1. Introduction
The benefit of humans from ecosystems is prominently explored under the concept of ecosystem services, which are generally classified into the four categories: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services [
1]. Nowadays, the value of ecosystem services is widely acknowledged and they are increasingly incorporated into (inter-)national regulations, such as the European Union’s Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 [
2]. However, problems arise when it comes to comprehensive definitions and the assessment of some services. In particular, the cultural services are regarded as controversial and are much debated [
3,
4,
5].
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [
1] describes cultural ecosystem services (CES) as “the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences.” This classic definition is commonly used but has since also been adjusted, reshaped and extended in many publications. Fish et al. redefined CES as environmental spaces and cultural practices, reinforcing each other and creating cultural benefits for human well-being [
5]. The knowledge about and appreciation of this interaction is intended to enable researchers and decision-makers to grasp the cultural significance of ecosystems [
5]. However, cultural along with regulating services appear to be the most degraded on a global scale [
1], although dependency of and demand for these services is growing especially in industrial countries [
6].
CES can greatly influence landowner decisions and guide them towards less economically, but more ecologically driven land use options [
7]. For instance, many private forest owners in the Black Forest in southwestern Germany care less about their economic benefits and instead choose close-to-nature management, thus increasing the opportunities for enjoyment of nature experiences [
8]. CES are therefore regarded as potential motivators and incentives for people to protect their environment [
9,
10,
11]. Nonetheless, incorporating them into decision-making is often still lacking [
1,
11,
12], which may be explained by their (misleading) reputation of being non-marketable, non-instrumental, non-use, non-material, non-monetary, non-economical and non-secular commodities [
5].
Human influence on ecosystems is particularly evident in agricultural land, which already makes up one fourth of the terrestrial surface [
1]. Especially in Europe, these areas harbor a large share of land use and biodiversity, and are additionally important providers of multiple ecosystem services crucial for human life [
13]. Well-managed agricultural landscapes encompass not only provisioning services (e.g., food and biofuels), but also regulating (e.g., water and climate regulation), supporting (e.g., soil formation and nutrient cycling) and cultural services (e.g., recreation and cultural heritage) [
1,
14]. However, biodiversity loss, one of the most pressing environmental challenges today, is especially severe in agricultural settings, negatively affecting ecosystem services as well [
1,
15].
Traditional, extensive agricultural landscapes are of particular importance in this regard since they can both be of great cultural value to the people, and also help to preserve biodiversity [
16,
17,
18,
19]). Besides the conversion of formerly pristine habitats into agricultural areas, land use intensification is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss [
1,
16]). Among other drawbacks, intensively managed farmland provides considerably fewer habitats for wildlife due to large plot sizes, little crop diversity and a lack of buffering field borders, as well as high inputs of mineral fertilizers and pesticides to increase productivity [
13]. In contrast, low-intensity agriculture, as practiced in the past, creates diverse habitat mosaics and far more opportunities for biodiversity conservation [
13,
20,
21]. These findings are very relevant for the management of biosphere reserves, which are designed to serve as model regions for the integration of sustainable development and nature conservation. Ecosystem services play an important role in this context and are supposed to be monitored and protected within the reserves [
22]; yet biosphere reserves are seldom selected for study when looking at ecosystem services.
Agricultural practices, whether traditional or modern, and the way ecosystem services are assessed inevitably cause trade-offs between the main goal of provisioning and other ecosystem services, calling for the application of appropriate and thoughtful management [
14,
23]. Political instruments such as agri-environmental support schemes can help to enhance the sustainability of today’s and future land use management, including ecosystem service provision [
16]. In this regard, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (CAP) has been reformed over the last decades and now also provides support for biodiversity conservation, landscape maintenance and cultural heritage preservation [
24], a good, but expandable, starting point for better recognition of, among others, cultural services in funding schemes.
This work looks at the cultural services in agricultural areas of a biosphere reserve in southwestern Germany. Since biodiversity is acknowledged as being beneficial or in some cases even crucial for ecosystem services [
1,
6,
13,
25], but at the same time not yet extensively examined in combination with CES, we particularly focused our study on the interrelationships between service provision and biodiversity. Previous studies on CES in rural or more specifically agricultural settings used various evaluation tools, reflecting the multifaceted character of this group of services. Economic, monetary valuation tools appear to be problematic for many CES [
12,
25]. Alternatively, we integrated insights from different non-economic studies, including interviews on personal experiences or preferences [
26,
27,
28], participatory mapping [
29,
30,
31,
32] and the assessment of proxies such as visible manifestations of CES in the landscape [
33]. Using comparative analyses of CES provides additional validation for results [
31], therefore our study combines the aforementioned approaches to achieve a broad, multi-disciplinary view, while explicitly involving landscape visitors and examining small-scale landscape features. In contrast to many other surveys which focused on a few specific cultural services cf. [
4,
30,
31,
34,
35], we included a wide range of subgroups.
We conducted a survey including a mapping task in six spatially explicit study plots not only to investigate people’s perceptions, but also their needs concerning CES, biodiversity, and the landscape features providing them. To complement our findings we explored socio-demographic and small-scale regional differences. With the help of these various kinds of information we identified stakeholders and priority fields of action concerning the integration of CES into planning of cultural landscapes. Our study area, the biosphere reserve Swabian Alb, represents an important recreational area for the inhabitants of the metropolitan region of Stuttgart. It is known for its traditional, diverse landscapes, whose conservation is crucial for providing numerous services and biodiversity. Our study was part of a larger project which assessed biodiversity and ecosystem services within the Swabian Alb’s agricultural landscapes to derive strategies for integrating ecosystem services into planning decisions. In this context, the study at hand presents a concept for evaluating CES, their spatial distribution and linkages to features of landscapes, which could be applied in the biosphere reserve’s monitoring of ecosystem services. The following research questions guided our study.
How do visitors use the agricultural landscapes in the biosphere reserve and which CES do they identify and value most?
How do the people perceive biodiversity and what relationships between biodiversity and CES can be identified based on the visitors’ perceptions?
Taking into account the visitors’ views, how can the agricultural landscapes be improved to provide CES better?
4. Discussion
Successful planning and management of multifunctional landscapes poses many challenges. Different types of land user groups need to be considered, showing individual preferences and principles concerning ecosystem services, benefits, and their management [
7,
12]. The concept of Ecosystem Services [
1] provides a useful tool for the integration of biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and variable human benefits from ecosystems.
Trade-offs have to be carefully weighed and interdependencies among services should be taken into account [
9,
12]. Appropriate agricultural practices can turn such interdependencies (also between services and the biophysical environment) into advantages and produce synergies for mutual benefits [
14,
21]. For instance, Raudsepp-Hearne et al. [
23] found a positive correlation between the provision of regulating and cultural services, which specifically applied in highly multifunctional landscapes. These are characterized by a higher biodiversity than homogenous agricultural landscapes [
13], opening up opportunities for simultaneous service and nature conservation approaches [
48].
The study at hand confirmed the high value of, but also revealed regional differences in the Swabian Alb’s agricultural landscapes in terms of CES and biodiversity. We discuss the results in the context of our three guiding research questions to derive a number of management recommendations for future land use planning in the biosphere reserve.
4.1. Question 1: Usage and Cultural Services of the Agricultural Landscapes
The agricultural landscapes in the study plots are used in a variety of ways, reflecting the manifold opportunities agricultural landscapes can provide in terms of CES. Leisure activities, sports, tourism, landscape aesthetics and identification were found to be the most outstanding cultural services, also prominent in other European case studies set in agricultural landscapes e.g., [
18,
41,
49]. It is thus suggested to focus CES management in the biosphere reserve on those services, in particular regarding the fact that economic benefit obtained by tourism in the biosphere reserve is estimated to be considerably higher than that from agriculture (Dieterich 2012 in [
50]). Independently of their presence in our sample plots, recreation and aesthetics were identified as the most important cultural ecosystem service groups. These services likewise played an important role in cultural landscapes in the Netherlands [
49], Spain [
34], and Swabian Alb short story writers [
41], further backing up our findings.
The geomorphological heterogeneity and the respective land use as well as infrastructural heterogeneity of the Swabian Alb biosphere reserve resulted in differences in usage and evaluation of the six surveyed areas by their visitors. An earlier study by Roser [
51] addressed the factors that enhance or reduce the appearance of the landscape in the Swabian Alb biosphere reserve. Factors with a positive influence on people’s ratings included landscape diversity, traditional orchards and relief intensity. These factors also applied to our more attractive plots, pleading for the conservation of diverse, traditional land use systems, or (in the case of the non-manageable relief) a focus on such areas in management plans for CES. Additional to their landscape composition, the accessibility of areas and distance to tourist destinations likely influenced people’s usage and perception [
42,
48]. The “Flächenalb”-plots are poorly accessible compared to most of the others, as a result such areas may need special attention if an increase in their touristic value is desired.
Similar to studies by Zoderer et al. [
18] and van Zanten et al. [
35], we found that socio-demographic groups vary in their usage of landscapes and perception of CES. Differences in the valuation of cultural services between different people and under different socio-economic conditions can complicate the preparation of definite land use plans [
7]. However, knowledge about differences can also be of assistance to advance management plans concerning the needs of the public. In our case, the respondent’s age, place of residence, gender and connection to land use were of particular interest and influence. Older people and women, for instance, used the landscapes to enjoy nature rather than for sports like biking, and might thus be more in need of semi-natural structures which diversify the agro-ecosystems. In previous studies, women claimed higher aesthetic values and greater well-being associated with the green spaces [
52] or had stronger preferences for native flora, trees or shrubs, and specialty crops [
53]. Mobley et al. [
54] additionally report that women are more likely to engage in so-called “environmentally responsible behavior” in daily life than men, making them potentially important stakeholders in conservation contexts.
Local and non-local visitors also differed regarding their activities and, most importantly, locals expressed that the landscape created a sense of place in more cases than non-local visitors. The importance of sense of place in our study region was also revealed through short stories from residents of the Swabian Alb [
41]. Identity, sense of place, and cultural heritage were shown to have a synergistic relationship with traditional rural landscapes [
19], and can be a step towards a feeling of public land stewardship [
55]. This directs attention to their integration in the formulation of land use plans to ensure sustainable development in biosphere reserves.
4.2. Question 2: Relationships between Biodiversity and CES
Biodiversity hot spots and the provision of ecosystem services seem to be spatially correlated and can therefore yield opportunities for conservation [
6]. Two studies on the attitudes of Europeans towards biodiversity and nature from 2010 and 2016 showed that people are generally aware of the significance of wild nature and biological diversity, finding their conservation important [
56,
57]. Furthermore, the 2010 study found that particularly Germans have high biodiversity awareness and also have some, or even good knowledge, about biodiversity issues [
56]; this we could confirm.
Rather than specific land use types, the majority of our survey participants said they liked the landscape and species diversity in the plots. Other European studies also note that landscape users value diverse mosaic landscapes highly [
32,
34,
35,
49,
58]. Moreover, two previous case studies from the Swabian Alb support the finding that landscape diversity is an important aspect contributing to the biosphere reserve’s aesthetic beauty [
41,
51]. Meadows came second in the list of appreciated (semi-)natural structures. Since they cover much of the protected areas in the plots and were often marked as important by visitors (especially the low-nutrient, flower-rich ones), we suggest the conservation of low-intensity grassland as a socially highly appreciated field of action in land use management. Additionally, species-rich grasslands can support other ecosystem services by, among others, providing food and habitat resources for pollinators or natural enemies of agricultural pests, as well as increasing resilience after disturbances cf. [
13], adding to the multifunctionality of landscapes.
In general, the points of interest that were marked in the aerial photographs of the plots frequently coincided with protected areas. Albert et al. [
42] emphasized their importance for CES and defined the “accessibility of nature conservation areas” as an indicator for the recreational value of landscapes. Since biodiverse habitats can also be protected specifically as attractions for ecotourists [
37] not only cultural services benefit from biodiversity, but also vice versa.
Other biodiverse and particularly often marked landscape components such as near natural ponds, hedges, groves, and flower-strips were likely to contribute to not only aesthetic experiences but also a sense of place and heritage values by adding specific character to the landscapes. Hausmann et al. [
59] stated that the feeling of sense of place can be deepened by biodiversity experiences, potentially leading to synergies for the benefit of both biodiversity conservation and cultural service provision. The sense of place can be improved through operational support to park management actions, too, which is especially true for children [
60]. Our findings further suggest that many people appreciate the non-use, existence value of nature and biodiversity, which is another important aspect of CES [
3]. In their case study, Boll et al. [
27] found that Hamburg dwellers preferred rural recreation areas that are characterized by certain degrees of naturalness, uniqueness and diversity, likewise implying more opportunities for biodiversity conservation.
Interestingly, our respondents with a connection to land use (either professional or private) found the cultural/natural diversity and uniqueness of a landscape more important than those without a connection. Gao et al. [
53] substantiated this by showing that agritourists having some kind of relationship with a farm or forested land express stronger preferences for components contributing to more diverse landscapes.
Based on our findings concerning the relationships between affinity to nature and knowledge about and value of biodiversity, we suggest improving people’s knowledge and particularly their affinity to nature as a way to raise awareness about the value of biological diversity, and to promote cross-generational, long-term concern about environmental issues. Support for the importance of environmental knowledge can be derived from Mobley et al. [
54] as well as Steg and Vlek [
61], whose studies suggest that knowledge about environmental issues and problems increase the likelihood that people engage in pro-environmental behavior.
Among other generational differences, the comparatively lower affinity to nature of our younger participants, suggests a disconnectedness of youth from nature cf. [
62,
63,
64,
65]. This finding is not necessarily surprising since older respondents in other case studies similarly found outdoor recreation in rural areas more important [
27], appreciated the aesthetic beauty of the landscape more [
49], or even reported a greater well-being associated with green spaces, and more involvement in nature-related activities than younger people [
52]. In this context, children’s willingness to conserve biodiversity was shown to be improved by both direct (via outdoor activities) and indirect (via different media) experiences of nature [
66,
67], opening up various opportunities for action.
A number of sources confirm the importance of biodiversity for cultural services e.g., [
25,
42,
48,
59,
68]. Yet, from their study on wildflower-viewing as a key biodiversity-based CES, Graves et al. [
69] concluded that solely using species richness as an indicator for high cultural value can lead to inaccurate conservation planning. Several aspects of biodiversity as well as social preferences must be considered, treating biodiversity and CES complementary but different when managing landscapes for biodiversity-based CES [
69]. Taking that into account, we believe the connection can help to integrate biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation in particular by generating a feeling of land stewardship or public responsibility for nature and its components, to the benefit of human well-being [
10,
70].
4.3. Question 3: Improvements of Agricultural Landscapes for CES
Almost half of the survey participants had suggestions for how the landscape could be improved, showing their intensive examination and awareness of their environment. Most improvements were proposed in FA1 and KA1, with ideas for both (semi-)natural and artificial structures, suggesting a deficit in a wide range of CES there. Noteworthy recommendations for aesthetics and diversity and uniqueness of the landscape included more extensive land use, increasing biodiversity-supporting structures such as hedges, conserving pastureland, and reducing maize cultivation (the latter was especially present in FA1). Similar results concerning a preference for less intensive agriculture, pastureland and potential opposition to large-scale maize cultivation were found by Boll et al. [
17] in their study in the Hamburg metropolitan region. The negative impact of intensive land management on CES is also discussed in a study by Allan et al. [
71], who looked at the relationship of land use and ecosystem multifunctionality in three German grassland systems, one being the biosphere reserve Swabian Alb.
Our survey results suggest a potential for improvement with regard to the recreational and educational value of the Swabian Alb landscapes. This could be achieved by, for instance, increasing the number of benches, signposts, and information boards, without over-furnishing the landscape of course. Additionally, trade-offs between services, such as tourism and leisure activities of local visitors, became apparent in the most frequented plots AV2 and KA2. The biosphere reserve’s visitor guidance management should take such trade-offs into account, since they can negatively affect the population’s acceptance of large-scale protected areas as tourist destinations (officially already addressed in the nomination of the Swabian Alb biosphere reserve; see [
37]). Another issue was the respondents’ apprehension that impending land consolidation plans might impair biodiversity and diverse small-scale agriculture. This would represent a trade-off between cultural (and most likely also supporting and regulating) services and the provisioning services of agriculture, as featured in previous research [
14,
23,
71]. However, especially in biosphere reserves, where economic development and land use planning is intended to go hand in hand with landscape and nature conservation, multifunctionality of agricultural areas should be a top priority.
All plots received much additional positive feedback, apart from FA1, again reflecting the less attractive landscape and lack of CES in this rather intensively managed plot on the “Flächenalb”. One of the conclusions from the Alpine study by Zoderer et al. [
18] was that traditionally used landscapes are of importance for providing aesthetic and recreational services, being valued very highly by the interviewed tourists. These results are in line with, for example, van Berkel and Verburg [
49] or Boll et al. [
17] who also found that the retention of semi-managed landscape structures was appreciated by the people, and at the same time promotes biodiversity [
21]. Barthel et al. [
20] described the development of our agricultural landscapes as an “ongoing and accelerating generational amnesia of traditional practices and experiences”, which is detrimental to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The (re-)integration of adapted landraces though was shown to provide numerous cultural and traditional values, along with reinforcing social–ecological resilience [
72].
Our own survey results emphasize the importance of extensively and traditionally managed, multifunctional agricultural landscapes for the benefit of both people and biodiversity. In this regard, the biosphere reserve Swabian Alb fosters, for instance, the agricultural support program FAKT (“Förderprogramm für Agrarumwelt, Klimaschutz und Tierwohl”) for the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, planning of habitat connectivity via compensating measures, conservation, and development of extensively used habitat structures via the EU program Natura 2000, as well as close-to-nature cultivation and marketing of regional products and traditional varieties [
36,
73]. Such instruments are promising and the results of studies like ours can act as guides for adjusting their support schemes along with the biosphere reserve’s management plan.
4.4. Method Discussion
Questionnaires always bear the risk of misunderstandings or individual interpretations of questions and response options. The concept of cultural ecosystem services is still widely unknown to the public, additionally increasing the risk of false interpretations. We addressed this problem by avoiding technical terms in the questionnaire and conducting face-to-face interviews whenever possible to explain questions or critical terms (especially “biodiversity” and the CES subgroups). Nevertheless, a small risk remains, e.g., for the few participants who preferred to fill out the questionnaire by themselves. Additionally, we cannot be completely certain that the visitors attributed exactly our predefined cultural values to their marked features. Sometimes they did or could not describe why they found the respective place to be important, so we had to assume on the basis of our own experiences of location and people, as well as checking against the study by Bieling and Plieninger [
33].
We conducted our survey with a total of 180 respondents. This sample size is in the range of other participative studies from the field (e.g., [
29]: 93; [
49]: 115; [
26]: 262; [
28]: 294). However, a larger number of participants would be desirable to increase the validity of our findings, especially when comparing socio-demographic groups and plots, and to back up the correlations between affinity to nature, knowledge and valuation of biodiversity.
5. Conclusions
As deeply personal issues concerning practically everybody and synergizing with other services and biodiversity, cultural services of agro-ecosystems should be regarded as important guides for decision-makers in landscape management and planning. In their role as model regions of sustainable, ecologically viable and socially accepted development, biosphere reserves represent perfect trial environments for stronger incorporation of public perceptions. Participatory surveys, where applicable including CES mapping like the one presented in this work, can help to identify what the population values the most, and what should be improved in agricultural landscapes to serve the needs of the people.
Due to differences in landscape usage and perception, there is a need for inclusion of various socio-demographic groups in planning contexts. Especially locals and their familiarity with the landscapes, and nature-loving older generations may direct decision-makers towards more comprehensive land use management. We also found differences in usage and services on both regional and intraregional scales; thus small-scale landscape planning should be enforced rather than making generalizations about regions. The combination of on-site questionnaires including the collection of spatially explicit data enabled us to gather a wide range of information that can be used to develop land use scenarios in cooperation with the biosphere reserve management.
There is much evidence for how rich diversified agro-ecosystems can be in both cultural services and biodiversity. We regard the connection between the two as a highly significant issue for successful nature conservation efforts, which in turn ultimately affect human life and well-being. In case of the biosphere reserve Swabian Alb, there is a call for action towards managing CES and biodiversity, especially in the more intensively used parts of the “Flächenalb”. Its appreciation and value could be increased by diversifying the landscapes with, for instance, traditional orchards, low-input meadows or pastures, field hedges, flower strips and recreational/touristic structures such as benches or information boards. Therefore, political support schemes targeting these topics should be enhanced, and counterproductive incentives such as subsidies for intensive agricultural practices reduced.
The outcomes of this project were used as recommendations in local landscape planning and biosphere reserve management. However, they hold true in other biosphere reserves and our exemplary methodical approach based on relatively small study plots is easily applicable to other contexts.
Building on our findings, we suggest three general priority fields of action for landscape management and planning in agro-ecosystems: (1) Conserving and expanding traditional, extensive land use practices as providers of highly multifunctional production systems, (2) strengthening the status of CES in politics and agri-environmental support schemes, and (3) encouraging public engagement and use of local knowledge in landscape planning contexts.