The many benefits that humans gain from natural environments are collectively referred to as 'Ecosytem Services'. The recent EU OpenNESS project aimed to incorporate ecosystem services and the concept of Natural Capital into practical solutions for land, water and urban management. A special issue of the journal 'Ecosystem Services', including 8 articles co-authored by Noragric's Erik Gómez-Baggethun, summarizes the project's main findings. 

Browse the Special Issue 

Articles in the issue co-authored by Gómez-Baggethun:

Handling a messy world: Lessons learned when trying to make the ecosystem services concept operational 

Selecting methods for ecosystem service assessment: A decision tree approach

Integrating methods for ecosystem service assessment: experiences from real world situations 

The means determine the end – pursuing plural valuation in practice 

(Dis) integrated valuation: narrowing the gap between ES appraisals and governance support 

Stakeholders’ perspectives on the operationalisation of the ecosystem service concept: Results from 27 case studies 

When we cannot have it all: Ecosystem services trade-offs in real-life planning contexts

Institutional challenges in putting ecosystem service knowledge in practice