A contribution towards a transfer of the ecosystem service concept to landscape planning using landscape metrics

The article introduces a conceptual approach for how to enhance the assessment of ecosystem services with regard to landscape structural aspects. Therefore, we have implemented landscape metrics in the cellular automaton based software "Pimp Your Landscape". Using the example of the service "ecological functioning", we tested the potential of our approach to improve the understanding of how landscape structure contributes to the provision of ecosystem services. As a test case, we simulated different afforestation scenarios in a model region in North-Eastern Germany. A major finding for landscape planning was that, without the inclusion of landscape metrics, the actual potential of our poorly structured model region with a large proportion of agricultural areas would be overestimated. In contrast, the benefits gained from afforestation strategies, which aim at improving aspects such as biotope connectivity at the landscape level, would become less obvious. We conclude that our approach can contribute to a more realistic appraisal of the potential for landscapes to provide ecosystem services beyond the contribution of single ecosystem services or in our case land cover classes. We therefore plan to expand our approach to other ecosystem services as well, where landscape structural aspects, such as cultural services (for aesthetic value), are essential. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.