CultES applies new technology to support long-term integrated landscape management of cultural and natural values. Results will be directly relevant for the newly established protected area management boards in the Alpine North and aim at strengthening collaboration with users through advisory boards. Participatory tools such as Internet-based mapping (PPGIS) and Apple iPad® mapping will be compared to the participatory tools applied to meet challenges to implement to the European Landscape Convention. To set up adaptive management of non material benefits that people derive from nature (cultural ecosystem services), however, the values have to be linked to spatial explicit ecosystem features and disturbances affecting such values. Our research seeks to establish this link and to develop new models and methods of dynamic and science-based adaptive management of cultural ecosystem services that can be applied at a landscape scale.
Figure 1. Link between Cultural ecosystem services, adaptive management and human impacts.
Besides developing methods for monitoring cultural ecosystem services, it is a major challenge to link locally defined cultural ecosystem services to ecosystem functions and human disturbances and thus implement the cultural services into an adaptive management context (see Figure 1).
AbreviationsPPGIS: Public Participatory GIS