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The unsustainable management of ecosystem services often arises as a result of the non-recognition of the multiple benefits or under-valuation of ecosystem services. The chapter looks at economic valuation as an essential tool in ecosystem management decision-making and policy. It discusses the economics of ecosystem services, explains the motivations for economic valuation, describes economic valuation methods, and examines the limitations of economic valuation. It emphasizes that economic valuation can be a powerful and convincing tool for placing ecosystems on the agenda of planners and decision-makers.

People with complex health conditions must often navigate landscapes of uncoordinated public, private and voluntary health-care providers to obtain the care they need. Complex health conditions frequently transcend the scope of typical health-care service systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore and characterize such unique assemblages of actors and services as “user-defined ecosystems”.

Building on literature on customer ecosystems, this paper introduces the concept of the user-defined ecosystem (UDE). Using an abductive approach, the authors apply the concept in an interpretive, qualitative study of ten families with special needs children.

This study uncovers complex UDEs, where families actively combine a broad range of services. These ecosystems are unique for each family and extend beyond the scope of designed service ecosystems. Thus, the families are forced to assume an active, coordinating role.

This paper shows how to identify ecosystems from the user’s point of view, based on the selected user unit (such as a family) and the focal value-creating function of the ecosystem for the user.

This paper highlights how service providers can support and adapt to UDEs and, thus, contribute to user value and well-being. This can be used to understand users’ perspectives on service and systems in health and social care.

This study develops the concept of the UDE, which represents a customer-focused perspective on actor ecosystems and contrasts it with a provider-focused and a distributed perspective on ecosystems. This study demonstrates the practical usefulness of the conceptualization and provides a foundation for further research on the user’s perspective on ecosystems.

The transition to a low carbon future is an emerging challenge and requires the planning and designing of sustainable energy landscapes – landscapes that provide renewable energy while safeguarding the supply of other ecosystem services. The aim of this paper is to present the application of an ecosystem services trade-off assessment in the development of sustainable energy landscapes for long-term strategic planning in a case study in Schouwen-Duivenland, The Netherlands.

The application consists in three activities: in (1) stakeholder mapping hot spots of ecosystem services and renewable energy technologies in a workshop, (2) landscape design principles being discussed by a focus group, (3) experts gathering the information and proceeding with an assessment of the potential synergies and trade-offs.

The case study indicates that (1) deploying the ecosystem services framework in planning and design can enhance the development of sustainable energy landscapes, (2) diversified and accurate spatial reference systems advance the trade-off analysis of both regulating and cultural ecosystem services and (3) the involvement of local stakeholders can advance the trade-off analysis and, ultimately, facilitates the transition to a low-carbon future with sustainable energy landscapes.

The originality of this research lies in the creation of an approach for the deployment of ecosystem services in the planning and design of energy transition. This is useful to advance energy transition by enhancing research methods, by providing methods useful for planners and designers and by supporting communities pursuing energy self-sufficiency in a sustainable manner.

The assessment of ecosystem services (ES) in urban areas can be an important policy instrument for both strategic directives at national and regional levels and concrete actions at municipality level. A unifying underpinning framework that combines different administrative levels through a common, consistent basis would greatly facilitate the mainstreaming of such an instrument. Three key concepts underpin this framework: urban ecosystems, nature-based solutions (NBS), and ES. First, NBS are acknowledged as the ecological assets that in the urban context can provide ES, meant as complex processes made possible through the existence of natural and seminatural systems at various scales. Second, the classification of urban ecosystems needs to be consistent with the treatment of urban areas in ecosystem accounting and with NBS levels of intervention and primary objectives. Third, by serving societal challenges, it is important to clearly frame the strategic drivers of change: whether it concerns management practices of current land use or radical conversions in land use. Finally, once such a framework will be in place, it can facilitate sustainability assessment in urban ecosystems by quantifying the presence of NBS, whose creation/maintenance assure the delivery of ES. The purpose of this chapter is to theoretically frame an ES-based approach, but this is only a first step. Many more steps are required on to concretely put this framework in practice at different administrative levels, such as strategic planning and policy setting (at national level), and urban, peri-urban, and coastal development (at municipal level).

The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which adaptation projects have incorporated ecosystem services, as well as their redesigning options. The projects selected are listed under National Adaptation Programme of Action in West African region.

A desktop survey approach was used to review 168 projects from 13 countries across West Africa. The projects were categorized and analyzed according to their adaptation goal, thematic focus, their implementation duration and level of investment.

The adaptation initiatives are dominated by actions in the agricultural sector accounting for 32 per cent of the total. Further, they were characterized by small grants consideration with 63 per cent falling under US$1m budget, short-term implementation duration with 46 per cent having three years’ execution period. A large portion of projects (55 per cent) mentioned directly one or more ecosystem services, with provisioning services being referred to in 50 per cent of the cases.

Adaptation projects with ecosystem services components are more sustainable and beneficial to the community. Hence, more consideration of nature benefits during project design, more financial consideration and localizing of the projects to realize the global adaptation goal should be considered.

This study provides empirical evidence of the economic valuation of ecosystem services. It examines the willingness-to-pay (WTP) and compensating surplus (CS) in response to policy change based on focus group discussion (FGD) and survey.

A randomized conjoint analysis based experiment was conducted in seven villages of Sundarbans in Bangladesh to elicit stated preference data and measure WTP and CS. Each respondent faced three options in every choice card-two hypothetical alternatives and one status quo scheme. Four alternatives – payment for ecosystem services, storm protection, erosion control and habitat for fish breeding – are randomly and simultaneously assigned to the two alternatives.

The findings suggest that age, income, education, family size and occupational status are the influential factor to choice the relevant attributes of ecosystem services and their levels. Villagers would like to pay annually Tk. 703, Tk. 281, and Tk. 59 for lower, moderate, and higher ecosystem services. With these WTP, they get surplus Tk. 760, Tk. 138, and Tk. 346 respectively.

The lower WTP does not necessarily imply low demand for ecosystem service, as the findings from WTP illustrate potential demand for ecosystem services of Sundarbans.

The study provides an important insight into the ecosystem services and values of Sundarbans mangrove forests for welfare and can inform policy for sustainable use of resources of this forest.

There is a crucial gap in understanding what could villagers be ready for WTP for better ecosystem services of Sundarbans mangrove forest, how do payment based ecosystem services, as a proxy for the conservation of Sundarbans mangrove, and to what extent the policy can be strengthened.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the humanitarian service management categories that influence long-term transformation within complex community-based service ecosystems.

This study utilizes mixed methods to present a dynamic model that provides insight into the complexities of supplying, distributing and transporting charitable resources to underserved communities. The interdisciplinary study draws on the theory of service-dominant logic and service science, presents critical elements of transformative service research and uses system dynamics approach to propose a visual causal loop model.

This study develops a dynamic model for studying humanitarian service and value propositions in underserved communities. This paper combines the extant literature to emphasize key humanitarian service categories that influence, and are influenced by, service exchanges within community-based contexts.

This paper is limited in providing quantitative methods in analyzing the case study data. However, the research is still helpful in providing acumen via the causal loop diagram to specifically look into each variable and see their cause and effect relationships in the community-based ecosystem. The research represents an opportunity to model the humanitarian aid and relief scenarios to help make more effective decision-making interventions.

The model serves as a managerial tool to determine critical services that optimize resource utilization within the community-based service ecosystems. Insights from this research are broadly applicable to the contexts of humanitarian logistics and supply chain management (HLSCM) solutions for community-based ventures.

This paper conceptualizes how the management of service-for-service exchanges, logistics services and charitable donation management provides transformational humanitarian services and value propositions within underserved communities. This study further provides fundamental contributions by addressing research gaps in the HLSCM domain by supporting service research and the community-based context.

Between 2006 and 2016, local communities in semi-arid Bobirwa sub-district in the Limpopo Basin part of Botswana had endured notable fluctuations in the delivery of critical ecosystem services. These changes have been coupled with adverse effects on local people’s livelihood options and well-being. However, a few such studies have focussed on the semi-arid to arid landscapes. This study therefore aims to provide recent knowledge and evidence of consequences of environmental change on semi-arid arid landscapes and communities.

To examine these recent changes in key ecosystem services, the authors conducted six participatory mapping processes, eight key informant interviews and several rapid scoping appraisals in three study villages. The analyses were centred on changes in seasonal quantities, seasonality, condition of ecosystem service sites, distance to ecosystem service sites and total area providing these services. Drivers of change in the delivery of key ecosystem services and the associated adverse impacts on human well-being of these recent changes in bundles of ecosystem services delivered were also analyzed.

Results show that adverse weather conditions, drought frequency, changes in land-use and/or land-cover together with unsustainable harvesting because of human influx on local resources have intensified in the past decade. There was circumstantial evidence that these drivers have resulted in adverse changes in quantities and seasonality of key ecosystem services such as edible Mopane caterpillars, natural pastures, wild fruits and cultivated crops. Similarly, distance to, condition and total area of sites providing some of the key ecosystem services such as firewood and natural pastures changed adversely. These adverse changes in the key ecosystem services were shown to increasingly threaten local livelihoods and human well-being.

This paper discusses the importance of engaging rural communities in semi-arid areas in a participatory manner and how such information can provide baseline information for further research. The paper also shows the utility of such processes and information toward integrating community values and knowledge into decisions regarding the management and utilization of local ecosystem services under a changing climate in data-poor regions such as the Bobirwa sub-district of Botswana. However, the extent to which this is possible depends on the decision makers’ willingness to support local initiatives through existing government structures and programmes.

This study shows the importance of engaging communities in a participatory manner to understand changes in local ecosystem services considering their unique connection with the natural environment. This is a critical step for decision makers toward integrating community values in the management and utilization of ecosystem services under a changing climate as well as informing more sustainable adaptive responses in semi-arid areas. However, the extent to which decision makers can integrate such findings to inform more sustainable responses to declining capacity of local ecosystems in semi-arid areas depends on how they value the bottom-up approach of gaining local knowledge as well as their willingness to support local initiatives through existing government structures and programmes.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems – the inter-related forces that promote and sustain regional entrepreneurship – are receiving intense academic, policymaker and practitioner attention. Prior research primarily focuses on mature entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in large, urban areas. Scholars are slow to examine the functioning of EEs in small towns, which face unique challenges in spurring entrepreneurial activity. Most notably, small town EEs are dependent on a key stakeholder group – local customers – which receives almost no attention in prior research on ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the role of customers in EEs.

This paper integrates work on the service-dominant logic and service ecosystems with entrepreneurship research to theorize about the influence of customers in small town EEs.

The proposed theory draws attention to the role of customers in evaluating the services provided by entrepreneurs and co-creating value in small town EEs. Theory is developed about the influence of three sets of customer characteristics on entrepreneurial activities: the local market potential (based on the number of local and transient customers), customers’ abilities to access the ecosystem (based on income levels) and customers’ preferences for services provided by the ecosystem’s entrepreneurs (based on preferences for innovativeness, local versus global brands and in- versus out-shopping).

Entrepreneurial ecosystems research has implicitly adopted a producer-dominant logic focusing on entrepreneurs and their ventures as the primary creators of value. The proposed theoretical framework applies the service-dominant logic to EEs and conceptualizes EEs as a unique type of service ecosystem. The theorizing generates implications for scholars and practitioners and suggests that more work is needed at the interface of entrepreneurship, marketing and regional economic development.

Human beings are inseparable from the environment because of their dependence on ecosystems and their services (Schroter, 2009). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) identifies ecosystem services as vital links between humans and ecosystems because these services are essential for human well-being, especially in terms of security, basic materials for a good life, health, good social relations, and freedom of choice and action. Ecosystem services include flows of materials, energy, and information from natural resources that combined with manufactured and human resources contribute to human well-being (Costanza et al., 1997). These include provisioning services (e.g., food, fresh water, wood and fiber, fuel), regulating services (e.g., climate, flood and disease regulation, water purification), supporting services (e.g., nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production), and cultural services (e.g., aesthetic, spiritual, educational, and recreational value). The regulating services provided by ecosystems, in particular, are critical for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Ecosystems primarily affect both the probability and the severity of events and modulate the effects of extreme events. For example, soils store large amounts of water, facilitate transfer of surface water to groundwater, and prevent or reduce flooding, and natural buffers reduce hazards by absorbing runoff peaks and storm surges.