The aim is to identify the representations and practices of the populations or actors in a sector. According to Balmford et al., this preliminary phase is important to understand the reasons underlying the interest in ecosystem preservation in human societies. Their relative importance must then be analyzed in order to rank services. It is worth emphasizing that such ranking depends on the classifications used , and that its relevance also depends on the context.The objective of this article is, therefore, to discuss the service identification phase and, in particular, to analyze the survey methods used to identify and rank these services according to the perceptions of those concerned in a given territory.From a methodological viewpoint, this requires a study of the survey protocols concerning the choice of interviewees and the types of questionnaire used.
The choice and the sampling of respondents must reflect the diversity of view points as a function of socio-economic profiles, dutch buckets geographic localization and the statutes and types of structure on which the stakeholders depend. This diversity conditions the identification of the issues associated with services. Rodriguez et al. show that it is only by surveying local users that some services depending on cultural practices can be identified. This paper therefore focuses on survey and questionnaire types and, more specifically, on the differences and complementarities between open questions implying spontaneous answers, and closed questions regarding the ranking of a pre-defined list of services. This ranking can be based on multiple methods. The spontaneous answers require textual analyses in order to define categories. Spontaneous answers have the advantage of not being influenced by information provided during the survey. They better reflect actor representations.
However, they can be influenced by the media or by social networks, as is the case with socially-amplified hazards . The discussion of survey methods is based on the example of ecosystem service identification in pond aquaculture as part of a research project focused on ecological intensification in pond culture in France and Brazil. The inclusion of both French and Brazilian ponds has thead vantage of taking into account cultural differences. We made a literature review based on scientific articles related to methods for the identification of ecosystem services. In many instances, grow bucket the issue of service identification is not addressed. Generally, reference lists of ecosystem services are pre-established by experts. Otherwise, research focuses on the services thought to be determinant in the specific case. Hence, the literature focuses much more on the evaluation of ecosystem services than on their identification.This relative imbalance suggests that there are no methodological problems.
Yet, it is generally accepted that “the relevance of evaluations depends on the performance of the conceptual frameworks which underpin them” . The service selection methods are a crucial phase . Here, we will examine the methods used to identify the relevant services. Table 1 shows the types of survey and processing methods used. Apart from the articles written by Fisher et al. on the definition of services, and by Muradian and Kumar on the usefulness of these approaches depending on the decision-making scale, most research focuses on particular fields. Generally, the teams undertaking the surveys are already familiar with these research fields. The MEA reference frame work is used with no preliminary information on the notion of ecosystem services so as not to bias perceptions.They include focus groups, semi-structured interviews, email surveys, expert workshops, and literature reviews. Apart from email surveys , interviews were limited to relatively small samples: between3 and 12 persons in focus groups, and between 19 and 120 in semi-structured interviews. Almost all the surveys involved service beneficiaries, who may be relevant populations or the stakeholders representing them. The information collected was also analyzed in various ways: qualitative analysis , descriptive statistics , qualitative ranking, and bibliographical analysis. The simplifications and the selections of the services depending on their importance in different contexts meant that between 11 and 16 services were considered. Nearly all the research was inter-disciplinary .