Perception of Ecosystem Services in Constituting Multi-Functional Landscapes in Slovakia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Author Response

The research is very interesting and well presented. However, in general, it could be useful to better investigate the relationships between Ecosystem Services and ordinary planning, not just landscape planning, considering that many of the objectives related to quality of life and well-being must belong to ordinary planning and not only to landscape planning. In particular: - the introduction could better clarify this interaction between Ecosystem Services and ordinary planning; - there are no literary references linked to this specific relationship; - the presentation of some good practices, even unrelated to Slovakia, could be an added value.

The planning processes are mentioned in several parts of the manuscript and although landscape planning is most frequent we also refer to other issues in this context. However, based on your comment we added a few sentences in the Introduction. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper “Role of ecosystem services in constituting multifunctional landscapes in Slovakia” presents an expert-based assessment of the capacity of different land covers (as defined by Corine Land Cover) to provide different Ecosystem Services (ES). It then presents the results of a survey to stakeholders in four case study areas in Slovakia to evaluate the relative importance that different stakeholders attach to different ES types and for here it derives overall scores representing the total ES supply in the four areas. The study contains some interesting material on the stated preferences of local stakeholders with regard to ES and some interesting insights on how this could inform or used in landscape planning at the local level. However, as it stands the paper contains also some methodological flaws and conceptual weaknesses that shall be substantially addressed before the paper is suitable for publication.

I list the main issue first, followed by some more specific comments.

1. Conceptualization of Ecosystem services. In the paper you refer to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and its subdivision in the four main ES category. Surprisingly, there is no mention of the MAES (Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem Service) work and the CICES classification, which are currently the key reference framework for Ecosystem Services in the European Union context. Slovakia, in fact, participates to the MAES working group, which adopt the CICES classification, and set the framework for ES research and mapping in Europe. I suggest to take the latest CICES table as reference (version 5.1). Here, there is no longer the distinction between supporting and regulating services.
2. Conceptualization of Landscape. The definition of Landscape provided at the outset of the paper is a bit vague and does not clarify whether you are conceptualizing it from a strictly ecological perspective (i.e. a collection of habitats or ecosystem) or if you are including the perception component. Later on in the discussion in fact you mention the definition provided by the European Landscape Convention, but if this is your reference, why don’t you put it at the beginning of the paper? Lines 43-44 “A further definition emphasises that the most appreciated individual landscape elements are ecosystem mosaics with spatial interactions”. There is no reference for this definition; plus, this already contains an evaluative/subjective component (appreciated by whom? Human beings?). In any case, I do not think that such a dissertation is needed, as the method you apply to assess ES (for the sake of brevity: the matrix method) does not require this level of conceptualization – see following comments.
3. The distinction between Ecosystem Services and Landscape Services have been put forward and elaborated on in some key publications, some of which are mentioned in the reference list, but a discussion on the distinction between landscape services and ecosystems services is missing in the paper. The text in the introduction (lines 51-70) mixes different concepts and issues. One thing is the spatial scale at which ES can be studied, in this case “landscape” would refer to an extent larger than a single habitat but smaller than, say a Region. Another issue is how the landscape configuration, i.e. the spatial arrangement of the different land cover affect the capability of a portion of territory to supply ES. This is discussed for example in Bastian et al, 2014, who show the different degree to which spatial arrangements is relevant for the supply of different ES. But this dimension is not present in your study, since you adopt the matrix approach. The total value you calculate with Equation 1 (the formula needs to be corrected by the way, see below) in a given area depends only on the relative abundance of different CLC classes in that area, regardless of the spatial arrangements of the cells. This is a very simplistic way, in 2020, to map and assess ES, as researchers are struggling to take into account precisely how the spatial configuration of landscape affect ES provision at different spatial scale. Indeed, as you write at lines 282-284 “Spatial investigation is outside the scope of this article, and herein we concentrate on the interpretation of site-specific variables and their influence on public perception.” This is the core of your paper and this is what I think you should clearly stated at the outset of the manuscript. The title should be change accordingly, too.
4. Plus, the matrix approach neglects another key aspect, i.e. the intensity of management, e.g. in agricultural areas or managed forests, which is now a very important component in ES analysis and land use science in general (see e.g. Mueller et al., 2012; Erb et al., 2013; Kuemmerle et al., 2013; Estel et al., 2016, Rega et al., 2020). Such considerations are, again, not present in your paper.
5. Also the fact that expert-based assessments and models yields similar results is questionable, and the conclusions reported in Roche and Campagne (2019) are more nuanced: for instance, they found weak correlations for recreation services, reared animal production, pollination and pest control. In summary: The fact that the matrix approach is simple and straightforward (and has already been used in many papers) does not obviously prevent from using it, as this simplicity can be an advantage depending on the context. But doing this entails acknowledging the (substantial) limitations of the approach. Therefore, I suggest to refocus your paper on the perception of the relative importance of different ES by different stakeholders in selected areas. In this way, you can justify the fact that you used a simple approach because this allowed you to involve  
6. Linked to the previous point: to make the paper more relevant for an international audience outside Slovakia, I suggest that you compare the results of the expert based evaluation with other similar studies that have used the matrix approach and have surveyed the stakeholders preference regarding ES. For example, do the results presented in Figure 3 substantially differ from those reported in Burkhard et al (2009)? If yes, for what CLC classes and for what services? Does the importance assigned by surveyed stakeholder to different ES differ from what has been reported in previous studies?
7. Methodology: please clarify what you mean at lines174-178 “[…] the CLC class values were transformed into the detailed Geographic Information System database (GIS). This was created by synthesis of thematic cartographic data, National Forest Centre information and recent study-area aerial photographs. This is then applicable at the 1:25,000 to 1:50,000 local scale.” What did you do exactly? How does this reflect on results presented in the Table? Looking at the tables it seems to me that the land cover classes are those from CLC
8. Discussion: the link you make with Local Action Group (LAG) and landscape planning is potentially very interesting but needs to be further elaborated and substantiated with/linked to results from your study in a sounder way. In fact, LAG were established to foster rural vitality in marginal areas, do how do you exactly see them as a way to promote the use of ES in planning? Are there any experiences in Slovakia or elsewhere that you are aware of, where this has been done?

In conclusion: I suggest you rework your manuscript refocus it on the stated perception of local stakeholder regarding different ES and how this could inform more inclusive planning approaches at local level, comparing your results with previous similar studies.

Minor points

Lines 52-53 “[…] these services supply the link between the natural ecosystems and the benefits and values of the community living in the landscape”. This sentence is not clear and it seems to make some confusion between ecosystem function, services and benefits. For a clear conceptualization of the cascade framework on ecosystem service, I suggest to refer to and apply the terminology descried in La Notte et al (2018).

Lines 62-63. This sentence may be misleading. It is not only landscape diversity that “creates inequalities”, in access to some ES: unequal access to ES may be related to socio-economic aspects as well. Plus, the paper you vite refer to one specific ES (outdoor recreation) and the term “counteract” is not adequate here. I therefore suggest to rephrase the sentence as follows (or in a similar way): “However, landscape configurations and other socio-economic factors may determine uneven spatial distribution of ES supply and inequalities in the possibility of access to people. To account for this, Paracchini et al., for example, developed a framework…”

Line 58 “social ES” not used in literature

Table 1 “Middle point” is not clear. Do you mean centroid?  The term “Landscape structure” would imply that you use some metrics or indicators of landscape ecology, whilst this column is a short characterization or description of the study area, so I would call it “Main features of the study area” or “Short description” or something similar

Equation 1 is wrong, there should be a summation symbol S at the beginning with a i index, i being the different CLC classes.  

Lines 340-349. I do not see really an “ambiguity” in the fact that cropland provides only (some) ES and not other. This is exactly the definition of cropland: a human-managed ecosystem designed in a way to maximize one specific service, edible biomass production, at the expense of others. So, way was this unexpected? Please elaborate and clarify.  

Cited references

Bastian O, Grunewald K, Syrbe R, Walz U, Wende W (2014) Landscape services: the concept and its practical relevance. Landsc Ecol 29(9):1463–1479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-014-0064-5

Erb, K.-H., Haberl, H., Jepsen, M. R., Kuemmerle, T., Lindner, M., Müller, D., et al. (2013). A conceptual framework for analysing and measuring land-use intensity. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 5(5), 464–470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.07.010.

Estel, S., Kuemmerle, T., Levers, C., Baumann, M., & Hostert, P. (2016). Mapping cropland-use intensity across Europe using MODIS NDVI time series. Environmental Research Letters, 11(2).

Mueller, N. D., Gerber, J. S., Johnston, M., Ray, D. K., Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (2012). Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management. Nature, 490, 254–257.

Rega, C., Short, C., Pérez-Soba, M., & Paracchini, M. L. (2020). A classification of European agricultural land using an energy-based intensity indicator and detailed crop description. Landscape and Urban Planning, 198, 103793

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a very interesting paper, exploring expert and stakeholder (and residents’?) perceptions of ecosystem services in four different regions of Slovakia. I recommend that the paper be accepted after revision. This revision requires attention to the methods, results and discussion sections of the paper. It should not be too onerous but it is essential to ensure clarity for the reader and the best framing possible for the study.

Specifically, in the methods the authors need to provide much more detail about the research teams’ experience referred to, the way in which they selected the ecosystem services to study, and their assessment of the land cover data for spatial representation of the study participants’ perception of the ecosystem services.

In the results, the authors use values, expressed as a percentage, as a measure of the capacity of the landscape to deliver ecosystem services. They also refer to these % values as an average ranking and as a measure of importance. Other terms used that seem to relate to these values are ‘supply potential’ and ‘appreciation’. In addition, they use values on a scale from 0 to 5 as a measure of the landscape to deliver ecosystem services. This use of different terms for the same or equivalent measure is confusing. I am not even sure what the % value really means? What would a value of 100% mean in terms of the capacity of a landscape to deliver an ecosystem service? The authors need to clarify this.

The discussion needs to be completely rewritten. It contains interesting ideas and incorporates the broader literature satisfactorily but it is not coherent and does not flow well. It seems to jump from topic or idea to another so that the reader is not left with any overriding message.   

I have annotated the manuscript with comments, queries and suggested editorial changes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for comments. We received detailed comments from reviewer in pdf file and there we provided our answers. So all comments can be found in attached pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have improved the paper following the reviewers’ remarks. The title and structure now better reflects the work that has been carried out. I think the paper is almost ready for publication, a few minor points still need to be addressed:

Lines 211-214. “CLC class accuracy is insufficient for landscape planning and management, so the CLC class values were transformed into the detailed Geographic Information System database (GIS) for the map results, i.e. larger CLC polygons  were split to smaller polygons based on more detailed datasets”

Thank you for explaining this, but please specify if only the spatial accuracy (i.e. the resolution) was modified, or is the taxonomy was also changed. That means, larger polygons were split, but were more detailed land cover class introduced, not present in the standard Corine nomenclature? If so, please specify which, if not, then is not the “class” accuracy but the spatial resolution. Please also provide the links to and reference of the more detailed dataset used, if available.

Line 339: “the study of Burkhard [15]”… change to “the study of Burkhard et al. [15]”. Please add some words on this to be explicit: do your stakeholders assign higher or lower values to the mentioned classes compared to Burkhard et al.?

Concerning the comment in the first review and your response:

Comment: The matrix approach neglects another key aspect, i.e. the intensity of management, e.g. in agricultural areas or managed forests, which is now a very important component in ES analysis and land use science in general (see e.g. Mueller et al., 2012; Erb et al., 2013; Kuemmerle et al., 2013; Estel et al., 2016, Rega et al., 2020). Such considerations are, again, not present in your paper.

Authors response: We agree on that, but our aim was to use the simple way (land cover matrix with main classes) to compare public preferences from different regions, so that stakeholders receive clear and understandable information.

If you agree, please insert this consideration in the paper (section 2.2) to acknowledge pros and cons of the chosen method. It can be just one sentence, I suggest to modify line 151-153, indicating that a limitation of the method is not to account for land use intensity, which is an important aspect of ES evaluation (insert references), but that has the advantage to be simple and straightforward for stakeholders. Given that studying stakeholders’ perception was the aim of the study, this would provide a clear and strong argument for the selection of the matrix method.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The authors have improved the paper following the reviewers’ remarks. The title and structure now better reflects the work that has been carried out. I think the paper is almost ready for publication, a few minor points still need to be addressed:

Lines 211-214. “CLC class accuracy is insufficient for landscape planning and management, so the CLC class values were transformed into the detailed Geographic Information System database (GIS) for the map results, i.e. larger CLC polygons  were split to smaller polygons based on more detailed datasets”

Thank you for explaining this, but please specify if only the spatial accuracy (i.e. the resolution) was modified, or is the taxonomy was also changed. That means, larger polygons were split, but were more detailed land cover class introduced, not present in the standard Corine nomenclature? If so, please specify which, if not, then is not the “class” accuracy but the spatial resolution. Please also provide the links to and reference of the more detailed dataset used, if available.

Thank you for spotting this mistake, “spatial resolution” is correct: text was revised in line 157 and in lines 213 and 216-217. References in form of weblinks were added.

Line 339: “the study of Burkhard [15]”… change to “the study of Burkhard et al. [15]”. Please add some words on this to be explicit: do your stakeholders assign higher or lower values to the mentioned classes compared to Burkhard et al.?

Higher values were assigned by our experts - text was improved accordingly.

Concerning the comment in the first review and your response:

Comment: The matrix approach neglects another key aspect, i.e. the intensity of management, e.g. in agricultural areas or managed forests, which is now a very important component in ES analysis and land use science in general (see e.g. Mueller et al., 2012; Erb et al., 2013; Kuemmerle et al., 2013; Estel et al., 2016, Rega et al., 2020). Such considerations are, again, not present in your paper.

Authors response: We agree on that, but our aim was to use the simple way (land cover matrix with main classes) to compare public preferences from different regions, so that stakeholders receive clear and understandable information.

If you agree, please insert this consideration in the paper (section 2.2) to acknowledge pros and cons of the chosen method. It can be just one sentence, I suggest to modify line 151-153, indicating that a limitation of the method is not to account for land use intensity, which is an important aspect of ES evaluation (insert references), but that has the advantage to be simple and straightforward for stakeholders. Given that studying stakeholders’ perception was the aim of the study, this would provide a clear and strong argument for the selection of the matrix method.

Text was improved in lines 151-155 as suggested and related references were added.