Collections

This permanent collection of articles publishes papers that report a single or multiple ecosystem accounting tables which are compiled based on the guidelines of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA).

Submissions to this collection shall respect the following requirements:

- Papers clearly indicate the type of ecosystem account, the accounting area, and the accounting period in the introduction.

- Papers contain one or more accounting tables that are compliant with the guidelines of the SEEA EA.

The following accounting tables can be published with data referring to a specific accounting area and for a given accounting period: ecosystem extent account – physical terms, ecosystem condition account – physical terms, ecosystem services flow account – physical terms, ecosystem services flow account – monetary terms and monetary ecosystem asset account – monetary terms.

Submissions in ARPHA need to select One Ecosystem as Journal and “Ecosystem Accounting table” as article template.

This is a Topical collection from the session „Mapping and assessment of ecosystem condition and relationships with ecosystem service supply“ at the 3rd European ESP Conference in Tartu, Estonia, June 2021. The Topical collection concentrates on studies that quantify the condition of ecosystems at various spatial scales, discuss how ecosystem condition affects the capacity of ecosystems to deliver various ecosystem services, and demonstrate how ecosystem condition and capacity can support decision-making processes.

Natural Capital Accounts (NCA) are meant to complement the System of National Accounts (SNA), which represents the main source of information to assess the wealth of a country. To make NCA operational within and together with SNA, accounting mechanisms and rules have to be consistently applied. An evolution is foreseen from pure ecosystem and ecosystem services assessment to their structured accounting. After the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts –Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA) was proposed in 2012 by the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) and recently adopted as a standard, there is a wide application of these accounting modules throughout the world. NCA is part of the wider SEEA accounting toolkit and is now the focus of considerable political commitment at Global, EU, national and regional scales. However, there is quite some uncertainty as to which accounts, which metrics can support which policy areas. With a broad range of application experiences (geographic, account types, policy priorities etc.), it is possible to enhance understanding of the relationship between the technical construction of the accounts and their use in decision making by end users. The goal of this topical collection is to present a number of applications of Ecosystem Accounting, that should ideally offer a series of insights to the discussion on how can natural accounts be composed, what are the challenges and what are the future development needs. It is also meant to identify the way forward – on accounts development, their use in policy areas, and how to interpret the results so that NCA can realize its potential.

This Special Collection deals with the European Union’s Outermost Regions (ORs) and European Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), which face specific developmental obstacles as well as serious environmental issues with relevant socio-economic impacts, such as climate change, environmental degradation, land-use change, coastal erosion and loss of biodiversity. Articles to appear in this One Ecosystem Special Issue aim at fostering robust, novel, and cost-effective MAES-related approaches, strategies and applications in the EU's ORs and OCTs.

This is Special Issue linked to the symposium "Biophysical Methods for the Quantification, Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem Services" on the 10th IALE World Congress (2019, Milano, Italy). Manuscripts dealing with biophysical methods for the quantification, mapping and assessment of ecosystem services are welcome. The first five valuable submissions will be published for free.

This is a special article collection from the conference „Mapping and assessment of ecosystem services - Science in action“ held in Sofia in February 2017. Ecosystem services have become an amazingly popular topic in science and the number of publications dealing with this subject is increasing. This special issue aims at publishing a variety of ecosystem services research outputs - methods, data, case studies, tools and their applications in science and policy making.

The Special Issue in One Ecosystem is one of the outcomes from the EU funded project ESMERALDA (Enhancing ecosystem services mapping for policy and decision making http://www.esmeralda-project.eu/). ESMERALDA aims to deliver a ‘flexible methodology’ that can provide innovative building blocks for pan-European, national and regional ES mapping and assessment. This will ensure the timely delivery by all EU member states of Action 5 of the European Biodiversity strategy, and local assessments required for spatial planning, agriculture, climate, water and nature policy.

Collection of papers from the 8th ESP Conference in South Africa, Stellenbosch, 9-13 November 2015