The five pillar EPPS framework for quantifying, mapping and managing ecosystem services

This paper introduces an ecosystem services assessment framework with five pillars: ecosystem properties, potentials, services, benefits/values, and beneficiaries. In a case study in the district of Gorlitz (Eastern Saxony, Germany), we present an exemplary application for two ecosystem services: crop food production and soil erosion regulation. The farmland of the district can produce a total of about 518,000 t of crop food (rye) per year, depending on yield potential. Corrected for the mean price of the crop rye, this translates to a value of about 100 million (sic) annually. At the same time, 606,000 t of soil loss must be calculated per year, which corresponds to 36 million (sic) in damages. If 7% of the farmland were to be transformed into grassland or forest, the provisioning service would sink by 37,000 t of rye, for an income loss of approx. (sic)7.4 million per year. On the other hand, soil erosion regulation would be enhanced and soil loss would be reduced by c. 20%, corresponding to on-site benefit of (sic)7.1 million. Within a more intensively used partial study area (with dominating loess soils), the benefits of the erosion regulation service ((sic)656,000) exceed the yield losses ((sic)245,000) more than twice. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.