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Introduction
The ecosystem services approach provides managers and policy makers with an integrated assessment of coastal and marine socio-ecosystems and helps develop scenarios to explore management options.
Marine and coastal zones are highly productive and biologically diverse and attract an increasing development of varied human activities. Ensuing this growing anthropogenic pressure and increased vulnerability of these areas, marine and coastal managers seek new approaches and methods to help enlighten and inform the process of policy making for a sustainable environmental management and governance.
The Marine Ecosystem Services Approach aims to assess and communicate the connections between human well-being and ecosystems by linking the benefits that we obtain back to the environmental processes that provide them. The Ecosystem Services Assessment and Valuation offers to identify, qualify and when possible quantify the economic, social and environmental value of the services rendered by the marine and coastal ecosystems.
This module offers a panel of tools from which to choose depending on the considered site and environmental issue.
The e-learning module is based on the operational framework and experience of six case studies developed during the INTERREG IV A VALMER project. It is designed as a methodology guide for the implementation of an ecosystem services assessment and valuation in a coastal or marine area. Considering the variety and complexity of the management issues facing coastal and marine managers, there is not one fit all method for marine ecosystem services assessment.
The VALMER project
The VALMER project is an eleven partner, €4.7 million project co-funded by the INTERREG IV A Channel programme through the European Regional Development Fund, which aims to examine how improved marine ecosystem services assessment can support effective and informed marine management and planning.
