Environmental Spatial Decision Support System (ESDSS) for ecosystem services management of marine-coastal areas

In recent decades, increasing attention has been paid to the protection of marine-coastal environment and ecosystem services. An Environmental Spatial Decision Support System (ESDSS) was developed for the management of marine-coastal areas’ ecosystem services. This allows to quantify the physical and monetary value of natural capital stocks and ecosystem services flows originating from the natural capital. The ESDSS was applied in different Italian marine protected areas in relation to the project concerning environmental accounting in marine protected areas financed by the Ministry of the Environment starting from 2014. The ESDSS procedure involves the evaluation of: 1) natural capital, 2) human pressure on natural capital, 3) ecosystem services (environmental benefits and costs), 4) spatial constraints within ecosystem services can be enjoyed, 5) economic costs and benefits associated with the use of the ecosystem services, 6) system environmental and economic budgeting. The ESDSS’s outputs (numerical results, spatial maps) allow improving the management and overall understanding of the state of the marine protected areas and its environment. In particular, maps allow to identify and characterize areas, also in relation to synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services. The ESDSS can be used as tool to evaluate sustainability level at different spatial and temporal scale obtaining sustainability detailed maps. For the ESDSS development a computerization and data management system is cardinal. Specifically, it is fundamental for collection, storing and processing alphanumeric and spatial data and for results visualization. Thanks to the implementation of management and forecasting models the ESDSS allow the marine protected areas mangers to update the data (e.g. for monitoring the natural capital value over time) and to perform simulations. The procedure is easily and quickly iterable and as generalized as possible to be adaptable and applicable to different areas.