National ecosystem service mapping approaches

Abstract

The creation of any comprehensive mapping instrument at the national level requires the careful consideration of a set of issues, with components that range from the scientific to the technical and from the economic to the organisational. Wealthier countries, such as the United States and many European countries, have a long tradition of national level cartography, analogue and then digital, dating back centuries - with the first comprehensive and ‘modern’ example being the Cassini Maps of 18th century France. In the United States, the ‘National Map ’ is the digital version and the continuation of efforts to map the country at a variety of scales and for multiple purposes was started in the late 1800s by the United States Geological Survey.

One of many efforts to provide national maps for the US was the ‘National Map’ which includes data layers on elevation, hydrography, geographic names, transportation, structures, boundaries, ortho-imagery and land cover. Another example, the ‘Australian National Map’, includes not only the same data layers as the U.S. national map but also layers on communication, environment, framework, groundwater, habitation, infrastructure, utility and vegetation.

For the world in general, the quality and quantity of information related to ecosystems and ecosystem services (ES) has been growing and it is expected that it will continue to do so as a result of increasing awareness of our fundamental dependence on natural capital and the value of ES. In this context, national maps may function as providers of reference cartographic data (see Chapter 7.1). Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 calls for European Union’s member states to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory. In the United States, a memorandum was issued in October 2015 directing Federal agencies to factor the value of ES into planning and decision-making activities at the federal level (see Chapter 7.1 for more details). The mapping of ecosystems is an essential first step in conducting an inventory of that portion of our common wealth that manifests as natural capital. In this chapter, we briefly touch - from the perspective of the mapmaker - on a small set of topics related to the national mapping of ecosystems and ES. This discussion is by no means exhaustive and additional topics may be worth reviewing. Our objective is to inform the reader and to pique his or her curiosity; for further information, vast literature exists on all of these topics.