The ecosystem services concept is s

The ecosystem services concept is strongly based on the approach of de Groot’s “Functions of Nature” (1992), which has predecessors in landscape ecology and planning. For example in the Eastern German landscape literature, landscape functions and landscape potentials have been an important item of research (see Haase & Mannsfeld 2002, Bastian & Steinhardt 2003, Bastian & Schreiber 1999). In the Western German area Marks et al. published their instructions for the evaluation of landscape system performances in 1992. In the global context, the contributions of Costanza et al. (1997) and Daily (1997) have been milestones in ecosystem services research. Nowadays, ecosystem services have become a very popular research theme and a conceptual framework for numerous research projects (e.g. the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; MA 2003). The attractiveness of the approach most likely originates in its integrative character, which supports inter- and transdisciplinary research, linking environmental and socio-economic concepts (Müller & Burkhard 2007). Moreover, today‘s environmental and economic crises and upcoming problems related to environmental degradation and resource depletion make the necessity of new management tools obvious (Vandewalle et al. 2009, Rees 1998, Dailey et al. 2009). From a systems analytical point of view, the concept provides a systematic listing of the most important ecosystem components and processes and the dependence of human societies on them (de Groot 2006). Most studies carried out so far provide very appealing conceptual frameworks and interdisciplinary scientific methods.