Dataset of Indicators for the Assessment of Ecosystem Services Affected by Agricultural Soil Management

Abstract

Ecosystem services represent an important concept for assessing the sustainability of agricultural management. However, in practical applications, it can be difficult to find indicators suitable for specific services or specific spatial scales. In order to create a toolbox of indicators for assessing the actual or potential supply of ecosystem services in the context of agricultural land and soil management, we conducted a keyword-based literature review in Web of Science Core Collection and SCOPUS, using the terms ecosystem service AND indicator AND agricultur*. The search was performed in January 2019 and was restricted to journal articles written in English. After eliminating duplicates, we identified 180 articles, out of which 121 met our selection criteria. We extracted information on addressed ecosystem services and indicators which used a full-text review. Where studies used ecosystem service definitions other than the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES V.5.1), indicators were assigned to the corresponding CICES class or classes. We used the information derived from the review to create factsheets for 37 ecosystem services. Each factsheet provides tables with available indicators applicable at multiple spatial scales that range from field to global, information on the type of input data required, and a reference to the article or articles that the indicator was taken from. The dataset provides a toolbox for researchers to find indicators that fit their respective research needs.

Keywords

• ecosystem services
• indicators
• CICES
• agriculture
• soil management
• impact assessment