Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Food
provision
Raw
materials
Nutrient
recycling
Gas and
climate
regulation
Disturbance
prevention
and
alleviation
Cognitive
values
Leisure
and
recreation
Shelf
sand
H
M
H
H
H
M
H
The extent of uncertainty does not necessarily correlate directly with the generic level of
scientific knowledge pertaining to each habitat type. The analysis of ecosystem services is
relatively new to marine ecology and thus the scientific evidence base has to be
mapped
onto
final service provisioning.
This is being explored in the aforementioned ODEMM project. Whereas the Defra
ecosystem services via
ecological characteristics
. This categorization is based on the pre-
sumption that it is not habitat type alone that influences ecosystem service provisioning.
Habitats are included as one category of characteristics, but there are two other broad cat-
egories: (1) biological features (phyto-zooplankton; bottom fauna and flora; fish; marine
mammals and reptiles; seabirds; species listed under EC legislation or conventions; non-in-
digenous/exotic species); and (2) other features (chemicals; temperature; salinity; nutrients
and oxygen; pH; pCO
2
).
The linkage framework used in the ODEMM project is set out in
Figure 7.1
. The
ecological characteristics which include (but are not limited to) habitat types are impacted
upon by human pressures (which in turn are linked to industry sectors), and by environ-
mental drivers such as climate change. The difference between the two drivers is that hu-
man pressures are 'manageable', whereas environmental drivers are not. The ecological
characteristics in turn link with the high-level descriptors of Good Environmental Status
(GES) in the EC Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).
