Author:

Abstract:

Concerns about the sustained delivery of a multitude of ecosystem services (ESs) are increasingly inspiring land use planners. However, major challenges still remain in the implementation of ESs in day-to-day decision making processes. Currently, geoportals developed using the concepts of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are the preferred way to provide up-to-date ES-indicator maps to the planners, decision makers, businesses and citizens for effective use and re-use in their activities. SDIs encompass the technological and organisational components meant to facilitate and coordinate the standardised access, retrieval and dissemination of geospatial information. The ‘ECOPLAN Monitor’ is an example of such geoportal that informs the land use planners and the policy makers on the ecosystem services delivered in region of Flanders, Belgium. On the web-platform www.ecosysteemdiensten.be different maps of ESs, including the land suitability, actual and potential supply and (non-)monetary value of a set of 16 ESs can be consulted. The system is built as a Content Management System (CMS), with publication tools to present geospatial indicators of ESs as web maps. The SDI-principles were introduced to connect the interdisciplinary ES-indicators and create interoperable web services for discovery, viewing and exchange using the specifications set forward by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Web service standards such as the web map service (WMS) are used for viewing and exchanging geospatial indicators. The effective use of the ES-indicators is supported by extensive metadata that describes the provenance, ownership, quality, temporal dimension (date of publishing/updating), data quality, spatial reference system (EPSG code), spatial resolution and other useful metadata items. This study highlights and discusses the contribution of SDI-related concepts and tools to overcome the bottlenecks in ecosystem services mapping. The focus is on simplifying the access to ecosystem service maps in addition to facilitating their interoperability and dissemination to end-users.