Assessment of status and evolution of ecosystem service indicators

Ecosystem services indicators are important to measure the trends and state of ecosystem service delivery; with recent years seeing a wide indicator base being developed. Indicators are powerful tools to inform and improve the knowledge base on ecosystems and ecosystem services, which are useful for decision makers at any spatial scale for basing their decisions on evidence and also at a higher levels.

A selection of Protected Areas (PAs) from mountain, coast and marine, and arid ecosystems were used as case study areas to investigate a selection of ecosystem indicators and how they can be used to monitor ecosystem services in PAs. In total twelve PAs participated in this report, five from mountain areas, two from arid/semi-arid areas and five from coastal/marine areas. The types of ecosystem service are concurrent with the CICES classification, but the selection of most relevant ecosystem service varies between different PAs. Where possibly, supply, demand and beneficiaries were defined for each of the ecosystem service.