National assessment of ecosystem services in Russia: Methodology and main problems

The Project TEEB-Russia is the first attempt at a nation-wide assessment of ecosystem services (ES) in Russia. The result of the pilot phase of the project (2013-2015) was the "Prototype National Report on Ecosystem Services of Russia, Volume 1, Terrestrial Ecosystems Services". A methodology for ES assessment was developed with allowance for the current status of the national public statistics. The units of ES assessment were the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. ES volumes supplied by ecosystems and consumed by humans were assessed. A number of productive (provisioning) and environment-forming (regulating) ES were evaluated in terms of quantitative scientific indicators; others were scored in terms of natural and socioeconomic factors that determine the supply and use of ES. The degree to which ES are consumed by humans was assessed by the ratio of supplied ES volumes to consumed ES volumes. The constituents of the Russian Federation were compared with respect to the balance of natural factors determining ES supply and socioeconomic factors determining ES use. Analyses of available data show that a national ES assessment can be started on the basis of the current national system of data collection. The creation of a full national system for assessment and monitoring of ES requires, in the short term, solving the problem of extremely unequal areas of administrative regions, ensuring availability and regular updating of data relevant for ES assessment that are already being collected by federal agencies as well as of the satellite maps of terrestrial ecosystems of Russia, and elaborating models linking ES volume to land cover types for the entire territory of Russia.