Evaluating Ecosystem Services Through Cross-cutting Methods. Rea MUKA
Author: Ph.D. Candidate. Rea MUKA
Affiliation: Co-Plan, Albania
Abstract
The wetland ecosystems are home to multiple species of flora and fauna and provide a myriad of ecosystem services from which people directly and indirectly benefit. By nature, ecosystem services are intrinsic characteristics of such areas and only recently their values have been rec- ognized as beneficial, for local communities in particular. Despite such benefits, those areas are often threatened by new development and land-use practices, favouring quick economic growth, especially true in developing countries like Albania. Yet another threat to such ecosystems is climate change, further underlining the imminent need to protect them. Such a task is difficult to perform when the awareness level of the community for these topics is low and the scarcity of data is evident.
This paper explores how to tackle those two challenges, low community awareness and data scar- city, by intertwining different methods with the specific aim of evaluating ecosystem services. To better illustrate the process of data generating and the methods used, this paper will focus only on one ecosystem service, which is carbon storage and sequestration. Through it, we will analyse the different methods available for generating such data and ultimately give a specific value to this ecosystem service, to make it comparable with other economic activities. The methods that will be analysed vary from the use of available open data sources to field measurements. This research was conducted in the frame of the WBC-RRI.net Horizon 2020 Project.
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