Warwickshire is a rural county dominated by intensive farming, which partly surrounds the rapidly expanding urban areas of Coventry and Solihull. The Environmental Change Institute, at the University of Oxford worked with Environment Bank, Warwickshire County Council and local stakeholders to apply three different methods for mapping and assessing ecosystem services in Warwickshire: participatory stakeholder workshops, GIS mapping, and analysis of Flickr photos to show cultural ecosystem services. An initial workshop in January 2015 encouraged stakeholders (planners, ecologists and farmers) to identify the ecosystem services that were of priority importance to them. Twenty ecosystem services were assessed in this way and ordered. Two participatory mapping workshops took place and six priority services were mapped: two regulating services (flood protection and wildlife habitat), two cultural services (aesthetic landscapes and recreation), and two provisioning services (traditional and intensive crops). For each service, participants used coloured pens and sticky dots to mark the locations of supply and demand (both current and future). Cultural services were further mapped using Flickr photo analysis. Around 2000 geo-tagged Flickr photos taken in Warwickshire were analysed to show what natural features and places are important to people. Photos were classified according to aesthetic, recreational and intellectual value.
Environmental Change Institute, Local Stakeholders
Priority ecosystem services were selected by local stakeholders
Which ecosystem services were focused on?:
- Aesthetic/inspiration
- Education
- Recreation/tourism
- Spiritual/religious
- Crops, livestock, fish
- Drinking water
- Trees, standing vegetation, peat
- Water supply
- Climate regulation
- Detoxification and purification in air, soils and water
- Disease and pest regulation
- Erosion control
- Flood control
- Hazard regulation
- Pollination
Species habitat (Regulating)