This book is intended to provide a hitherto missing English-language overview of a multi-year research project in which a comprehensive methodology was developed to assess a rule-based classification of the habitat services, the primary net biomass productivity and carbon sequestration capacity. The comprehensive methodology presented operationalises the specifications of the MAES working group quantitatively. The MAES classification framework for integrative ecosystem assessments comprises the mapping of ecosystems, the classification of ecosystem conditions (ecosystem condition information for individual indicators, ecosystem functions and ecosystem types), the classification of ecosystem services and their integration. The presented rule-based classification of the three ecosystem services examined in depth using quantitative indicators is unique in the EU to date.

Autorentext

Angela Schlutow was Senior Researcher at the Federal Environment Agency, Germany. She holds a diploma in agricultural engineering and a diploma in ecology and environmental protection. As a habilitated lecturer, she taught landscape ecology at universities in Berlin, Greifswald and Rostock.

Winfried Schröder holds the Chair of Landscape Ecology at the University of Vechta. He was awarded his doctorate in 1989 and habilitated in 1997. His scientific focus is on the environmental monitoring of genetically modified organisms, chemical substances (metals and nitrogen) and microplastics. Winfried Schröder has given several hundred lectures and published scientific papers on the empirical methodology and multivariate and geostatistical analyses of a large number of projects in these research areas.