The ecosystem service cascade: Further developing the metaphor. Integrating societal processes to accommodate social processes and planning, and the case of bioenergy

Joachim H. Spangenberg, Christina von Haaren and Josef Settele

Ecological Economics, 2014, vol. 104, issue C, 22-32

Abstract: The ‘cascade model’ of ecosystem service generation and valuation highlights the links between biophysical aspects/biodiversity and human well-being, in particular for the case of marginal changes, but does not include societal processes. Services seem to flow effortlessly from ecosystems to beneficiaries, as free gifts of nature. We integrate such processes, strengthening the model's applicability to non-incremental changes, and to landscape planning. A process analysis shows how use value attribution turns biophysical ecosystem functions into ecosystem service potentials which (except for ‘final services’) have to be mobilised to provide ecosystem services. Once appropriated, these services generate ecosystem benefits which may be commercialised, or not.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Ecosystem functions; Ecosystem service potential; Cascade; Biofuels; Landscape planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (61)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914001426
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:104:y:2014:i:c:p:22-32

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.025

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().