This project is part of RESAS Strategic Research Programme (2016-2022) Workpackage 1.4 on Sustainable and Integrated Management of Natural Assets. The project focuses on development of prototypes of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) maps for Scotland Natural Assets Register (NAR).
The focus of this work is on building a prototype methodology for mapping CES-“Aesthetics” at the national scale of Scotland, within the context of CICES v4.3. Version 4.3 limits itself to the description of final services from the environment through the bio-physical output from the ecosystems. Thus, the chosen methodology will limit itself to the bio-physical approach of landscape characterisation (Siemensen et al., 2018).
The prototype mapping methodology presented in this report does not aim nor claim to be fully encompassing of all aspects of Aesthetics research topics nor of the common use of the word. The focus is on selected bio-physical aspects of the environment. As with the prototype mapping for Cultural Heritage and Entertainment CES (Aalders et al., 2018) also conducted as part of the RESAS 2016-2022 programme, this work highlights a methodological approach, rather than providing an authoritative and definitive result.
The chosen bio-physical methodology is based on Frank and Walz’s (2017) German case study which forms part of a collection of approaches to mapping ecosystem services developed through the EU-funded project ESMEREALDA – Enhancing ecosystem services mapping for policy and decision making (Burkard and Maes, 2017). Part of the analysis was adapted for Scotland’s landscape and available spatial datasets. The Aesthetics values of the landscapes are calculated at the Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) disaggregated spatial units. Ten (10) individual metrics were calculated: relief diversity, density of freshwater edges (without coasts), density of coastlines, proportion of unfragmented open space greater than 100km2, hemeroby index, core area index of 11 semi-natural areas, Shannon diversity index, patch density of native woodland and heather areas, density of forest-dominated ecotones. Those metrics were averaged into one main Aesthetics map with equal weights.
Please refer to the report for full details.
Aalders, I., Irvine, K.N., Conniff, A. (2018). Development of prototype maps for Natural Asset Register. RESAS 1.4.1bvi Cultural Ecosystem Services indicators and mapping - Deliverable 3 Working Paper. James Hutton Institute, Scotland, UK.
Burkhard, B. and Maes J. (Eds.) (2017). Mapping Ecosystem Services. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, 374 pp.
https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e12837
Frank, S. and Walz, U. (2017). Chapter 3.6 Landscape metrics. In Burkhard B, Maes J (Eds.) Mapping Ecosystem Services. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, 374 pp. https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e12837
Simensen, T., Halvorsen, R., Erikstad, L. (2018). Methods for landscape characterisation and mapping: a systematic review. Land Use Policy, 75, pp. 557-569, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.04.022
