QUICKScan: A Pragmatic Approach for Decision Support in Ecosystem Services Assessment and Management

Despite the increasing availability of environmental and socio-economic data and the last generation of process-driven models for ecosystem and ecosystem services (ES) assessment and management, their exploitation and use to support decision - and policymaking is often limited due to issues of scale, knowledge gaps, lack of user-friendly tools and capacities to translate and understand users' demands and needs (Grant et al., 2008; de Groot et al., 2010; TEEB, 2010). More particularly, there is a lack of a decision support toolbox (DST) that specifically considers changes and dynamics in the capacity of ecosystems, from a multi-functional perspective, or that allows decision-makers to explore impacts on ES and alternatives from ecosystem management multi-scale and multi-level perspectives (Winograd, 2010). Understanding and using the concept of ES by decision - and policy-makers is a fundamental step towards their operationalization (Maes et al., 2011). However, this understanding has proved to be rather challenging since it involves connecting and integrating the environmental and economic sciences with the decision-making process (TEEB, 2010). Many potential conflicts/trade-offs or agreements/synergies between ES in multiple sectors and on multiple scales make it difficult to gain a comprehensive view of the impacts of a measure (TEEB, 2010; Maes et al., 2011).