Deliberative mapping of ecosystem services within and around Donana National Park (SW Spain) in relation to land use change

The establishment of protected areas is one of the main strategies for preserving biodiversity from land use transformation. However, a great number of protected areas are becoming isolated due to land use changes in their surroundings. We analyzed quantitatively land use changes from 1956 to 2007 inside and around one of the most emblematic protected areas in Europe, the Donana protected area. Next, stakeholders mapped social values for current ecosystem service delivery with an expert workshop. Using the maps from the workshop, we mapped six ecosystem service spatial indicators: Service Provision Hotspots, Provisioning, Regulating, Cultural, Richness and Decline. Then, we performed nonparametric and multivariate statistical analyses to study the associations between land uses, ecosystem service indicators and protection category. Our results confirm the isolation of the Donana protected area as intense land use changes occurred outside it (increase in irrigated agricultural lands and urbanized areas and decrease in wetlands surface). Furthermore, land uses and the protection category have an effect on ecosystem service delivery as food from agriculture is the main ecosystem service supplied outside the protected area, and regulating and cultural services are mainly delivered inside the protected area. We discuss how the social values for ecosystem services match with previous ecosystem service evaluations that described the existence of conservation versus development planning strategy in the area. Our study highlights the adequacy of the social value approach as a first step toward ecosystem service spatial evaluation.