Issues and challenges in spatio-temporal application of an ecosystem services framework to UK seas

Steve Hull, Ian Dickie, Rob Tinch and Justine Saunders

Marine Policy, 2014, vol. 45, issue C, 359-367

Abstract: The concepts of ecosystem services and human welfare provide strong integrative frameworks that can be used to inform marine policy and management decisions that support sustainable development. A theoretical framework has been developed and applied to create a model for UK seas to measure changes in final ecosystem services, in terms of human welfare. The model that has been developed is explicitly spatial and temporal to facilitate its use in supporting marine planning decisions. The development and application of this framework to UK seas necessarily requires many assumptions to be made. The paper describes the development and population of the framework and discusses the practical limitations and challenges in seeking to develop and apply such models. Significant differences in long-term values of different services were identified under the different scenarios. All scenarios highlight the projected decline in oil and gas revenues which provide particular intense values at sites of extraction. These values are partially replaced by revenues from offshore renewables in some of the scenarios. Values associated with carbon sequestration, maritime transport, tourism and pollution assimilation are also very significant but more spatially diffuse. The study has demonstrated that it is possible to develop spatio-temporal models to evaluate changes in final ecosystem service benefits using existing data, although the approach necessarily requires many assumptions to be made.

Keywords: Ecosystem services framework; Marine; Spatial; Temporal; Model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:45:y:2014:i:c:p:359-367

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2013.09.011

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