Operationalizing ecosystem service bundles for strategic sustainability planning: A participatory approach
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Operationalizing ecosystem service bundles for strategic sustainability planning: A participatory approach Katja Malmborg , Elin Enfors-Kautsky, Cibele Queiroz, Albert Norstro¨m, Lisen Schultz
Received: 17 December 2019 / Revised: 19 April 2020 / Accepted: 5 August 2020
Abstract The ecosystem service concept is recognized as a useful tool to support sustainability in decision-making. In this study, we collaborated with actors in the Helge a˚ catchment, southern Sweden, in an iterative participatory ecosystem service assessment. Through workshops and interviews, we jointly decided which ecosystem services to assess and indicators to use in order to achieve a sense of ownership and a higher legitimacy of the assessment. Subsequently, we explored the landscape-level interactions between the 15 assessed services, and found that the area can be described using three distinct ecosystem service bundles. The iterative, participatory process strengthened our analysis and created a shared understanding and overview of the multifunctional landscape around Helge a˚ among participants. Importantly, this allowed for the generated knowledge to impact local strategic sustainability planning. With this study, we illustrate how similar processes can support local decision-making for a more sustainable future. Keywords Co-production of knowledge Decision-support Ecosystem service bundles Multifunctional landscapes Participatory methods Social–ecological systems
INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, the ecosystem service concept has rapidly made its way into policy spheres. In 2012, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01378-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was launched, a UN wide effort to ‘‘strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development’’ (Dı´az et al. 2015). At the EU level, many current environmental policies refer to ecosystem services, albeit with different interpretations of the concept (Bouwma et al. 2018). In Sweden, the national environmental quality objectives state that ‘‘by 2018, the importance of biodiversity and the value of ecosystem services are to be generally known and integrated into economic positions, political considerations and other decisions in society where it is relevant and reasonable to do so’’ (Ds 2012:23 2012). Locally, in Sweden and elsewhere, it has been incorporated into for example strategic and comprehensive plans for urban planning (Hansen et al. 2015; Schubert et al. 2018). In a Swedish context, human– nature interactions have been considered in strategic plans also prior to the introduction of the ecosystem service concept, but these considerations have been inconsistent over time (Wilkinson et al. 2013). Through the ecosys
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