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Conserving and managing global natural capital requires an understanding of the complexity of flows of ecosystem services across geographic boundaries. Failing to understand and to incorporate these flows into national and international ecosystem assessments leads to incomplete and potentially skewed conclusions, impairing society’s ability to identify sustainable management and policy choices. In this paper, we synthesise existing knowledge and develop a conceptual framework for analysing interregional ecosystem service flows. We synthesise the types of such flows, the characteristics of sending and receiving socio-ecological systems, and the impacts of ecosystem service flows on interregional sustainability. Using four cases (trade of certified coffee, migration of northern pintails, flood protection in the Danube watershed, and information on giant pandas), we test the conceptual framework and show how an enhanced understanding of interregional telecouplings in socio-ecological systems can inform ecosystem service-based decision making and governance with respect to sustainability goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural resource management requires spatially explicit tools to assess the current state of landscapes, to analyse trends and to develop suitable management strategies and interventions. The concept of ecosystem services can help in understanding the importance of natural resources for different stakeholders and at different spatial and temporal scales. Simple methods to map ecosystem services using scoring of land cover types are particularly useful in data scarce regions, but do not reflect the dynamics of supply and demand. Within this study, GIS scripts were developed to represent and assess several different modes of ecosystem service flows between supply and demand, using ecosystem services scoring tables. By integrating the flows, the ecosystem services can be better evaluated. The outcomes do not give quantitative information on whether supply meets demand, but indicate the spatial distributions of both supply and delivery and where ecosystem services are under threat because of changes in ecosystem or flow mechanisms. The scripts allow us to identify sites that are vulnerable to ecosystem service loss and to evaluate possible management scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent ecosystem services research has highlighted the importance of spatial connectivity between ecosystems and their beneficiaries. Despite this need, a systematic approach to ecosystem service flow quantification has not yet emerged. In this article, we present such an approach, which we formalize as a class of agent-based models termed “Service Path Attribution Networks” (SPANs). These models, developed as part of the Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES) project, expand on ecosystem services classification terminology introduced by other authors. Conceptual elements needed to support flow modeling include a service's rivalness, its flow routing type (e.g., through hydrologic or transportation networks, lines of sight, or other approaches), and whether the benefit is supplied by an ecosystem's provision of a beneficial flow to people or by absorption of a detrimental flow before it reaches them. We describe our implementation of the SPAN framework for five ecosystem services and discuss how to generalize the approach to additional services. SPAN model outputs include maps of ecosystem service provision, use, depletion, and flows under theoretical, possible, actual, inaccessible, and blocked conditions. We highlight how these different ecosystem service flow maps could be used to support various types of decision making for conservation and resource management planning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]