A multidisciplinary critical review of ecosystem services studies in Greece: approaches, shortcomings and the pathway to implementation

During the last two decades, ecosystem services (ES) research is used to inform the various steps of decision- and policy- making process, regarding environmental management, spatial planning and natural capital accounting. In the EU, this vast and rapid publication boom was triggered by the enactment of Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, urging Member States to implement Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem and their Services (MAES); few countries pioneered, while others are still lagging behind. In Greece, the implementation of MAES started in 2014 and since then an impressive progress has been made, with Greece now being among the countries with the most rapid progress. However, there are still major knowledge and data gaps on ecosystem services in Greece; know-how on specific methods, tools and practices is still to be developed. This poses obstacles in integrative efforts to identify and/or interpret the various co-variates affecting ecosystems and their services in space and time and hinders the incorporation of the ES generated information into the decision-making process. Making the first steps towards overcoming these hurdles, the present study aims to (i) synthesize the ecosystem services literature relevant to the ES implementation in Greece, (ii) validate and classify each literature source to the relevant ecosystem services categories, (iii) identify shortcomings in terms of ES assessed and data available, and (iv) critically review the variety of approaches to ES assessments that are followed. The outcomes of this study will facilitate the efficient implementation of ecosystem services assessments in Greece.