1
© The Author(s) 2020
D. Geneletti et al., Planning for Ecosystem Services in Cities, SpringerBriefs
in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20024-4_1
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Ecosystem Services in Decision-Making
Human life on Earth depends on ecosystems. This is the main message conveyed by
the concept of ecosystem services (ES), which has gained an ever-increasing attention in the scientific (McDonough et al. 2017) and policy debate (e.g., CBD 2011;
European Commission 2006, 2010) of the last two decades. The success of the term
‘ecosystem services’ is arguably due to its encompassing all “the direct and indirect
contributions of ecosystems to human wellbeing” (TEEB 2010a), thus providing a
comprehensive framework to describe the multiple relationships between humans
and nature.
The term ‘ecosystem services’ appeared for the first time in 1981 in a book by
Ehrlich and Ehrlich as an evolution of the term ‘environmental services’ (Ehrlich
and Ehrlich 1981), but it remained for some time confined within the disciplinary
boundaries of conservation ecology. Only in the late nineties two pioneering works
brought ES to the forefront of the scientific debate. In 1997, a comprehensive overview of the ES through which nature underpins human wellbeing was provided
(Daily 1997), while a group of ecologists and economists made the first attempt to
estimate the total economic value of the biosphere based on ES (Costanza et al.
1997), generating a rapidly-growing interest in the topic. In 2005, the publication of
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report (MA 2005) under the umbrella of the
United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) put ES high on the world policy
agenda. The ES concept was proposed as an innovative way to communicate the
growing concerns for the unprecedented rates of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, thus providing an additional justification for nature conservation based
on what nature does for people (Mace 2014, 2016).
What characterized the ES concept since its origin was the explicit link with
decision-making. Gretchen Daily and colleagues identified in this link the main
innovation of the ES approach, where ES values are acknowledged and assessed
© The Author(s) 2020
D. Geneletti et al., Planning for Ecosystem Services in Cities, SpringerBriefs
in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20024-4_1
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Ecosystem Services in Decision-Making
Human life on Earth depends on ecosystems. This is the main message conveyed by
the concept of ecosystem services (ES), which has gained an ever-increasing attention in the scientific (McDonough et al. 2017) and policy debate (e.g., CBD 2011;
European Commission 2006, 2010) of the last two decades. The success of the term
‘ecosystem services’ is arguably due to its encompassing all “the direct and indirect
contributions of ecosystems to human wellbeing” (TEEB 2010a), thus providing a
comprehensive framework to describe the multiple relationships between humans
and nature.
The term ‘ecosystem services’ appeared for the first time in 1981 in a book by
Ehrlich and Ehrlich as an evolution of the term ‘environmental services’ (Ehrlich
and Ehrlich 1981), but it remained for some time confined within the disciplinary
boundaries of conservation ecology. Only in the late nineties two pioneering works
brought ES to the forefront of the scientific debate. In 1997, a comprehensive overview of the ES through which nature underpins human wellbeing was provided
(Daily 1997), while a group of ecologists and economists made the first attempt to
estimate the total economic value of the biosphere based on ES (Costanza et al.
1997), generating a rapidly-growing interest in the topic. In 2005, the publication of
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report (MA 2005) under the umbrella of the
United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) put ES high on the world policy
agenda. The ES concept was proposed as an innovative way to communicate the
growing concerns for the unprecedented rates of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, thus providing an additional justification for nature conservation based
on what nature does for people (Mace 2014, 2016).
What characterized the ES concept since its origin was the explicit link with
decision-making. Gretchen Daily and colleagues identified in this link the main
innovation of the ES approach, where ES values are acknowledged and assessed