27/10/2009: Research paper published: Priority research areas for ecosystem services in a changing world

Managing ecosystem services for human well-being and protecting the natural environment in a changing world, is one of the Living with Environmental Change top-level objectives.

This new paper on Ecosystem services 'Priority research areas for ecosystem services in a changing world' was published on 10 October 2009, in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Summary:
Ecosystem services are the benefits humans obtain from ecosystems. The importance of research into ecosystem services has been widely recognized, and rapid progress is being made. However, the prevailing approach to quantifying ecosystem services is still based on static analyses and single services, ignoring system dynamics, uncertainty and feedbacks. This is not only partly due to a lack of mechanistic understanding of processes and a dearth of empirical data, but also due to a failure to engage fully with the interdisciplinarity of the problem.

You can download the whole paper here: