Methodological innovations within the RAWES framework for use in development scenarios

Abstract

Built development changes the nature of land and its ecosystems, with diverse ramifications for human well‐being and the resilience of the socioecological system. Robust and replicable approaches are required to assess ecosystem services generated by sites both predevelopment and for evaluation of postdevelopment options, to assess change and to support a paradigm shift from a “do less harm” to a “regenerative” approach. The Rapid Assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Services (RAWES) approach provides an internationally recognized methodology for systemic assessment of the ecosystem services generated by a site, taking account of all ecosystem services and service categories across multiple spatial scales. The RAWES assessments of constituent ecosystem services can be combined into Ecosystem Service Index scores. This article outlines innovations in RAWES methods to assess changes in ecosystem services likely to result from differing development scenarios in the context of a case study site in eastern England. These adaptations of the RAWES approach include revised methods for the analysis of ecosystem service beneficiaries across multiple spatial scales, the establishment of a common baseline against which to compare likely ecosystem service outcomes under a range of development scenarios, and a standardized method for accounting for supporting services through their contributions to other more directly exploited services. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;00:1–12. © 2023 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

The efficacy of biodiversity and ecosystem assessment approaches for informing a regenerative approach to built development

“…• The RAWES+ approach (Cianchi et al, 2023) is an adaptation of the RAWES approach to assessment of ESs adopted by the RAMSAR Convention (RRC-EA, 2020). RAWES+ uses a semiquantitative approach to capture and integrate different types of knowledge, both qualitative and quantitative, appropriate to the differing value systems through which ESs in the four Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ( 2005) categories (provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting) are realized.…”

“…); as outlined below, the RAWES+ modification doing this for each of the range of geographical scales over which benefits and/or disbenefits are realized. The modified RAWES+ methodology is described in Cianchi et al (2023). Relative significance scores can be statistically transformed (as outlined below) and summed to calculate an Ecosystem Service Index (ESI) score.…”

“…Rapid Assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Services+ (RAWES+). The RAWES+ approach follows the same principles and aims as the RAWES approach, but has been modified for measuring the change in ES provision over a regime change, such as that caused by development of a site (Cianchi et al, 2023). RAWES has been designed to provide a qualitative assessment of a "comprehensive range of wetland ecosystem services" (RRC-EA, 2020) on a systemic basis (McInnes & Everard, 2017).…”

“…Unlike BNG, the EBN Tool, and the NATURE Tool, RAWES+ assesses ES benefits across each of multiple spatial scales defined at the set-up phase by assessors (Cianchi et al, 2023). RAWES+ assessment of the Dickinson's Field site used four spatial scales: site, local, national, and global.…”