Cultural Ecosystem Services: A Literature Review and Prospects for Future Research

By Andra Ioana Horcea-Milcu, J. Hanspach, D. Abson, J. Fischer. 2013

849 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Cultural ecosystem services constitute a growing field of research that is characterized by an increasing number of publications from various academic disciplines. We conducted a semiquantitative review of publications explicitly dealing with cultural ecosystem services. Our aims were: (1) to provide an overview of the current state of research, (2) to classify the diversity of research approaches by identifying clusters of publications that address cultural ecosystem services in similar ways, and (3) to highlight some important challenges for the future of cultural ecosystem services research. We reviewed 107 publications and extracted 20 attributes describing their type and content, including methods, scales, drivers of change, and trade-offs between services. Using a cluster analysis on a subset of attributes we identified five groups of publications: Group 1, conceptual focus, deals with theoretical issues; Group 2, descriptive reviews, consists mostly of desktop studies; Group 3, localized outcomes, deals with case studies coming from different disciplines; Group 4, social and participatory, deals mainly with assessing preferences and perceptions; and Group 5, economic assessments, provides economic valuations. Emerging themes in cultural ecosystem services research relate to improving methods for cultural ecosystem services valuation, studying cultural ecosystem services in the context of ecosystem service bundles, and more clearly articulating policy implications. Based on our findings, we conclude that: (1) cultural ecosystem services are well placed as a tool to bridge gaps between different academic disciplines and research communities, (2) capitalizing on the societal relevance of cultural ecosystem services could help address real-world problems, and (3) cultural ecosystem services have the potential to foster new conceptual links between alternative logics relating to a variety of social and ecological issues.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e68c63eb2718b36fcd1900c98b94698b451d3e0b

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Citations in the corpus

The value of Twitter data for determining the emotional responses of people to urban green spaces: A case study and critical evaluation (2019, background): “Despite broad agreement that these cultural 75 ecosystem services are beneficial to urban dwellers (WHO, 2017) there remains limited 76 methodological progress in capturing the transfer and receipt of these services to populations, 77 largely due to their intangible nature and difficulty in assignin”
Forest biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services (2017, background): “, alternative belief 724 systems) “relating to a variety of social and ecological issues” (Milcu et al. 2013).”
Shared values and deliberative valuation: Future directions (2016, background): “While others have raised these points (Chan et al., 2012b, 2016; Church et al., 2014; Daniel et al., 2012; Kenter et al., 2011; Milcu et al., 2013; Pleasant et al., 2014), Cooper et al. (2016, in this issue) develop these arguments specifically in relation to spiritual and aesthetic values of…”
Recreational cultural ecosystem services: How do people describe the value? (2017, background): “…services defined as the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences (MEA, 2005) is considered particularly difficult to operationalize because of its intangibility (Milcu et al., 2013).”
Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Cost-Benefit Analysis: Comparing alternative frameworks for integrated valuation of ecosystem services (2016, neutral): “Revealed preference methods are used widely to estimate the monetary value of cultural ecosystem services like recreation and ecotourism (Milcu et al. 2013).”
Mapping ecosystem services provided by benthic habitats in the European North Atlantic Ocean (2014, background): “In fact, accessibility is a crucial factor and it is typically included in the monetization of some services, especially for cultural services (Milcu et al., 2013).”
From famine foods to delicatessen: Interpreting trends in the use of wild edible plants through cultural ecosystem services (2015, background): “…to combine in complex and non-linearways and, more specifically, 555that cultural ecosystem services are deeply bundled with the other 556categories of ecosystem services (Gould et al., 2014; Gould et al., 5572015; Milcu et al., 2013), often producing a wide range of interdepen558dent benefits.”
Transcendental values and the valuation and management of ecosystem services (2016, background): “To address a number of these challenges, researchers have proposed a range of non-monetary techniques for valuing ES, particularly cultural ES (e.g., Brown and Fagerholm, 2014; Hernandez-Morcillo et al., 2013; Milcu et al., 2013; UK NEA, 2014; TEEB, 2010).”
Soil “Ecosystem” Services and Natural Capital: Critical Appraisal of Research on Uncertain Ground (2016, background): “The same year, Schlichting (1972) introduced the concept of multi-functionality of soils and described how the buffering capacity of soils in different respects is important to a multitude of organisms and to other parts of the landscape.”