Jan Staes

University of Antwerp | UA · Department of Biology

Ecological networks of protected areas are critical elements to protect biodiversity. To achieve a minimal performance of such networks, measures and investments are necessary for nature restoration and management. The concept of ecosystem service (ES) can provide additional arguments for investments in ecological networks. However, ES delivery pro...

Intensively used coastal zones often know a history of hard defense structures to prevent erosion and protect infrastructure against floods. The interruption of sand transport between sea, beach and dunes however causes a domination of late successional stages such as dune shrub. With the decline of young, dynamic vegetation types, a change occurs...

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has facilitated the identification, mapping and communication about the many non-marketable benefits of green infrastructure. These benefits are important to consider during a spatial planning process. For spatial prioritisation of sites with a high societal importance, there is need to filter this information...

The ECOPLAN project developed a range of methods and tools that allow to integrate the scientific knowledge of ecosystem services in spatial planning. The ECOPLAN tools can be used at various stages of the planning process (analysis, vision, planning, implementation, evaluation). Tools can often be useful in multiple stages. The ECOPLAN tools have...

This paper describes the methods used to produce accounts for the recreational value of Natura 2000 areas in Flanders, Belgium. First, a biophysical account of recreation supply and demand is compiled and mapped. Demand is based on data for green visits per year per inhabitant and covers both recreation and nature-based tourism. It distinguishes lo...

Voor een duurzaam waterbeheer zijn proactieve maatregelen die de grondwateraanvulling versterken een absolute prioriteit. De watersysteemkaarten bieden de handvaten om de implementatie van maatregelen ruimtelijk te optimaliseren. Op deze manier wordt het mogelijk een systeemperspectief op het functioneren van het watersysteem mee te nemen in het wa...

There is increasing recognition that soils fulfil many functions for society. Each soil can deliver a range of functions, but some soils are more effective at some functions than others due to their intrinsic properties. In this study we mapped four different soil functions on agricultural lands across the European Union. For each soil function, in...

Since the early 2000s, there have been substantial efforts to transform the concept of ecosystem services into practice. Spatial assessment tools are being developed to evaluate the impact of spatial planning on a wide range of ecosystem services. However, the actual implementation in decision-making remains limited. To improve implementation, tool...

De watersysteemkaart is een op topografie gebaseerde set kaartlagen die de meest geschikte lokaties toont om de waterbeschikbaarheid op een natuurgebaseerde manier te versterken. We richten ons op het aanvullen en vasthouden van ondiep bodemwater. Hoe meer en hoe langer we dat bodemwater kunnen vasthouden, hoe meer kans dat het effectief grondwater...

This report provides an overview of landscape-scale spatial prioritisation methods (SPM’s) for ecosystem-based adaptation measures to drought risks. SPM’s are methods that allow to identify priority areas for the conservation or restoration of certain functions on a landscape scale. In PROWATER, priority areas are defined as those areas where a mea...

Despite great advances, experiments concerning the response of ecosystems to climate change still face considerable challenges, including the high complexity of climate change in terms of environmental variables, constraints in the number and amplitude of climate treatment levels, and the limited scope of responses and interactions covered. Drawing...

[OPEN ACCESS] Soil and its ecosystem functions play a societal role in securing sustainable food production while safeguarding natural resources. A functional land management framework has been proposed to optimize the agro‐environmental outputs from the land and specifically the supply and demand of soil functions like: i) primary productivity, ii...

Being open to multiple interpretations allows the ecosystem services concept to operate as a boundary object, facilitating communication and cooperation between different user groups. Yet there is a risk the resultant pluralism limits the capacity of ecosystem services assessments to directly inform decision and policy making, and that the concept...

p>The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has been highly successful in securing the supply of food from Europe's agricultural land. However, new expectations have emerged from society on the functions that agricultural land should deliver, including the expectations that land should regulate and purify water, should sequest...

The Land management Assessment, Research, Knowledge base (LANDMARK) project is a pan European multi-actor consortium that aims to develop a coherent framework for land and soil management for sustainable production across Europe. Soils are a finite resource that provides a range of ecosystem services known as soil functions. Trade-offs between thes...

The deliverable relates to Task 4.1 Quantifying the demand for Soil Functions. The aim of this task is to quantify the demand for soil functions across the EU. For each of the soil functions, WP3 defined proxy indicators that have been investigated at larger scale by this task. For example: denitrification capacity is a (partial) proxy-indicator of...

The deliverable relates to Task 4.2 Quantifying the supply for Soil Functions Functions. The aim of this task is to quantify the potential supply of soil functions at EU level. This is based on:  The large-scale proxy-indicators for each of the soil functions, as identified in WP3  The spatial distribution of soils and soil properties across Euro...

ECOPLAN-SE is een ruimtelijk expliciete tool (QGIS) voor het beoordelen van de impact van landgebruikveranderingen op de levering van ecosysteemdiensten. In deze handleiding wordt ECOPLAN-SE (ECOPLAN - Scenario Evaluator) voorgesteld en het gebruik er van toegelicht. ECOPLAN-SE is een QGIS plug-in die het mogelijk maakt om de impact van verandering...

Agricultural ecosystems provide a range of benefits that are vital to human well-being. These benefits are dependent on several soil functions that are affected in different ways by legislation from the European Union, national, and regional levels. We evaluated current European Union soil-related legislation and examples of regional legislation wi...

With the case of Flanders (northern part of Belgium) we present an integrated approach to calculate accurate losses of wetlands, potentials for restoration, and their ecosystem services supplies and illustrate how these insights can be used to evaluate and support policy making. Flanders lost about 75% of its wetland habitats in the past 50–60 year...

Concerns about the sustained delivery of a multitude of ecosystem services (ESs) are increasingly inspiring land use planners. However, major challenges still remain in the implementation of ESs in day-to-day decision making processes. Currently, geoportals developed using the concepts of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are the preferred way to...

Cycling of nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, is one of the ecosystem services we expect agricultural soils to deliver. Nutrient cycling incorporates the reuse of agricultural, industrial and municipal organic residues that, misleadingly, are often referred to as ‘wastes’. The present review disentangles the processes underlying the cycl...

The trade in soybean, an important animal feed product, exemplifies the environmental and socio-economic impact of global markets and global agricultural policy. This paper analyses the impact of increasing production of soybean in the exporting countries (deforestation and grassland conversion) as well as in importing regions (decrease in permanen...

Monetary value per ecosystem service and land use. (PDF)

Water quality is affected by a complex combination of natural and anthropogenic factors. To assess watershed integrity on a larger scale and for an optimal, cost-effective integrated watershed management, defining linkages between upstream watershed land cover and riverine water quality is essential. A correct upstream area calculation is an absolu...

Ecosystem service research covers a challenging socio-ecological complexity and simultaneously copes with a high policy demand for decision support in sustainable resource management. This stimulates proliferation of pragmatic modeling techniques, such as the “matrix model”: ecosystem service supply is modeled using expert estimations per land use...

Urbanization and especially increases in impervious areas, in combination with the installation of wastewater treatment infrastructure, can impact the runoff from a catchment and river flows in a significant way. These effects were studied for the Grote Nete catchment in Belgium based on a combination of empirical and model-based approaches. Effect...

Although methodologies for classification, quantification, and valuation of ecosystem services are improving drastically, applications of the ecosystem services concept in day-to-day decision-making processes remain limited, especially at the planning level. Nevertheless, spatial planning decisions would benefit from systematic considerations of th...

Studie uitgevoerd in opdracht van: Agentschap Natuur en Bos (ANB/IHD/11/03) door VITO, Universiteit Antwerpen en Universiteit Gent 2013/RMA/R/87 November 2013

Although methodologies for classification, quantification, and valuation of ecosystem services are improving drastically, applications of the ecosystem services concept in day-to-day decision-making processes remain limited, especially at the planning level. Nevertheless, spatial planning decisions would benefit from systematic considerations of th...

The Ecosystem service Bundle Index (EBI) was developed in response to the urgent need for tools that allow rapid and transparent, yet scientific underpinned assessment of ecosystem services. The index is based on a Bayesian network environment in which data on the biophysical conditions and land use properties that drive service delivery are combin...

Benefits of NATURA 2000 in Flanders Type: Presentation Presenting author: Staes Jan1 Otherauthors: Van Der Biest Katrien, Meire Patrick, Broekx Steven, De Nocker Leo, Liekens Inge, Poelmans Lien, Verheyen Kris, Jeroen Panis 1Ecosystem Management Research Group (ECOBE), University of Antwerp, Belgium Contact: jan.staes@ua.ac.be The European NATURA 2...

Urbanization and especially impervious areas, in combination with wastewater treatment infrastructure, can exert several pressures on the hydrological cycle. These pressures were studied for the Grote Nete catchment in Belgium (8.18% impervious area and 3.89% effective impervious area), based on a combination of empirical and model-based approaches...

Assessing the impacts of policies on a wide range of ecosystem services can support the development of cost-effective policies that establish win–win situations across different environmental domains. To explore the quantity and value of ecosystem services, the web-based application “nature value explorer” was developed. The application allows to e...

In densely populated regions such as Belgium where land is a scarce resource, nature areas are under increasing pressure of urban and infrastructural development. Decisions regarding land use changes usually do not fully account for the associated environmental impacts and the related social welfare changes. This paper aims to provide a generic mo...

Integrating the ecosystem service concept into land use planning requires tools that allow rapid and transparent assessment of ecosystem services. The demand for simple indicators has stimulated the emergence of land use based proxy methods. Although these have been very powerful to create policy awareness on different levels, they are insufficient...

STAES, J., WILLEMS Patrick, MARBAIX Philippe, VREBOS Dirk, BAL Kris, MEIRE Patrick.

The European Water Framework Directive requires a good ecological status of the European water bodies and the necessary measures to obtain this have to be implemented. The water quality of a river is the result of complex anthropogenic systems (buildings, waste water treatment infrastructure, regulations, etc.) and biogeochemical and eco-hydrologic...

The impact of climate change on river hydrology and ecology is a subject that receives increasing attention and has strong implication for hydrological, ecological, economic and social policy. Because climate change affects such wide variety of disciplines, pursuing research in this field requires an interdisciplinary approach. There is a need to s...

Identifying the factors determining the non-native species richness (NNSR) in a given area is essential for preventing species invasions. The relative importance of human-related and natural factors considered for explaining NNSR might depend upon both the spatial scale (i.e. the extent of the gradients sampled) and the historical context of the ar...

The paper presents findings of a conjunctive hydrological and ecological study into habitat restoration and catchment hydrology. Physically-based, fully distributed hydrological modelling was coupled with spatial analysis and wetland scenario generation techniques to simulate potential effects of restoring lower, middle, and upper catchment wetland...