Social valuation of ecosystem services in an agricultural landscape: Empirical findings

The objective of our research was to identify and understand the desired benefits and uses of an agricultural landscape in Belgium for different stakeholder groups. This research was in response to a question of the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) who wants to find ways to raise local support for the implementation of new nature in an agricultural landscape. Ecosystem services (ES) was considered a useful way to frame the human needs of the landscape. To elucidate local needs, a social valuation (also called ‘non-monetary valuation’) was used, which included an open interview, an ES photo ranking exercise and a mapping of desired ES. This resulted in an identification of a group of desired ES which were mentioned spontaneously by respondents, and a ranking of desired ES which were triggered by the pictures. These results proved to be very useful for the managers of the land use planning project. In a final step, the results of this social valuation will be compared with the results of a monetary valuation of the area.