Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Landscape Structure and Ecosystem Services
of Etropole Municipality
Stoyan Nedkov
Abstract
The chapter represents an approach to investigate the landscape structure
at municipality level and the possibilities of using it for the valuation of the ecosys-
tem services. Landscape differentiation of the area was investigated using GIS-based
model. The most important ecosystem services of the Etropole municipality are
provided by the forest landscapes. Only 27% of their total value belongs to the
provisioning service, which is the most used at present. The importance of their reg-
ulation services, especially the regulation of the flood-risk will increase in the future
because of the climate change. The valuation of ecosystem services is considered
as an important and useful activity for the achievement of sustainable development.
It gives the opportunity to involve some resources and services, which are usually
ignored in the process of regional planning. Further progress of the valuation and
assessment methods will improve their preciseness and reliability.
Keywords
Landscape structure
·
Ecosystem services
·
Valuation
8.1 Introduction
The small municipalities in Bulgaria located in mountain areas have low economic
potential. Their labour force and productive capital are limited, so in most cases
they should rely mainly on the natural resources. Their economic valuation is usu-
ally concentrated on the possibility to extract row materials or in some cases tourist
potential. A lot of useful ecosystem functions like storage and retention of water,
regulation of atmospheric chemical compounds, regulation of disturbance regimes,
etc. are ignored. One of the reasons is that the profits they provide are not direct and
need long-term planning. On the other hand, the conventional methods of economic
valuation are not applicable for them. The concept of ecosystem services gives the
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