Ecosystem Services (ESs) assessment is increasingly used as a decision guiding tool, with a high potentiality for many environmental impact assessment through its threefold valuation: i.e. social, biophysical and economic. ESs assessment is a way to obtain a more holistic view on a framework to bring human life to a more enhanced level of sustainability. Soil is at the heart of the assessment of ESs.
By answering the question of how the study of physical, chemical and biological processes in soil can contribute to ESs assessment, the purpose of the short-course is to review recent surveys through the eyes of the ESs user, taking stock of what we know, what we do not know, and what we need to know as soil scientist and hydrologist.
Speakers: Prof. Nunzio Romano, University of Naples, Italy, and Prof. David Ellison, Swedish University of Agriculture SLU & Ellison Consulting, Sweden.