One Ecosystem :
Review Article
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Corresponding author: João Garcia Rodrigues (joao.rodrigues@rai.usc.es)
Academic editor: Evangelia Drakou
Received: 15 Feb 2017 | Accepted: 25 Apr 2017 | Published: 05 May 2017
© 2017 João Garcia Rodrigues, Alexis Conides, Susana Rivero Rodriguez, Saša Raicevich, Pablo Pita, Kristin Kleisner, Cristina Pita, Priscila Lopes, Virginia Alonso Roldán, Sandra Ramos, Dimitris Klaoudatos, Luís Outeiro, Claire Armstrong, Lida Teneva, Stephanie Stefanski, Anne Böhnke-Henrichs, Marion Kruse, Ana Lillebø, Elena Bennett, Andrea Belgrano, Arantza Murillas, Isabel Sousa Pinto, Benjamin Burkhard, Sebastián Villasante
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Garcia Rodrigues J, Conides A, Rivero Rodriguez S, Raicevich S, Pita P, Kleisner K, Pita C, Lopes P, Alonso Roldán V, Ramos S, Klaoudatos D, Outeiro L, Armstrong C, Teneva L, Stefanski S, Böhnke-Henrichs A, Kruse M, Lillebø A, Bennett E, Belgrano A, Murillas A, Sousa Pinto I, Burkhard B, Villasante S (2017) Marine and Coastal Cultural Ecosystem Services: knowledge gaps and research priorities. One Ecosystem 2: e12290. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.2.e12290
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Cultural ecosystem services (CES) reflect peoples’ physical and cognitive interactions with nature and are increasingly recognised for providing non-material benefits to human societies. Whereas coasts, seas, and oceans sustain a great proportion of the human population, CES provided by these ecosystems have remained largely unexplored. Therefore, our aims were (1) to analyse the state of research on marine and coastal CES, (2) to identify knowledge gaps, and (3) to pinpoint research priorities and the way forward. To accomplish these objectives, we did a systematic review of the scientific literature and synthesised a subset of 72 peer-reviewed publications. Results show that research on marine and coastal CES is scarce compared to other ecosystem service categories. It is primarily focused on local and regional sociocultural or economic assessments of coastal ecosystems from Western Europe and North America. Such research bias narrows the understanding of social-ecological interactions to a western cultural setting, undermining the role of other worldviews in the understanding of a wide range of interactions between cultural practices and ecosystems worldwide. Additionally, we have identified clusters of co-occurring drivers of change affecting marine and coastal habitats and their CES. Our systematic review highlights knowledge gaps in: (1) the lack of integrated valuation assessments; (2) linking the contribution of CES benefits to human wellbeing; (3) assessing more subjective and intangible CES classes; (4) identifying the role of open-ocean and deep-sea areas in providing CES; and (5) understanding the role of non-natural capital in the co-production of marine and coastal CES. Research priorities should be aimed at filling these knowledge gaps. Overcoming such challenges can result in increased appreciation of marine and coastal CES, and more balanced decision-supporting mechanisms that will ultimately contribute to more sustainable interactions between humans and marine ecosystems.
Human wellbeing; non-material benefits; integrated valuation; value pluralism; drivers of change; co-production; synergies; trade-offs; social-ecological systems; systematic review; global assessment.
The interactions between humans and nature promote cultural practices that shape and are shaped by ecosystems (
Research targeted specifically at CES has been focusing mostly on the economic valuation of nature-based recreation, tourism, and landscape or seascape scenic beauty (
Humans have been living by and interacting with coastlines and oceans for millennia (
To address the current poor understanding of CES provided by coasts, seas and oceans, we present a systematic review of peer-reviewed scientific literature on marine and coastal CES. Our aims are (1) to analyse the current state of research on marine and coastal CES; (2) to identify knowledge gaps; and (3) to pinpoint research priorities and the way forward. To accomplish these objectives, we identified the methodologies described in the literature to quantify, value and map marine and coastal CES; the synergies and trade-offs found within CES, between CES and other ecosystem service categories, and between CES and human-related activities; the links between drivers of change, habitats and CES; and the geographical distribution of empirical studies.
We searched for publications in the main scientific literature databases, namely Scopus, ISI Web of Knowledge, ScienceDirect, JSTOR, Blackwell Synergy, and Ingenta Connect. To identify relevant publications, we used the search string “(marine OR coast* OR sea OR ocean) AND (“cultural ecosystem service*” OR “cultural service*”)” on article title, abstract or keywords, or only on abstracts, depending on the searching options available on the bibliographic databases. Searches included all articles published until our cut-off date of 21 March 2016.
We established four criteria to include publications in our quantitative synthesis. Namely, the publication had (1) to conceptualise, map, quantify and/or value CES; (2) to assess marine or coastal ecosystems; (3) to be peer-reviewed; and (4) to be written in the English language. We limited the scope of our analysis to publications using the concept of ecosystem services because this concept is increasingly employed in the understanding, management and governance of natural environments (
Our systematic review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement (
Literature review flow diagram. The literature review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) (
We undertook a second round of reviews of a random 25% sample of the initial 120 publications to validate their eligibility for the quantitative synthesis (
Before starting the data collection, we carried out a ‘calibration’ exercise to attain a uniform data collection procedure among co-authors. This consisted of reviewing a randomly selected publication that had been previously identified for quantitative synthesis. Each co-author assessed this publication individually and subsequently the results were compared against each other. The outcome of the exercise resulted in our template for the data collection process.
The systematic review data included 20 variables and their corresponding response categories (Table
Data variables and corresponding categories used to collect data in the systematic literature review.
Data variables |
Categories |
CES categories |
e.g., recreation and leisure; cultural heritage and identity |
CES classification |
e.g., MA; TEEB; CICES |
Type of methodology |
e.g., quantitative; qualitative; mixed |
Methodology for CES quantification |
e.g., questionnaire; interview; expert opinion |
Methodology for CES valuation |
e.g., contingent valuation; deliberative valuation; Q-methodology |
Methodology for CES mapping |
e.g., participatory mapping; InVEST; GIS |
Indicator(s) for CES quantification, valuation, and/or mapping |
e.g., spiritual, sacred and/or religious – no. religious facilities/area; aesthetic – extent kelp beds (ha) |
Type of paper |
e.g., empirical; review |
Type of data |
e.g., primary; secondary |
Country of case study |
e.g., Portugal; Argentina; Madagascar |
Scale of study |
e.g., local (0 - 999 km2); regional (1,000 - 99,999 km2); national (100,000 - 999,999 km2, or country size) |
Habitat type |
e.g., mangrove; coral reef; seagrass meadow |
Synergies within CES, or between CES and other ecosystem service categories |
e.g., cultural heritage and identity – recreation and leisure; scientific – existence; social relations – food provisioning |
Trade-offs within CES, or between CES and other ecosystem service categories |
e.g., aquaculture – aesthetic; shipping – recreation and leisure; energy provisioning – aesthetic |
Drivers of change affecting CES |
e.g., climate change; invasive species; ocean acidification |
Does the study link CES to human wellbeing? |
yes; no |
Indicator(s) to measure human wellbeing |
e.g., social relations – no. citizen’s initiatives; health – average no. sick days/person/year |
Does the study relates ecosystem integrity (or state) with CES? |
yes; no |
Relationships between ecosystem integrity (or state) and CES |
e.g., biodiversity – aesthetic (positive effect); exergy capture – recreation and leisure (negative effect) |
Discipline of authors |
e.g., ecology, economics, sociology |
We used descriptive statistics to calculate the number of publications assessing CES classes, classifications used, type of publication, spatial scale, type of assessment, and whether publications assessed relationships between human wellbeing, ecological integrity (
To compare assessments, we adapted the CES classes found in the literature (
To analyse the relationships between drivers of change, habitats and CES, we created matrices linking drivers to habitats, and habitats to CES. Each matrix cell contained the sum of the number of links identified by the empirical studies of our database. We created a third matrix linking drivers to CES by multiplying the two previous matrices. We then applied hierarchical clustering on the Euclidean distance between the rows and columns of the matrices to group drivers affecting CES (
Synergies and trade-offs (
Finally, we mapped the geographical location of case studies found in the literature (n=60), using QGIS (
The number of publications about marine and coastal ecosystem services is growing exponentially, increasing from 20 papers in 2005 – the year the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was published – to 373 publications in 2015 (Fig.
Number of publications about marine and coastal ecosystem services. The figure compares the number of publications on all marine and coastal ecosystem services categories (All ES), i.e., provisioning, regulating and cultural, and the number of publications only about marine and coastal CES, between 1995 and 2015.
Our literature synthesis includes 72 publications (Suppl. material
Number of publications assessing each marine and coastal CES class. *Intellectual and representative interactions is a CICES group that we used to classify CES that did not fit into any class (Suppl. material
The 72 publications synthesised include 46 empirical studies, 19 literature reviews and 4 conceptual papers (Fig.
Overview of literature review data variables. Data variables include: (a) type of publication (n=72); (b) classification (n=72); (c) spatial scale of empirical studies (n=49); (d) type of assessment of empirical studies (n=49); (e) interdisciplinary team (n=72).
The methodologies used by empirical studies to quantify, value and/or map marine and coastal CES are heterogeneous (Suppl. material
Most publications (55) were authored by an interdisciplinary research team (Fig.
We evaluated whether publications assessed how marine and coastal CES affect human wellbeing and how these services depend on the ecological integrity of ecosystems. Among the 72 publications synthesised, 41 linked CES and human wellbeing in their text. Yet none measured the contributions of CES to human wellbeing, and only two publications – a review (
CES are often generated synergistically within bundles or sets of ecosystem services or, in some cases, other services are provided at the expense of CES, generating trade-offs (Fig.
Synergies and trade-offs of marine and coastal CES. The figure shows synergies and trade-offs within CES, between CES and provisioning/regulating ecosystem services and abiotic outputs, and between CES and human-related activities. Abiotic outputs refer to those ecosystem elements that provide benefits to humans but are not generated by biotic processes (e.g., minerals, wind, waves). One green dot represents a synergy, and one red dot a trade-off, as identified in the literature.
Trade-offs are more common between CES and other ecosystem service categories, and human-related activities, than within CES themselves. For instance, aquaculture and commercial fishing areas often provide seafood at the expense of aesthetic, and recreation and leisure opportunities (
Most CES were assessed in the coastal zone (119), coastal and marine areas (40) and only a few in the open-ocean (12) (Table
Number of marine and coastal CES assessed per ecosystem or habitat. All case studies are included (n=60). CES classes in the table are represented by the following letters: (A) Recreation and leisure; (B) Aesthetic; (C) Spiritual, sacred and/or religious; (D) Cultural heritage and identity; (E) Educational; (F) Inspiration for culture, art and design; (G) Sense of place; (H) Social relations; (I) Scientific; (J) Existence; (K) Intellectual and representative interactions; (L) Bequest; (M) Services to ecosystems.
Ecosystem/Habitat |
Cultural Ecosystem Services |
TOTAL |
|||||||||||||
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | |||
General | Coastal zone | 27 | 16 | 12 | 15 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 119 |
Coastal and marine | 10 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 40 | |
Open-ocean | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | |
Intertidal | Beach | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 38 |
Dune | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | |
Mudflat | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | |
Saltmarsh | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | |
Mangrove | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 17 | |
Coastal wetland | 6 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | |
Hard substrata | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | |
Unconsolidated sediment | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | |
Subtidal | Tropical coral reef | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 23 |
Seagrass meadow | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | |
Macro-algal bed | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | |
Oyster reef | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | |
Cold-water coral reef | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
Transitional waters | Lagoon | 10 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 63 |
Estuary | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | |
Fjord | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
Artificial | Human-made structure | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
Our literature synthesis revealed that economic drivers negatively affect the provision of practically all CES classes (Fig.
The global spatial distribution of case studies assessing marine and coastal CES is markedly skewed (Fig.
Geographical location of marine and coastal CES assessments. All case studies are included (n=60) and are divided by location: (a) World (overview); (b) North America; (c) Asia and Oceania; (d) Europe; and (e) South America. The maps depict the number of case studies per country (number under the name of the country), their spatial scale, marine and coastal CES classes assessed (top pie charts), type of assessments (middle pie charts), and type of habitats assessed (bottom pie charts). Assessments at the national or larger spatial scales are not represented in the figure. Dots connected with a black circle represent assessments undertaken in the same location. We used vector map data from Natural Earth, and raster map data from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO).
Research on marine and coastal CES is slowly gaining traction in the scientific literature. It is generating heterogeneous and interdisciplinary assessments, focused on a diverse range of habitats, spatial scales, and drivers of change. These findings from our systematic literature review complement the results of other review about marine and coastal CES (
Considerable knowledge gaps remain when comparing marine and coastal CES research with research done on provisioning and regulating ecosystem services (
CES contribute to the multiple dimensions of societal and individual wellbeing with myriad benefits such as health, knowledge, inspiration, spirituality, tranquillity, and discovery, among others (
Diverse worldviews and knowledge systems are necessary to understand the worldwide range of interactions between cultural practices and the natural environment, i.e., CES (
Our literature synthesis indicates that synergies are common among marine and coastal CES (Fig.
Our literature synthesis also highlights that marine and coastal CES classes are not assessed by equal numbers of studies (Fig.
Another way to approach the difficulties in assessing CES is by explicitly linking their benefits to the multiple dimensions of human wellbeing (
Coastal areas and their seascapes constitute the physical limit for most of the world population to interact with marine systems. They are among the most populated areas on the planet (
Open-ocean and deep-sea habitats are inaccessible to the great majority of the world population and could be understood as irrelevant for CES research. Yet a few assessments exist for the open-ocean (e.g.,
Human-made structures such as waterfronts, harbours, and artificial reefs, were identified as CES-providing areas in our literature review (
Although ecosystems structures, processes and functions are needed to provide ecosystem services and their benefits (
Marine and coastal CES are affected by combined sets of drivers of change including economic, demographic, sociocultural, climate change, and other ecological drivers (Fig.
We have identified knowledge gaps and research priorities in the context of marine and coastal CES. Comparatively little research attention has been given to marine and coastal CES, which decreases their integration in environmental management plans (e.g., marine spatial planning) due to the biased perception that their importance is negligible compared to other ecosystem services. Generally, most marine and coastal CES classes are missing quantitative and qualitative assessments and therefore there is a need for testing and developing suitable methodologies and indicators to assess them.
To close knowledge gaps, research priorities should be directed at testing and developing integrated marine and coastal CES assessments, which require closer interactions with stakeholders to identify relevant CES, their plural sociocultural, ecological, and economic values, and how to mitigate conflicts and manage trade-offs inherent to decision-making. Incorporating indigenous and local knowledge in research and decision-supporting tools could be especially important to highlight the contribution of marine and coastal CES to the sustainability of social-ecological interactions, as such knowledge often holds practical answers to deal with sustainability problems. At the same time, the role of non-natural capital in the co-production of marine and coastal CES – including abiotic outputs from marine systems – also deserves careful attention in such assessments, as e.g., capabilities, access rights, or technology, may be required to co-produce CES and hence to access their benefits, with obvious environmental justice implications. Another crucial research priority to halt the decline of CES in marine and coastal areas resides in understanding the synergistic nature of drivers of change, and the appropriate scale for their management. Moreover, the areas of the Global South where marine and coastal CES assessments are missing seem to be those where a major effort should be carried out to fill knowledge gaps. Explicitly incorporating marine and coastal CES preservation, enhancement and restoration into the goals of international efforts for achieving sustainability could boost research on these so far neglected areas. Finally, there is a need for broader methodological studies with a wider set of expertise. This requires that scientists are incentivised to cross the disciplinary and cultural divide, incur the extra cost of learning to communicate, interact and research in a multidisciplinary and multicultural fashion.
We have highlighted the importance of considering marine and coastal CES for providing new knowledge to support global coastal and marine sustainability. Knowledge sharing plays a central role in the way we develop future sustainability and conservation action plans that are inclusive across disciplines and cultural settings, building on the importance of indigenous and local knowledge in its different forms of expression. Successfully closing the knowledge gaps in marine and coastal CES research will provide a more comprehensive picture of the interactions between humans and marine ecosystems, hopefully resulting in more balanced and just decision-making outcomes. CES are strong motivations for people to embrace sustainability, and hence their inclusion in environmental decision-supporting mechanisms can contribute to a more sustainable future for marine and coastal ecosystems.
We thank all members of the Woking Group on Resilience and Marine Ecosystem Services (WGRMES) of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) for the fruitful discussions that generated the idea for this study, during the meetings held in Vigo (Galiza) and Porto (Portugal).
JGR and SV designed the study. All authors wrote the main manuscript text. JGR, SV, AJC, SRR, SR, PP, KMK, CP, PL, VAR, SSR, DK, LO, CA, LT, SS, ABH, MK, AIL, EMB, AB, and AM collected data by reviewing articles for the systematic literature review. JGR analysed the data and prepared all figures and tables.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.