An approach to the assessment of regulating agrecosystem services

Abstract

Two different approaches to assess and map the potential of regulating agroecosystem services have been used, the assessment of the potential of regulating agroecosystem services based on a composite index and the assessment of the potential of individual regulating agroecosystem services were used in the Krupina study area. The overall composite index indicates a general overview of the performance of an agrosystem in terms of providing ecocosystem services. Result from our study showed that the composite index accumulates information on soil condition and its ability to perform regulating agroecosystem services, mainly the potential of water regime regulation and cleaning potential of ecosystem. The modeling and evaluation of individual regulating services allows more detailed assessment of regulating agroecosystem services and defiing the sources of variability and spatial differences. Moreover, the methodology developed in this paper is replicable and can be applied by planners if they are profiient in geographic information systems (GIS).