Project ARIES: An Integrated Digital Collaboratory to Support the Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services

佛蒙特州大学和州立农业学院获得了一笔赠款，用于开发ARIES(生态系统服务评估和研究基础设施)，这是一个基于网络的框架，能够指导其用户完成生态系统服务评估的所有阶段。该工具将使用户能够界定感兴趣的地区和社会背景，并通过对现有估值和地理数据的分析，指导他们获得生态系统服务提供评估，并对相应的、直接的和预计的经济价值进行空间上的明确估计。通过协调信息技术和跨学科实地工作，该项目将扩展以前开发的生态系统服务数据库的能力，建立一个专家框架，将生态系统评估和评估知识纳入正式规则。这些规则将提交给用户，并应用于正在进行的案例研究，以帮助创建特定背景下的生态系统服务评估。在普吉特湾、马达加斯加和墨西哥的案例研究将提供发达和未发展的背景，以填充、测试和验证该框架。通过这一框架，该团队将为透明和公平的生态系统服务估值的可持续倡议发展势头。该项目团队包括来自保护国际和地球经济的合作者，这两个组织都是501(C)3非营利性组织。

The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College is awarded a grant to develop ARIES (Assessment and Research Infrastructure for Ecosystem Services), a web-enabled framework capable of guiding its users through all phases of ecosystem services assessment. The tool will allow users to define of an area and social context of interest, and guide them through the analysis of existing valuation and geographical data to obtain an ecosystem service provision assessment, with the spatially-explicit estimation of the correspondent, immediate and projected economic values. Through a coordinated IT and interdisciplinary field effort the project will extend the capability of a previously developed database for ecosystem services with an expert framework that captures knowledge on ecosystem assessment and valuation into formal rules. These rules will be presented to users and applied to ongoing case studies to help creating ecosystem services assessments for specific contexts. Case studies in Puget Sound, Madagascar, and Mexico will provide both developed and undeveloped contexts to populate, test, and validate the framework. Through this framework, the team will develop momentum for a sustainable initiative for transparent and fair ecosystem service valuation. The project team includes collaborators from Conservation International, and Earth Economics, both 501(c)3 not-for-profit organizations.