Is the term of of "landscape services" more representative than "environmental services" or "ecosystem services"? When we discuss about Cultural Landscape Services, does it mean the best way to discuss is in "landscape services" perspective?
Landscape services refers to services performed by people who arrange and manipulate the natural condition of a given land parcel so as to render the land suitable for public, private use or enjoyment. Ecosystem services instead refers to the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment. These include, for example: carbon sequestration and retention in the soil, pollination of flowering plants, water cycling and purification and biogeochemical cycles. These two terms may be used interchangeably although the fist one is more applicable to environments that are modified to respond to specific human needs (ex.: a constructed wetland, or a farm), whereas the latter is derived from the processes observable directly from pristine, natural systems/ecosystems. The ecological services provided by ecosystems (in my opinion) should be the standards employed by designers and restorationists in order to achieve similar services in the human-made landscape.
I think Prof Burno Borsari has offered a wonderful answer to this question.
From my perspective and experience in China, I would like to provide a tiny advice. In agriculture, landscape service is intertwined with ecosystem now due to the climate, environment issue and agriculture. For example, in modern agri-park, landscape service with ecosystem can facilitate the interweaving the first, second and third industries. However, it can also stimulate the tourism, visiting, high-agri-tech exhibition, health, pension in a bid to promote the employment, improve the agri-economy, increase the productivity and accelerate the transformation of agricultural methods and model.
This is my view of point. Thanks.
Regan Leonardus Kaswanto
In my view, it is difficult to determine which of the two kinds of services is better; it all depends on the purpose of the analysis. If the unit of study is the landscape, then landscape services should be more appropriate to use, and if the unit is the ecosystem, then it is ecosystem services. Landscape services and ecosystem services cannot be used interchangeably since they are different concepts with different properties and boundaries.
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