Description:
The Knowledge Base theme "Sustainable development and adaptation of ecosystems and landscapes in a metropolitan context" generates knowlegde to facilitate a susainable spatial devlopment.
In the Netherlands, the National Ecological Network (Ecologische Hoofdstructuur, EHS) is the most important spatial structure in national nature policy. Although the policy objectives of the EHS are formulated in terms of species and populations, the effects for society as whole are much wider. EHS supports ecosytem services. Therefore, the determination of these services and their valuation form a significant factor in sustainable spatial development. This has been recognised before and several research projects have been set into action. Nevertheless, some gaps in knowlegde can be obseved. These can be attributed to the fact that knowledge has been developed from within variuos domains, notably ecology and economy. Furthermore, economic valuation requires insight into relative scarcity of services in the long run, when the effects of spatial structures are dominant; the effect of these changes seems to represent a lack in knowledge.
Research objectives:
The objective of this project is to enlarge insight into the ecosystem services the EHS provides to society at present in in the long run, the way these services are valuated in econmic terms and the uncertainties involved in determing costs and benefits. The ruslt of the project is not the conclusion with a value expressing coss and benefits, but a perpsective to act and identify gaps of knowledge by means of projects and priorities.
An important observation is, that ecosystem services can change largely in time. For example, for centuries the dominant ecosystem service of forests has been building material and energy (fuel). At present, the most important ecosystem service of forests (in the Netherlands) is recreation, as energy has been substituted by other carriers, notably mineral oil and gas. The role services can change so rapidly in relation to the lifetime of the EHS, that the effect on the valuation of ecosystem services might not be negligible.
Results and products:
The result of the project is used a imput for programming Knowledge base theme 1. It will contain an idenfication of gaps in present knowledge and a priority program how to fill these gaps. Furthermore, it is the intention to publish the results of the desk research and the analysis. In particular, the results are available to be used and integrated into the Nature Exploration of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, PBL). |
