how the demand for ESS and its supply by nature can be better quantified. This shall inform more sustainable management measures such as better land use decisions or better policies that serve the needs of the people. ServeToPe is based on the ongoing BiodivERsA project SALBES (Scenarios for Agricultural Landscapes` Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; www.salbes.eu). It is located in the Biosphere Reserve Wienerwald and plans to answer the following major research questions: 1.What is the current demand for ESS and how does the Wienerwald region contribute to this demand? 2.What does good management of ESS mean? How can policies contribute to align demand for ESS and its supply? We call this good governance from a citizens perspective? ServeToPe takes several steps to answer these questions. It develops a list of ESS that are potentially important to the society. It quantifies the need (demand) of these ESS and compares it to the mainly regional supply. For example, it will show whether the demand for certain recreational activities matches with the supply of recreational areas and the environmental quality of these areas. Thereby, it will prove whether there are conflicts between different demands. Recreational activities may for example impact the provision of agricultural products. Our analysis will reveal mismatches that can be tackled with better management. A number of good practice policy measures shall result as a major outcome of the project. An example would be regional and spatially planned nature conservation activities. Citizens will be important research partners in ServToPe. They will help to reveal peoples needs (demand) and will support the evaluation of management measures and policies to increase supply. In case of conflicts between the demand of ESS (e.g. recreation activities vs. food production), the role of citizens in co-designing such measures and policies is particularly important.

The society benefits in a number of ways from services (demand) provided by nature such as clean water, a pleasant landscape for recreation, food, or fuels. Many of these so-called Ecosystem services (ESS) are impacted by human action such as agricultural land use or infrastructure development. Societies often regulate these actions and therefore the supply of ESS e.g. by introducing agri-environmental policies or spatial planning. The citizen science project ServeToPe tested options to quantify and spatially localize the demand for ESS and its supply by nature. This shall inform more sustainable management measures such as better land use decisions or better policies that serve the needs of the people. ServeToPe was based on the BiodivERsA project SALBES ("Scenarios for Agricultural Landscapes' Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services"; www.salbes.eu). Both projects have been located in the Biosphere Reserve Wienerwald. ServeToPe answered the following major research questions: 1. What is the current demand for ESS and how does the Wienerwald region contribute to this demand? 2. What does good management of ESS mean? How can policies contribute to align demand for ESS and its supply? ServeToPe took several steps to answer these questions. It developed a list of ESS that are potentially important to the society. It quantified the need (demand) of these ESS with a mix of social science survey methods and compared results to the mainly regional supply. For example, it showed whether the demand for certain recreational activities matches with the supply of recreational areas and the environmental quality of these areas. Thereby, ServeToPe proved potential conflicts between different demands. Recreational activities may for example impact the provision of agricultural products. The analysis revealed mismatches that can be tackled with better management. Management options have been provided by the citizens such as the better access to local agricultural goods, i.e. provisioning services. Citizens have been important research partners in ServeToPe. They helped to reveal people's needs (demand) and supported the evaluation of management measures and policies to increase supply. The played a particularly important role in revealing conflicts between the demand of ESS (e.g. recreation activities vs. food production). The process further indicated the role of citizens in co-designing abatement measures and policies.