# Assessing Ecosystem and Urban Services for Landscape Suitability Mapping
## 4 Conclusions
The indicator was calculated as follows: \(\bigcirc\) Data collection: a municipal database of energy plants powered by livestock manure, including each plant's maximum power, was used; \(\bigcirc\) Calculation: Biomass plants powered by manure were spatialized based on coordinates reported in the municipal databases and integrated with local knowledge. Then, the maximum power produced by each plant was used to define service intensity. The service was spatialized by a KDE application (radius = 50 m), since the energy produced can be transported from the plant at increasing costs with increasing distances. * Cumulated avoided runoff due to land cover. It expresses the buffering and attenuation of mass flows in river basins and flood protection by natural subsystems (211 ecoflood). This service, delivered downstream by the water retention property of soils, is a regulating service of natural physical phenomena:
* Data collection: A database of the rivers and streams from the local authorities was used to localize water streams. The geobotanic map was used for the LULC definition, while the EU-DEM [65] was used to define topographic variables, such as slope;
* Calculation: The soil conservation service curve number (SCS-CN) equation was used for calculating runoff [66,67] both in the actual situation and in a theoretical worst case, where all the study area is covered by built surface. The areas covered by rivers and water streams were excluded from the results. Based on [68], soil moisture was set as 20% of the potential maximum soil retention (S) in both cases, and the rain event considered was the highest one-day precipitation amount of the last ten years (100 mm) [69]. The cumulated upstream runoff reduction was calculated as the cumulated difference between the worst-case runoff and the actual runoff in each cell. * Percentage of avoided runoff by artificial reservoirs at sub-basin scale. It expresses the buffering and attenuation of mass flows in river basins and flood protection by human subsystems, a regulating service of natural physical phenomena (212 urflood). The service was calculated as follows:
* Data collection: a climate database of rain was used to analyse precipitation amounts, while sub-basins were defined based on EU-DEM dataset;
* Calculation: Total water runoff per each sub-basin was calculated by SCS-CN equation [66,67], setting the soil moisture as 20% of the potential maximum soil retention (S) [68], while the rain event considered in the model is the highest one-day precipitation amount of the last ten years (100 mm) [69]. Then, the total volume of reservoirs in each sub-basin was calculated. At the sub-basin level, the indicator intensity was calculated as 30% of the ratio between the total volume of the reservoirs and the total water runoff. * Amount of avoided erosion by agri-natural surfaces and urban surfaces. These indicators were used, respectively, to spatialize services for the regulation of natural physical phenomena, namely the mass stabilization and control of erosion rates by natural (213 ecoeros) and human (214 urberos) subsystems:
* Data collection: geobotanic map and EU-DEM were used as input databases;
* Calculation: The amount of avoided erosion was calculated as the difference of eroded soil in the actual situation and in a theoretical worse case, where all the surface was supposed covered by bare soil. For this purpose, the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) was applied [70]. While R is considered constant, the K factor (soil erodibility) from [71] was used in agricultural and natural areas. The K factor in urban areas was roughly estimated using focal mean, with radius = 500 m. The length and slope (LS) factor was retrieved from [72], while C was calculated associating the RUSLE C factor tables to land covers indicated in the geobotanic map.