The relevance of the ecosystem services framework for developed countries' environmental policies

A comparative case study of the US and EU

authored by

Bettina Matzdorf, Claas Meyer

Abstract

The ecosystem services (ES) framework reveals ecosystems' benefits to society and presents a fundamental natural resource management approach. In the last several decades, it has gained increasing attention from the research community, and it recently reached the political agenda. However, does the concept have the capacity to cause institutional change in environmental policy? To answer this question, we developed certain criteria for an "ideal" ES-driven policy. Based on these criteria, we analyzed the main water and biodiversity acts, current policy developments, and future trends within the US and the EU. Our analysis shows that most acts cannot be explicitly characterized as ES-driven policies, but parts of the concept are already included. The ES framework, increasingly a driver in several policy fields, can be assumed to be a major future influence for shaping existing environmental policies in the coming decades. We discussed the results based on its strengths for existing environmental policy conceptually, e.g., cross-sector cooperation and ES win-win and trade-off considerations, and its weaknesses operationally, such as measurability and governance changes.

External Organisation(s)

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)

Type

Article

Journal

LAND USE POLICY

Volume

38

Pages

509-521

No. of pages

13

ISSN

0264-8377

Publication date

05.2014

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Forestry, Geography, Planning and Development, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.12.011 (Access: Closed)