Evaluation of cultural ecosystem services: A review of methods

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) refer to the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems, and they have direct influence on quality of life. Although the concept of CES has been well accepted, they are rarely fully investigated. A significant barrier is the method for evaluating CES. This paper conducts a literature review of CES evaluation methods. Our aims are the following: to provide an overview of existing CES evaluation methods, to classify them, to analyze them, to highlight important challenges and to offer suggestions for future study. This study has reviewed 293 papers and identified 20 evaluation methods. To conclude, we (i) emphasize considering all CES categories. More specifically, consistent classification systems for CES and unambiguous descriptions of each category are needed; (ii) highlight a combination of methods to enable a better evaluation of CES and call for integrating monetary and non-monetary methods, which does not indicate merely adding the different parts but rather focusing on the interactions between these components, especially by means of deliberative, participatory and mapping techniques; (iii) encourage more stated preference methods, such as the Q-method and narratives, to evaluate neglected services; (iv) propose that in-depth study of CES evaluation process is required to improve evaluation accuracy.