Ecosystem Services Harmonization in Theory and Practice
Channel: OCTO (Open Communications for the Ocean)
Date: 2015-08-20

This webinar originally aired on February 5, 2013.

The scientific community and policy makers recognize marine and coastal ecosystem services (MCES) as extremely important for human survival. Peer reviewed assessments to date, however, have used a variety of terms and classifications for ES which have caused confusion and misinterpretation of the results and hindered communication among involved parties. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre research group has reviewed the scientific literature to assess the state of the art of existing MCES assessments, identify gaps and limitations, and propose ways forward. A wide variety of methodologies, terminologies, and ES classification systems were identified. Based on the existing approaches, the research group also identified the main research gaps, proposed an integrated ES classification system, and gave clear definitions of ES tailored to the marine environment. This webinar will demonstrate this work and will go beyond the scientific component by exploring potential practical implications. We will discuss the applicability of the integrated MCES classification system for systematically organizing MCES information and enabling interoperability among existing MCES online platforms. Learn more about this project at http://ges.jrc.ec.europa.eu.

This webinar was presented by Evangelia Drakou of the EC's Joint Research Centre, and it was co-sponsored by Marine Ecosystem Services Partnership and the EBM Tools Network.