Ecosystem services are the benefits we get from nature. These include a wide range of benefits such as food, energy, clean air and water, regulation of risks (floods, droughts, erosion) and recreation or spiritual benefits.
The Managing Ecosystem Services Evidence Review (MESER) is a literature review of how management interventions affect the provision of ecosystem services, in different habitats. It is an update to the previous Ecosystem Services Transfer Toolkit NECR159, with updated evidence hosted on a webportal (now unavailable).
The user could carry out searches and queries to find evidence of the effects of specific land management actions on the services provided by upland, freshwater, urban, lowland agriculture, coastal and marine habitats.
A series of evidence factsheets created during the original review are available and downloadable below. These summarise the evidence for changes in ecosystem service provision from a land management action in a broad habitat type, for example, increasing urban trees and woodlands.
The findings published may be used by Natural England staff and anyone else involved in making land management decisions, to enable them to manage for ecosystem ser-vices, or understand the consequences of their management actions on ecosystem services. This work built on a pilot phase that looked at the feasibility of developing an evidence toolkit for managing ecosystem services in the uplands.
MESER has subsequently been updated, and the revised framework with data available in a searchable online tool. This has been published as