Ecosystem services Assessment and Benefit Transfer

Ecosystem service assessments aim to integrate the natural environment into decision-making by developing linked biophysical and economic models that demonstrate how changes in the environment affect human welfare. When these analyses inform national level, strategic choices, large-scale analyses are required. Such assessments, embracing multiple ecosystem services, will often rely on the transfer of either economic or biophysical models, or both. This chapter discusses the main concepts of ecosystem service assessments and illustrates the conceptual framework with examples from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. An analysis of the recreational and carbon values arising from land-use changes shows how differences in ecological, socio-economic or climatic factors result in high spatial heterogeneity in ecosystem services and how this variation can be incorporated within transfer values.