Landscapes' capacities to provide ecosystem services - A concept for land-cover based assessments

Landscapes differ in their capacities to provide ecosystem goods and services, which are the benefits humans obtain from nature. Structures and functions of ecosystems needed to sustain the provision of ecosystem services are altered by various human activities. In this paper, a concept for the assessment of multiple ecosystem services is proposed as a basis for discussion and further development of a respective evaluation instrument. Using quantitative and qualitative assessment data in combination with land cover and land use information originated from remote sensing and GIS, impacts of human activities can be evaluated. The results reveal typical patterns of different ecosystems' capacities to provide…