Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services: Global Issues, Local Practices covers scientific input, socioeconomic considerations, and governance issues on ecosystem services. This book provides hands-on transdisciplinary reflections by administrators and sector representatives involved in the ecosystem service community. Ecosystem Services develops shared approaches and scientific methods to achieve knowledge-based sustainable planning and management of ecosystem services. Professionals engaged in ecosystem service implementation have two options: de-emphasize the ecological and socioeconomic complexity and advance in the theoretical, abstract field, or try to develop research that is policy relevant and inclusive in an uncertain environment. This book provides a wide overview of issues at stake, of interest for any professional wishing to develop a broader view on ecosystem service science and practice.

• Examines a broad scope of relevant issues to create common understanding in the ecosystem services community
• Includes contributions from several backgrounds, providing a broad, multidisciplinary view
• Offers recommendations to develop a thorough understanding and management of ecosystem services based on tools and research in larger territories as well as on local scales

Sander Jacobs has a PhD in Biology. Since 2005, he has been active researcher working at the University of Antwerp. He studied the interface of fundamental ecology, nature restoration and anthropogenic impacts. Since 2009, he has coordinated a 7 people research team on ecosystem services. The team has coordinated and partnered several scientific and applied projects on regional, national and international scale. Through this work, an active interdisciplinary research community has been established. Although the research team specializes in the biophysical basis of ecosystem service delivery, a widened overview and interaction with other related disciplines has been developed.

Prof. Nicolas Dendoncker is a geographer working at the University of Namur, Belgium.

With Sander Jacobs, Dr. Dendoncker coordinates a team of 7 researchers involved in the study of Ecosystem Services. He coordinates the Namur Research Group on Sustainable Development (NaGRIDD). His team develops participatory agent based models (ABM) of land use and environmental change in several Belgian and European projects with case studies in Belgium, The Philippines, Congo and Senegal. Participatory approaches are implemented and the impacts of landscape changes on Ecosystem Services are assessed and sustainable development pathways are proposed. In several projects, ecosystem services are explicitly valued and quantified.

Hans Keune (PhD) is a Political Scientist working at The Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) and the Belgian Biodiversity Platform. He is also affiliated to naXys (Namur Center for Complex Systems), and to the Health and Environment Network and Faculty of Applied Economics, University of Antwerp. He works on critical complexity, inter- and transdisciplinary, action research, decision support methods; environment & health, ecosystem services, biodiversity & public health; experience both in Belgian projects and EU-projects. Currently he is working on ecosystem services, and involved in several Belgian and EU projects on ecosystem services.