Modelling application for a multiple Ecosystem Services quantification within the geospatial decision support system LandSupport

Ecosystem services (ES) in the last years have been a topic in the spotlight of scientific community and policy, being a global challenge in the agenda of European environmental policies (e.g., European Green Deal). The research community aims to classify and quantify these services but to date there are no standardized approaches. Rather, different approaches are used that are expert-based or empirical, qualitative rather than quantitative, applied depending on the spatial scale and output required. Here we present our approach to the quantitative evaluation of provision and regulating ESs, in which the soil is considered a key factor in regulating the functioning of agricultural ecosystems. Specifically, above ground biomass for provisioning ESs and filtering capacity, water storage, groundwater recharge, and runoff triggering for regulating ESs will be estimated. The approach involves the use of physically based models of the water flow and solute transport in the soil-plant-atmosphere system. Furthermore, this approach, allows a coherence in the estimation of the different ESs due to their consistent estimation in one simulation run. The work presents the tool implementations for different case studies across European regions, with different spatial scales and pedo-climatic conditions, as examples of application of the LandSupport s-DSS in supporting public authorities, environmental planners, as well as agricultural extension services.