Mapping the natural heritage as a source of recreation services at national scale in Bulgaria

Abstract

Natural heritage includes natural features or natural areas of outstanding universal value. At a national level, this value refers to the importance of ecosystems which can be considered as the spatial units representing the natural heritage of the particular area in terms of their values to people. Nature-based outdoor recreation represents an important service that interests millions of people and contributes to connecting them to nature, but it may also cause negative impacts in the form of pollution, erosion and habitats loss. We apply the ESTIMAP recreation model which provides a framework for a spatially-explicit assessment of local outdoor recreation and use it to identify and assess the natural heritage as a source of recreation services at a national level in Bulgaria. At the first stage of the study, we identify the natural heritage and the data sources to represent it in a spatially-explicit way. Then, we apply the module for recreation potential to assess the potential of the natural heritage to provide a recreation ecosystem service. At the third stage, the accessibility of the natural heritage is assessed in order to specify how the potential identified at the previous step can be really used. Finally, the recreation potential and accessibility are integrated into the recreation opportunity spectrum in order to develop the maps representing the ecosystem service supply provided by the natural heritage. The results are presented in form of a recreation potential map that reveals the capacity of natural heritage to provide the recreation potential, map of the accessibility of the natural heritage and map of the recreation opportunity spectrum representing the combination between the first two maps. The maps will be used for the development of an innovative geospatial platform designed to facilitate the access of the Bulgarian natural heritage to the European common knowledge and innovation markets. The results on the accessibility and recreation opportunity spectrum contribute to the development of the model in areas which were not covered by previous applications at the EU scale.

A methodological framework for mapping and assessment of ecosystem services provided by the natural heritage in Bulgaria

“…They are applicable predominantly at local level, but there are also some indicators which can be supplied by data at national level. For instance, the assessment of the outdoor recreation can be assessed at national level using freely available data and the application of the ESTIMAP model (Ihtimanski et al, 2020).…”

“…It refers to the importance of ecosystems, biodiversity, and geodiversity for their existence value and incorporates both biotic and abiotic elements. Thus, the ecosystems can be considered the spatial units representing the NH of the particular area in terms of their values to people (Ihtimanski et al 2020). The NH can be related mainly to cultural services, such as outdoor recreation, tourism, cultural heritage, aesthetic experiences, but also to some regulating services, such as maintenance of habitats and local climate regulation as well as to some provisioning services such as water supply and crop production.…”

Development and state of the art of landscape science in Bulgaria

“…This lead to a new interna tional scientific collaborations and a series of pub lications, most notable of which are connected with regional studies and ecosystem valuation (Nedkov 2011;Nedkov and Burkhard 2012) as well as novel methods for mapping ecosystem services (Burkhard et al 2012). The research and assessment of the eco system services are mainly concerned in the moun tain areas of the country, although several researches are accomplished in municipalities with more diverse landscapes (Nedkov et al 2018a), in urban land scapes (Nedkov et al 2018b), and for natural herit age on national level (Ihtimanski et al 2020). Some of these studies are included in comparative analysis of case studies in EU and allow involving Bulgaria in intensive international exchange of theory, methods and policy in the field of ecosystem services (Geneletti et al 2020).…”

Mapping of ecosystems in Bulgaria for the needs of natural heritage assessment

“…Ecosystems incorporate biotic and abiotic elements (i.e. biodiversity and geodiversity) and can be considered as the spatial units which can represent the NH of a particular area in terms of their values to people (Ihtimanski et al 2020). Ecosystems mapping is the spatial delineation of ecosystems following an agreed-upon ecosystems typology, which strongly depends on the mapping purpose and scale (Maes et al 2013).…”