Ecosystem services in Wallonie ... What's up?

In Wallonia, a growing amount of projects on ecosystem services (ES) are conducted. These projects implement the ES concept at different spatial scales (ranging from the country scale to the plot scale), focus on some particular ES or consider all of them and finally, rely on one or multiple valuation types (i.e. biophysical, social and economic). With their multiple dimensions they feed each other with reflexions and methods.
The aim of the stand is to give an overview of these ongoing projects taking place in Wallonia. Their similarities and common objectives will be highlighted on posters while their specificities will be presented by means of games, activities, quiz, etc. We hope to stimulate discussions and debates on our methods and results, to foster networking and knowledge exchange. Hereunder, we give a short overview of these projects to give hints on the diversity addressed by our stand.
At the Belgian scale, BELBEES, a project funded by BELSPO, aims to identify the factors responsible for the decline of wild bees. Different hypotheses are tested, including the impact of land-use changes and the reduction of floral resources availability at geographical and temporal scales. The results will allow tracking historical community-level changes in pollination service at a biogeographical scale. Such initiative is a step forward in the perspective of ecosystem service mapping.
In Wallonia, various projects on ES are underway:
Wal-ES, a federating platform between the Walloon administrations and the scientists, aims to create and disseminate decision support tools based on the ecosystem services concept. In order to build the common core for these tools, Wal-ES defines a conceptual framework, an integrated ecosystem services valuation framework and a database regrouping all the information needed to assess ES in Wallonia.
This platform helps to conduct a practical application of its integrated ES valuation framework to land planning at a local scale. This application aims to define a methodology for impact assessment of land-consolidation plans based on ES while testing it on a case study covering three municipalities in Wallonia.
LIFE IN QUARRIES aims to develop biodiversity and ecosystem services in Walloon active quarries. One of its actions is the assessment and the monitoring of ES provided by a quarry regarding the restoration, maintenance and management of the nature undertaken during the project.
BIOECOSYS project is focused on qualitative and quantitative assessment of ecosystem services provided by grasslands according to their management and their territorial context. The field study aims to determine production services under different soils and climatic conditions while the goal of the regional study is the mapping of several ES (production and regulation services).
Other projects focus on a more regional or local scale:
The first one studies the impact of forest cover on regulating services at the regional scale. This study investigates the impact of forest cover on hydrological services (i.e. water supply, water damage mitigation) in terms of quantity, timing and quality. The methods studying the impact of forest cover on water quality and carbon storage regulation service will be presented as well as the results of the impact of forest cover on the quantity and timing aspects.
Secondly, a PhD project is looking at sown wildflower strips in agricultural fields. In the project, it is tested whether increasing the functional diversity of the flower mixtures used in wildflower strips can be a tool to optimize pollination and biodiversity support services.
Another PhD research project is underway, willing to explore the relationships between biodiversity, functional diversity and the delivery of ecosystem services (pest control and pollination) in agricultural landscapes. This project aims at identifying the role of landscape and its ecological infrastructures (mainly Agro-Environment Schemes) on the species and functional traits composition of different arthropods assemblages. We will then link these diversity patterns to the provisioning of the ecosystem services of interest.
Ongoing work also addresses agricultural practices, by analysing the contribution of agroecological farming systems to the delivery of ecosystem services. This project relies on an integrated valuation including both a biophysical and a social valuation.
Focusing on the same fields as the above project, this one attempts to develop an innovative method to assess ecosystem services in agricultural fields by means of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).