Interdisciplinary US-European Workshop on Landscape-Based Cultural Ecosystem Services

政策制定者和普通公众加入了科学家的行列，认识到人类的福祉有赖于维持地球生态系统的健康和活力。这一NSF奖项支持从美国各地挑选出来的10名生态学家、社会科学家和景观规划师与欧洲同事一起参加为期5天的研讨会，致力于促进对文化生态系统服务的科学理解，包括审美和娱乐体验、文化遗产和地方感。文化服务本身就受到美国、欧洲和世界各地人民的高度重视，其特定的起源、构成和表达方式因地区环境和文化历史和背景而略有不同。对文化服务的欣赏在决定人们对旨在保护生态系统和生态进程的政策的态度方面也发挥了核心作用，这些政策提供了基本但往往不那么直观的服务，特别是监管和支助服务。研讨会的主要目标是评估和记录文化生态系统服务的科学状况，特别注意美国和欧洲环境的异同；制定和促进完成所需研究和教育的议程；更好地将文化服务纳入更广泛的生态系统服务科学和政策框架；确定和促进利用公众对其他基本但较不容易受到重视的生态系统和服务的支持的机会。研讨会将汇集来自美国和欧洲的生物物理和社会科学观点，美国和欧洲通常强调自然生态系统和景观价值，欧洲更关注经改良的生态系统及其相关的文化遗产价值。研讨会的主要成果包括合作美国和欧洲跨学科研究项目的具体建议，以满足确定的需求。国际和平协会和维也纳BOKU自然资源和应用生命科学大学的安德烈亚斯·穆哈尔博士正在共同协调研讨会，并计划于2009年11月在奥地利伦茨的瓦瑟克鲁斯特伦兹研究站举行会议。

Policy makers and the general public have joined scientists in recognizing that human wellbeing depends on sustaining the health and vigor of the earth's ecosystems. This NSF award provides support for 10 ecologists, social scientists and landscape planners selected from across the US to participate with European colleagues in a 5-day workshop devoted to advancing scientific understanding of cultural ecosystems services, including aesthetic and recreational experiences, cultural heritage, and sense of place. Cultural services are highly valued in their own right by people in the US, Europe and throughout the world, with the particular origins, compositions and expressions of appreciation being nuanced by regional environmental and cultural histories and contexts. The appreciation of cultural services also plays a central role in determining peoples' dispositions toward policies aimed at protecting ecosystems and ecological processes that provide essential, but often less intuitively appreciated services, especially regulatory and support services. The principal goals of the workshop are to assess and document the state of science for cultural ecosystems services, with specific attention to similarities and differences between US and European contexts; to develop and promote an agenda for accomplishing needed research and education; to better integrate cultural services into the broader ecosystems services science and policy framework; and to identify and facilitate opportunities to leverage public support for other essential but less readily appreciated ecosystems and services. The workshop will bring together bio-physical and social science perspectives from the US, where natural ecosystems and landscape values have typically been emphasized, and Europe, where there has been greater focus on modified ecosystems and their associated cultural heritage values. Key products from the workshop include specific proposals for collaborative US and European interdisciplinary research projects to address identified needs. The PI and his counterpart Dr. Andreas Muhar of the BOKU University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna are coordinating the workshop together and aim to hold the meeting at the WasserKluster Lunz research station in Lunz, Austria in November 2009.