Measuring, valuing and mapping socio-economic benefits of marine ecosystem services
☀︎ With the overall aim of making ecosystem values visible and supporting the incorporation of these values into policy decision-making, we conduct research on the socio-economic assessment of ecosystem services.
☀︎ We develop the socio-economic assessments for integrated assessments of ecosystem services, enabling to link the ecosystems and provided ecosystem services to human well-being and to assess the welfare impacts of changes in ecosystem conditions and ecosystem services’ supply.
☀︎ Our research provides knowledge, approaches, tools and qualitative, quantitative and monetary evidence for:
- measuring, valuing and mapping the benefits and diverse socio-economic values associated with ecosystem services;
- assessing the welfare impacts of changes in the ecosystem services’ supply in environmental and policy scenarios.
☀︎ We have extensive experience in assessing marine ecosystem services, although the approaches and methods are also applicable to other types of ecosystems.
☀︎ Our work as part of national and international research projects allows us to develop novel approaches, knowledge and assessments to support the recognition of ecosystem values and their incorporation into policy decision-making.
Examples of our work in this area (please see the section of our Projects and Publications for more information)
- Further development of the Baltic Sea region socio-economic assessment of marine ecosystem services within an integrated assessment methodology and a tool for identification, mapping, quantification and valuation of the marine ecosystem services as part of the Horizon Europe project PROTECT BALTIC.
- A socio-economic assessment of marine ecosystem services for the Baltic Sea for assessing welfare impacts of marine protection and management policies as part of the HELCOM BLUES project.
- A national socio-economic assessment of marine ecosystem services in Latvia, including development of the national methodology, conducting surveys and monetary valuation of the benefits and welfare impacts of changes in the ecosystem services’ supply as part of the project “Improving knowledge on state of the marine environment”.
- A socio-economic assessment of the ecosystem services provided by marine benthic habitats and the welfare impacts of policy scenarios related to establishing new Marine Protected Areas and Maritime Spatial Planning as part of the BONUS BASMATI project.
- A joint study in Finland, Germany and Latvia for mapping and valuation of the benefits of marine cultural ecosystem services and their changes induced by climate change and eutrophication as part of the BONUS BalticAPP project.