Current Status and Future Prospects for the Assessment of Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review

By C. Liquete, Chiara Piroddi, E. Drakou, L. Gurney, Stelios Katsanevakis, A. Charef, Benis N. Egoh. PLoS ONE, 2013

604 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Research on ecosystem services has grown exponentially during the last decade. Most of the studies have focused on assessing and mapping terrestrial ecosystem services highlighting a knowledge gap on marine and coastal ecosystem services (MCES) and an urgent need to assess them. Methodology/Principal Findings We reviewed and summarized existing scientific literature related to MCES with the aim of extracting and classifying indicators used to assess and map them. We found 145 papers that specifically assessed marine and coastal ecosystem services from which we extracted 476 indicators. Food provision, in particular fisheries, was the most extensively analyzed MCES while water purification and coastal protection were the most frequently studied regulating and maintenance services. Also recreation and tourism under the cultural services was relatively well assessed. We highlight knowledge gaps regarding the availability of indicators that measure the capacity, flow or benefit derived from each ecosystem service. The majority of the case studies was found in mangroves and coastal wetlands and was mainly concentrated in Europe and North America. Our systematic review highlighted the need of an improved ecosystem service classification for marine and coastal systems, which is herein proposed with definitions and links to previous classifications. Conclusions/Significance This review summarizes the state of available information related to ecosystem services associated with marine and coastal ecosystems. The cataloging of MCES indicators and the integrated classification of MCES provided in this paper establish a background that can facilitate the planning and integration of future assessments. The final goal is to establish a consistent structure and populate it with information able to support the implementation of biodiversity conservation policies.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b1881f2d9ef3941adf874d9711114f4340af5e0f

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Citations in the corpus

Incorporating ecosystem services in marine planning: The role of valuation (2014, background): “Experience with marine ESV is extremely unevenly distributed across types of marine habitats, ecosystem services, and geographic locations (Liquete et al. 2013; Raheem et al. 2012).”
Remote Sensing of Coral Reefs for Monitoring and Management: A Review (2016, positive): “Additionally, remote sensing has been used to map ecosystem services supplies and demands, bridging the gap between conservationists and resource users in promoting sustainability [288,289].”
A global assessment of the direct and indirect benefits of marine protected areas for coral reef conservation (2018, background): “Their high diversity maintains important ecosystem functions, including habitat provision for associated species (Nyström, Folke, & Moberg, 2000), biotic, physical, biogeochemical, social and cultural services (Liquete et al., 2013), and increased resilience to disturbance (Mora et al., 2011).”
A Catalogue of Marine Biodiversity Indicators (2016, background): “…cover, for example, the most sensitive habitats and endangered organisms (e.g. Gobert et al., 2009; Waycott et al., 2009; Deter et al., 2012; Gatti et al., 2015), or to detect imminent threats to ecosystems (Halpern et al., 2012; Katsanevakis et al., 2016) and their services (Liquete et al., 2013).”
DNA Sequencing as a Tool to Monitor Marine Ecological Status (2017, background): “Marine and coastal systems provide a variety of important ecosystem services, such as food, recreation, employment, medicine, and regulation of waste, disease, and climate (Liquete et al., 2013).”
Assessing water ecosystem services for water resource management (2016, background): “We reviewed also Liquete et al. (2013), which includes a systematic compilation of 476 marine and coastal ecosystem services’ indicators, in order to cover additional aspects specifically related to transitional and coastal waters.”
Global ecological, social and economic impacts of marine plastic. (2019, background): “…provide a wealth of ecosystem services (the benefits people obtain from nature), including food pro-vision for billions of people, carbon storage, waste detoxification, and cultural benefits including recreational opportunities and spiritual enhancement (Worm et al., 2006; Liquete et al., 2013).”
Mapping ecosystem services provided by benthic habitats in the European North Atlantic Ocean (2014, background): “ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 18 July 2014 doi: 10.3389/fmars.2014.00023 Mapping ecosystem services provided by benthic habitats in the European North Atlantic Ocean”
Modelling climate change impacts on marine fish populations: process-based integration of ocean warming, acidification and other environmental drivers (2016, background): “Beyond fisheries, quantification of 912 impacts of other marine industries and on the provision of other marine ecosystem 913 services is needed, such as tourism, carbon sequestration, or coastal protection (cf. 914 For Review Only Beaumont et al., 2007, Liquete et al., 2013).”