How to quantify spatiotemporal development of riverine ecosystem services? Comment quantifier le développement spatio-temporel des services écosystémiques rivulaires ?

Rivers are complex systems that involve various interacting hydrological, geo-morphological and ecological processes resulting in the provisioning of riverine ecosystem services. The latter are flows of goods and services from ecosystems to society, such as food, timber and drinking water. Quantification of ecosystem services can support environmental impact assessments or scenario analyses for river management. The quantification of ecosystem services requires knowledge of the drivers of riverine landscapes and the linkage of ecosystem services to landscape characteristics. A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the usefulness of contemporary landscape classification systems for quantification of riverine ecosystem services. We identify how ecosystem services can be linked to landscape units in order to assess how management measures affect their succession at various spatiotemporal scales. Some landscape classification systems are already linked to riverine ecosystem services, however, none of these approaches include succession of ecosystem services in relation to management options. Therefore, we recommend to direct future research on mechanistic understanding of drivers of riverine landscape changes in relation to spatiotemporal development of ecosystem services.