Mengist et al.

Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13717-020-00241-w

REVIEW Open Access

A global view of regulatory ecosystem

services: existed knowledge, trends, and
research gaps
Wondimagegn Mengist1,2*, Teshome Soromessa2 and Gudina Legese Feyisa2

Abstract
Ecosystem services (ES) are growing fields of research. It helps to provide an inherent way to understand the
synergy and trade-offs between human beings and their natural environment. Regulatory ecosystem services (RES)
are significantly important to maintaining the world in which people can live, and control the negative effects of
flood, disasters, and diseases. It can also provide regulatory services like ecosystem protection, human safety, and
the provision of other ES. However, emerging ES decision-making agendas focus on ES that is tangible and has a
direct link with human well-being. Thus, the attention given to RES is low due to its less tangible benefits and
complexity to measure the benefits. Disregarding and lack of attention from policymakers and scientific community
may lead to unintended risks to human well-being and significant influences on the provision of other ES. This
study describes the research trends on RES, knowledge generated, and the major limitation. We concluded that
though there is an exponential growth of scientific publications on ES, no adequate studies were found on RES.
Also, the existed studies varied in their size and types of RES indicators covered, habitats/ecosystems, and
geographic extent addressed. There was also a lack of connecting knowledge generated on the benefits of RES
with the national policy of natural resource management, inconsistency of ES classification, and methodological
diversity. Therefore, scientific communities are promoted to link RES studies with human health. Besides, the
researcher should give priority for the least studied ecosystems and its services, developing robust methodology,
and proposing management options to enhance the regulatory services of ecosystems.
Keywords: Ecosystem, Ecosystem service indicators, Less tangible benefits, Regulatory ecosystem services, Research
trend, Undervalued services

Introduction communities, and economies (Boyd and Banzhaf 2007)

Ecosystem services (ES) are all the benefits which human and helps to maintain the conditions of life on earth
can derive from the natural ecosystems for their phys- (Deal et al. 2012). Healthy functioning ecosystems have
ical, social, and economic well-being (Costanza et al. wide-ranging importance for human health by providing
1997; Daily 1997; MA 2005). Currently, the term ES is benefits like food, building materials, medicines, climate
popular in contemporary scientific research and policy regulation, disease prevention, provision of clean air,
agenda (Braat and de Groot 2012; Fisher et al. 2009; water, soils, and landscape for cultural services and spir-
Seppelt et al. 2011). This is because ES is highly valuable itual purpose (Daily 1997; Deal et al. 2012; MA 2005; Vo
(Costanza et al. 1997) and beneficial to families, et al. 2012).
Over the years, several typologies have emerged to
* Correspondence: [email protected]
1
categorize ES. These were frameworks developed by Mil-
Department of Natural Resource Management, Debre Berhan University,
lennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005), The Eco-
Debre Berhan, Ethiopia
2
Center for Environmental Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, nomics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, and The
Ethiopia

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Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 2 of 14

Common International Classification of Ecosystem Ser- making processes because more attention is given to ES
vices (CICES) in 2010 (Haines-Young and Potschin that has more evident links with human well-being
2011). Therefore, we prefer to use MA framework to (Sutherland et al. 2018; Villamagna et al. 2013). Besides,
structure our study analysis, because the framework is RES is “process-driven,” and data required to assess and
flexible and the most commonly used approach to evalu- evaluate the services at large scale were unavailable and
ate ES in this study and others (e.g., Liquete et al. 2013; become a bottleneck to mainstreaming into the policy-
Mengist et al. 2019a; Talbot et al. 2018; Weitzman making agenda (Villamagna et al. 2013). There were also
2019). Based on the ES framework developed by MA in weak efforts to adequately connect regulating services
2005, the variety of ES benefits to humans can be with policymaking and ES assessment frameworks
grouped into four classes: provisioning, regulating, cul- (Sutherland et al. 2018).
tural, and supporting services. Regulating ecosystem ser- As a result of those challenges, RES becomes impeded
vices (RES) are defined as “the benefits obtained from from sufficiently considered in environmental decision-
the regulation of ecosystem processes” (MA 2005). It making processes. Thus, according to Sutherland et al.
comprises the various ways whereby the ecosystems (2018), the ES management approach that ignores RES
regulate the natural environments. It helps to reduce the may bring “management trade-offs” that cause unsuit-
impacts and effects emanated from both natural and an- able environment for human health and favoring provi-
thropogenic activities that cause risk to human health sioning ES over RES that in turns induced pressure on
and ecosystem quality. RES, therefore, protect the nat- the ecosystems. These also result in the undervaluing of
ural environment using mechanisms like water purifica- ES and fail to fully understand the entire environmental
tion and waste treatment, air quality maintenance, soil and economic trade-offs (Keeler et al. 2012).
erosion control, flood protection, climate regulation, pest There were various review works on assessing and
and disease regulation, pollination, and regulation of fre- evaluating the state of the art of the ES. Just to list some
quency and intensity of natural hazards’ flow (Kandziora of them: on ecosystem services in general (Seppelt et al.
et al. 2013; MA 2005; Smith et al. 2013; Sutherland et al. 2011), on trends of ES research (McDonough et al.
2018; Villamagna et al. 2013). Further, RES has a signifi- 2017), on regulating ecosystem services (Sutherland
cant effect on the provisioning capacity of other ES et al. 2018), mapping ES value (Burkhard et al. 2012;
(Boyd and Banzhaf 2007). Martínez-Harms and Balvanera 2012), the role of agri-
RES is grouped either in the final ES like climate regu- culture in ES (Tancoigne et al. 2014), economic valu-
lation and natural hazard or in a significant leading to ation (Laurans et al. 2013), ecosystem services in
final ES such as water quantity and purification. Some landscapes (Englund et al. 2017), cultural ES (Milcu
other is primary or intermediate ES which includes pol- et al. 2013), ES integration with conservation (Egoh et al.
lination, disease, and pest regulation (Watson et al. 2007), with limited geographical areas, i.e., in Latin
2011). Regulation services of natural hazards, for in- America (Balvanera et al. 2012), and Africa (Wangai
stance, flood regulation, are determined by the hydro- et al. 2016), a meta-analysis of some key terrestrial regu-
logical system (Stürck et al. 2014). Climate regulation is latory ES (Viglizzo et al. 2016), and trends of forest ES
a final ES and includes absorbing greenhouse gases, en- (Mengist and Soromessa 2019). However, neither of the
hancing evapotranspiration for rainfall occurrence, and above studies so far addresses a detailed bibliographic
controlling a surface albedo. This can extend from local review, spatial distribution, trends of indicator services
to global scale regulatory services and has significant im- and ecosystems, and gap on RES studies. Thus, we de-
pacts on human well-being (Smith et al. 2013). Disease cided that it is important to provide information on the
and pest regulation is an intermediate ES, and pollin- overall trends of RES research on a global scale. Also,
ation is a primary or intermediate ES that has direct im- the study can help researchers to identify the least and
pacts on human well-being. It has large impacts by the most addressed indicators and its ecosystems, the
affecting the provisioning services like crops, plants, and types of challenges that the researchers were encounter-
livestock which are the main sources of food for humans ing, and the gaps that needed further research works.
(Watson et al. 2011). Since ES provides a variety of benefits to human well-
Despite those benefits, RES is often less acknowledged being, having a scientific output on ES can help to mo-
and undervalued by people due to their less tangible tivate policymakers to work towards reversing ecosys-
benefits (Kandziora et al. 2013; Sutherland et al. 2018). tems from further degradation. Although human
It has difficulties measuring its contribution to human wellbeing is the core issue in ES, the existence of rapid
safety because RES provides indirect benefits to human population growth, economic growth, change in human
well-being through maintaining the quality of the envir- consumption patterns, and climate change adversely af-
onment in a real sense which is critical services to the fects the ES services. Accordingly, ES assessment is im-
society. These caused RES to be overlooked in decision- portant to broaden the knowledge on ES, to raise the
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 3 of 14

awareness level, and to be an agenda from global to the Literature searching terms
local level (Alamgir et al. 2014; Fagerholm et al. 2016). The following syntax was used: TITLE-ABS-KEY (“cli-
This study, therefore, formulated specific research ques- mate regulation” OR “air quality” OR “water regulation”
tions. These were as follows: (1) What is state-of-the-art OR “erosion regulation” OR “pest regulation” OR “pol-
in RES? (2) Which RES indicator(s) had the highest and lination”) AND TITLE (“regulating ecosystem service”
the least number of studies? (3) What are the current OR “regulating service” OR “regulatory ecosystem ser-
challenges impairing RES studies? and (4) What are the vices” OR “regulatory services”). As shown in Table 1,
lessons learned and the way forward for ecosystem stud- the search terms had run in separate or with limited
ies related to regulatory services? combinations that considered the requirements, or limi-
The aim of the article is to provide an overall picture tations, of the database used.
of trends of RES studies, give a comprehensive evalu-
ation of the approaches used for ES assessment, map the Article selection criteria
conducted studies, and identify the gaps to be filled by Article selection followed sequential assessment steps.
future research works. Therefore, the work helps to de- First, document abstracts were scanned to ensure the
fine the status quo and deepen the trend analysis using papers broadly addressed the following selection criteria,
related research papers. To that aim, the review ad- and if the papers did not meet the criteria, the papers
dressed the following specific objectives: were excluded. The literature from the databases was
searched based on the following fixed set of inclusion
– To analyze the state of the research trends on RES criteria:
and the coverage of that published knowledge
– To identify the most and the least studied (i) The literature should address at least one service
ecosystems and their regulatory ES indicators from regulatory ecosystem services.
– To analyze and highlight the main research gaps and (ii) The predefined keywords should exist as a whole at
pinpoint the way forward least in the title, keywords, or abstract section of
the paper.
(iii)The paper should be published in a scientific peer-
Methodology reviewed journal between 2005 and the cutoff date
Data sources on April 18 of 2019. This period of time was linked
The approach followed the literature search protocol of with the work of MA report, and the terms ecosys-
the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews tem and ecosystem services were consistently used.
and Meta-Analyses (Moher et al. 2010). The review can- (iv) The paper should be written in the English
not be an exhaustive search of the literature, though it language. Next, the selected papers were then
covers the largest parts of the related literature on the subjected to further analysis.
topic. The study covers limited databases such as Scopus,
ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. To guarantee the ac- Data collection
curacy, this work was based on analytical processes from Basic information was extracted from 46 articles that
the framework of search (related articles from the identi- cover the types of ES studied and their indicators (like
fied databases), appraisal (include articles that include climate regulation and erosion control); methods of
RES or regulating services on their title), synthesis (down- quantification/mapping, i.e., biophysical or economic
load and read the articles to include publications that terms; and the ecosystem types (forest ecosystem, water-
cover at least one RES indicator), and analysis (extracting shed, agricultural land, and the like). The data were or-
useful data from the included articles) (SALSA), which ganized on the general characteristics of the articles and
was applied by most reviews (Grant and Booth 2009; Mali- on the specific parameters used to value/quantify/map
nauskaite et al. 2019; Mengist et al. 2019a; Perevochtchi- the ES. The general information of the articles includes
kova et al. 2019). The aim was to reduce the risk related the year of publication, analysis types (quantitative,
to publication bias and to increase the scientific validity of qualitative, mapping, or mixed), types of study and scale,
the review work (Mengist et al. 2019b). numbers of ES assessed, and country/region where the
Before the actual systematic review search, a pilot study was conducted, whereas the rest of the publication
literature search was done to refine the searching key- was used for generating existed knowledge and trends of
words to cover the targeted ES (Howe et al. 2014). research on the topic.
The articles were peer-reviewed journals from the
three data sources, and searches were finalized in Data analysis and presentation
April of 2019. The data from the final list of selected articles were
summarized to identify and qualitatively assess the
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 4 of 14

Table 1 Searching outputs from ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Google Scholar database of time span 2005 to April of 2019
Searching terms No. of research articles
ScienceDirect Scopus Google Scholar: Advanced search
Main searching terms Regulating ecosystem services or regulating 521 893 75 articles, books and book chapters, proceedings,
services or regulatory ecosystem services or and theses by putting the searching terms in the
regulatory services quotation.
Title-abs-key Climate regulation 282 231
Water regulation 455 198
Erosion regulation 55 85
Disease regulation 28 11
Pest regulation 39 6
Pollination 117 3
Both Scopus and ScienceDirect databases constitute more publications on climate and water regulation services, but ScienceDirect also had large publications on
pollination services

current knowledge on RES, spatial scale and ecosystems, Liquete et al. 2013; Mengist and Soromessa 2019).
type of assessments used, and gaps observed. The sys- Mainly after the publication of the MA report in 2005,
tematic review also captures the state of the research for the scientific community was inspired to conduct studies
policy implication and implementation and the kinds of on the various benefits of ecosystems for human well-
scientific research needed in the future from various dis- being. This indicates the existence of an academic inter-
ciplines that have interest and capability to conduct est in ES studies so as to inform policymakers to design
research. strategies to use ecosystems sustainably. Relatively, the
publication size on RES was not large, for example, pub-
Results lications indexed in the Scopus database that addressed
Research trends in ecosystem service RES were eight in 2005 and reached 100 in 2018 (Fig. 1).
The literature search result depicts that recently, there
were enormous scientific publications on the field of ES RES indicators and spatial distribution of the selected
on diverse ecosystem types. Until the publication of arti- studies
cles on ES, for instance, Costanza et al. (1997) and Daily Compared to the total number of publications indexed
(1997), the concept and application of ES in the scien- in the Scopus database, only some of them contain the
tific sphere were limited (Weitzman 2019). Since 2010, phrase “regulating ecosystem services”/“regulating ser-
the number of publications had increased exponentially vices”/“regulatory ecosystem services” or “regulatory ser-
though few publications on ES existed before 2010. This vices,” in their title or abstract and keywords. Beyond
is a common trend in ES research, and the possible rea- that, only a few of them focus on the quantification/
son would be emerging of specific journals on ES in the mapping/valuing of one or more RES indicators, and the
mid-2000s and the existence of seminar and workshop majority of works were general assessments. Results
at international level on ES (Costanza et al. 2017; were generally given as the absolute number from the

Fig. 1 The number of papers published annually from 2005 to April 2019. a Publication trends on ES. b Publication trends on regulatory
ecosystem services
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 5 of 14

selected case studies, followed by the percentage share IPEBS in 2012, and the existence of a seminar on ES at
of case studies in parentheses. From the 46 publications the international level.
sourced for this meta-synthesis, 27 (58.7%) discussed a There is a diversity of ES classification that causes dif-
single RES, eight (17.4%) studied two RES, seven (15.2%) ficulties and inconvenience in the comparison between
discussed three RES, and four (8.7%) papers included different studies (Fletcher et al. 2011). Besides, there
four RES. The majority of the publications merged dif- were difficulties to match the RES indicators used by
ferent indicators of ES with other functional groups like some studies with the classification of MA (2005). How-
provisioning, cultural, and supporting services. ever, this challenge was overcome, except for the uncate-
Figure 2 describes the spatial distribution of regulating gorized service, as follows. As shown in Table 2, ES such
ecosystem service studies. The 46 studies were con- as “flood regulation,” “bird predation of herbivorous in-
ducted in six continents: in Asia (12 studies), Europe (19 sects,” and “cyclone regulation” were grouped under nat-
studies), Africa (9 studies), Australia (1 study), North ural hazard regulation. Also, “carbon storage,” “carbon
America (4 studies), and South America (1 study). The sequestration,” “climate regulation,” “micro-climate
study represented 26 countries except for the four stud- regulation,” “temperature,” “thermal comfort of inhabi-
ies that were conducted at the regional level in Europe tants,” and “urban heat islands” were categorized under
that cover more than one country. The selected studies climate regulation in this paper classification. The previ-
had covered nine, seven, five, and three countries from ous classification by Liquete et al. (2013) incorporates
Europe, Africa, Asia, and America, respectively, and “weather regulation” as an independent of climate regu-
Australia had a single study. This diverse geographic lation considering their scale, processes, and
focus and being conducted at various spatial scales sug- beneficiaries.
gest an understanding that RES is relevant for ecosys-
tems and human health. The selected case studies Current knowledge on regulating services
covered small areas of the world and were not enough The services mentioned by the selected 46 papers were
to cover the various indicators of RES. Even though grouped into those in which the services belong. Based
small, the literature on RES has been growing steadily on the indicators of RES, most of the literature ad-
over the last few years. All the selected publications had dressed climate regulation services that had 25 cases
got published since 2010, and the possible reason might followed by natural hazard regulation, water regulation,
be the subsequent publication of TEEB in 2010, the and erosion regulation by 12, 10, and 9 cases,

Fig. 2 The distribution of RES case studies globally based on study location (N = 46 studies which specified a geographic location). The
publications on RES that were published from 2005 to 2019 demonstrate a broad spread across the globe, with a relatively notable concentration
of studies in Europe and Africa
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 6 of 14

Table 2 The correspondence of the classification of RES proposed in this paper with other previous research work classifications
This paper (MA 2005) (Liquete et al. 2013) (Beaumont et al. 2007)
Water quality and purification Water purification and waste treatment Water purification Bioremediation of waste
Nutrient cycling Nutrient cycling
Air quality regulation Air quality regulation Air quality regulation Gas and climate regulation
Natural hazard regulation Natural hazard regulation Coastal protection Disturbance prevention
Water flow regulation Water regulation
Erosion regulation Erosion regulation
Soil/sediment retention
Climate regulation, micro-climate, carbon storage, Climate regulation Climate regulation Gas and climate regulation
and sequestration, urban heat islands
Noise reduction Weather regulation
Nutrient cycling Nutrient cycling Ocean nourishment Nutrient cycling
Pollination Pollination Life cycle maintenance Biological mediated habitat
Pest regulation Pest regulation Biological regulation N/A
Disease regulation Disease regulation
ES such as “carbon storage,” “carbon sequestration,” “climate regulation,” “micro-climate regulation,” “temperature,” “thermal comfort of inhabitants,” and “urban
heat islands” in this paper has been grouped under climate regulation

respectively. However, none of the studies covers the From the selected 46 number of literature, the total
pollination services of ecosystems (see Fig. 3). A study in number of indicators of RES addressed was summed up
the USA by Brainard et al. (2016) assessed the pest regu- 75. Multiple RES indicators were taken from a single
latory services, and Inkoom et al. (2018) studied pest study when they represent each indicator separately, and
and disease regulation services on a terrestrial landmass according to Brander et al. (2013), this is one of the pe-
in Ghana. A study by Bicking et al. (2018) on a mapping culiar characters which a meta-analysis should control.
of nutrient regulating ecosystem service by using the nu- Except for a single study, the rest of the case studies
trient nitrogen is an example in Germany. The study were categorized into either of the indicators in RES.
used a local and regional scale study site to infer the The uncategorized study was a study by Davies et al.
conclusion on the spatial scale effect of nutrient RES. (2017) in Britain on urban trees. It was a general study
The study determined the existence of a regional differ- and tried to address and identify constraints and drivers
entiation on the supply and demands of nutrient to apply the ecosystem service approach to urban forest
regulation. management by British local authorities. As a result, the

Fig. 3 The number of case studies and RES indicators based on MA 2005 classification. Based on indicators of RES, climate regulation and natural
hazards were relatively well studied, whereas the pollination, pest, and disease regulation services were the least studied. Based on the studied
ecosystems, urban and forest ecosystems had more case studies compared to sea/marine, wetlands, and grazing lands
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 7 of 14

study did not address a single indicator from RES to de- covered by their work, the smallest size was 7.2 ha in
rive a conclusion. Turkey at the urban garden site for the assessment of car-
Based on the ecosystem type, the urban ecosystem had bon storage and sequestration and runoff retention (Hep-
20 number of case studies of which more than half cover can and Hepcan 2018), and the largest area coverage was
climate regulatory services that include urban heat, 139 million hectares of lands in China to study water and
temperature, microclimate, carbon storage, and seques- climate regulation in alpine grassland ecosystem (Pan
tration. Climate regulation service was well studied in et al. 2014). This infers that most of regulatory ecosys-
the urban ecosystem than any other. The next landscape tem service indicators were studied at small-scale areas
type was the forest that had 15 case studies of which cli- with the main aim of producing site-specific knowledge
mate regulation and natural hazard regulation services and information on the valuing and mapping of the
were relatively well addressed (see Fig. 3 and Table 3). ecosystem types.
On the other hand, the less studied ecosystems were sea During the review, the only continent that had studies
and marine ecosystems, grazing lands, and wetlands. covering the entire geographic space was Europe with
Such ecosystem site needs scientific studies to evaluate/ three studies. The first study was on mapping the flood
quantify/map the various regulatory ecosystem services regulation services in Europe to provide spatial analysis
that the ecosystems have had to the well-being of human on its demand and supply side by Stürck et al. (2014).
society. Thus, the result from different categories of RES The second was a study by Stürck et al. (2015) on regu-
is underpinning the existence of confusion between pri- lating ecosystem services that consider the role of past
ority and sensitivity to human well-being. and future land use change across time and space. They
The RES studies had various variables of interest (Fig. 4), studied the effect of historic land use land cover change
and numerical crosses were made between the scale of the on the supply and demand of RES, except Croatia. The
study site and the ecosystem. The classification of study size third was by Larondelle et al. (2014) on mapping the di-
scale was done by modifying the Martínez-Harms and Bal- versity of regulating ecosystem services in European cit-
vanera (2012). It was concluded that 34 (73.9%) of the pa- ies. The study analyzed the provision of ecosystem
pers were conducted at local (watershed, river catchment, services in 301 large urban zones from 27 European
cities) scale, eight (17.4%) papers at a national level (cover- countries.
ing the whole geographic area of a country), and four As shown in Fig. 5, in terms of year of publication, the
(8.7%) papers at regional (studies covering the whole con- selected literature includes publication which started in
tinent or more than one country administrative areas) scale. 2011, even if the search was between 2005 and April of
In addition, the total areal extent of the study used for the 2019. There was no publication included in the final se-
assessment of RES was a range from small size to a larger lected papers that cover the period from 2005 to 2010.
size ecosystem area in hectares. For instance, from the se- The smallest number of publications was recorded in
lected studies, which clearly defined the total study area 2011, 2012, and 2013, whereas the largest publication
Table 3 Overview of different RES indicators in urban and forest ecosystems studied by the selected papers
Ecosystems RES indicators Scale Purpose Sources
Urban Climate regulation Local To generate site specific (Almeida et al. 2018; Coskun Hepcan and
(carbon storage and knowledge Hepcan 2018; Giedych and Maksymiuk 2017;
sequestration; urban Kong et al. 2016; Marando et al. 2019; Richards
heat islands) and Edwards 2017; Scholz et al. 2018)
Regional Policy implication (Larondelle et al. 2014)
Natural hazard (flood Local To generate site-specific (Wang et al. 2019)
and cyclone regulation) knowledge
Methodological development (Nedkov and Burkhard 2012)
For policy implication (Davies et al. 2017)
Air quality and water Local To generate site-specific (Almeida et al. 2018; Giedych and Maksymiuk 2017;
regulation knowledge Manes et al. 2016; Wang et al. 2019)
Forest Climate regulation Local-national- To generate site-specific (Alamgir et al. 2016; Ghazi et al. 2018; Stürck et al. 2015)
(carbon sequestration, regional scales information and knowledge
micro-climate
regulation)
Air quality and water Local to national To generate site-specific (Alamgir et al. 2016; Ghazi et al. 2018; LoTemplio et al.
regulation scale information and knowledge 2017)
Natural hazard (flood At country level To generate site-specific (Alamgir et al. 2016; Oka et al. 2019)
and cyclone regulation) information and knowledge
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 8 of 14

Fig. 4 The number of studies across scale levels and ecosystems

number was in 2016 and 2018. In sum, the number of estimation, and the rest used percentages, scoring, and
the publication including the term regulating/regulatory for the socio-cultural value of ES to society. It was the
ecosystem services in the title of the articles was most common (48%) followed by research works that in-
insignificant. tegrated both biophysical and economic/monetary terms
(22%), to quantify either singular or multiple ecosystem
Regulatory ES: study approaches and methods services.
Several distinct types of RES studies can be distin- In terms of data types, 22 studies (47.8%) used mixed
guished. It can be broadly categorized into RES assess- data of primary and secondary sources; thirteen studies
ments at specific sites using modeling and valuation, (28.3%) and eleven studies (23.9%) used primary and sec-
review and theoretical papers for conceptual develop- ondary data types, respectively. Thus, less than 30% of
ment, and methodological papers for checking ap- the studies derived their results using primary data of
proaches, testing, and developing methods. RES studies field observations or actual measurements, whereas
involve various kinds of methods to quantify values and nearly one-fourth based their results on secondary data.
map the service. The common techniques employed by Figure 7 represents the category of the selected pub-
researchers were either biophysical or integrating bio- lished articles based on the purposes of the research
physical and economic/monetary terms (Fig. 6). The bio- conducted. Most of the studies, which constitute 78.3%,
physical method refers to the value of the ecosystem in were for the generation of site-specific knowledge on
tons per hectare estimation, monetary terms like finan- various indicators of RES across different landscapes.
cial benefits and/or costs per hectare and year However, few studies had a research purpose for

Fig. 5 The number of studies of the selected literature based on study scale and year of publications
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 9 of 14

papers, respectively (Fig. 8). According to Grêt-Regamey

et al. (2013), uncertainty in ES valuation and quantifica-
tion has a significant impact on the amount of the pre-
dicted value. For instance, in a study in Landschaft Davos
on carbon sequestration, uncertainties caused a change in
its total value by 48% (Grêt-Regamey et al. 2013).

Discussion
Spatial distribution and focus area of RES studies
The study result revealed that research on RES has shown
more concentration in Europe and Asia which together
shared more than two-thirds from the total selected papers.
In agreement with another review on ecosystem services, at
individual country level, China had shared the largest num-
Fig. 6 Methods of assessments used by the selected publications ber of publications and the result was in agreement with
the study of Luederitz et al. (2015), but she ranked next to
the USA in Seppelt et al. (2011) review work. The number
methodological assessment and development, main- might be larger than this if the review work covers publica-
streaming ecosystem services with policy agenda, and tion from the Chinese language. Because China had a jour-
recommending management options to maintain both nal (Shengtai Xuebao/Acta Ecologica Sinica) that published
the quality and quantity of the benefits of the given eco- a number of articles on urban ecosystem services (Luederitz
system service to human well-being. et al. 2015). A meta-analysis and systematic review work
that excluded publications of non-English language may
Gaps and difficulties observed in RES studies miss important research findings.
The majority of the selected studies, namely 28 papers Ecosystems provide multiple ES to human beings (Lee
(60.9%), had not explicitly mentioned the difficulties and and Lautenbach 2016). Regardless of the reason behind the
limitations in their study. However, they either recom- abundance of studies on urban and forest ES (Table 3), the
mend the need to conduct another study or their study result indicates that they play an important role in human
is the first in its kind in the locality. This implies that safety and thus the best available methods attracted re-
the concept of ecosystem services research is recent and searchers. Besides, most of the case studies were conducted
demands a lot of research work to make it rich in its spatially at the local level. Similarly, Malinga et al. (2015) re-
methodology and models. Based on the challenges and ported that 92% of the studies were conducted at a local
limitation mentioned by the selected published articles, scale, and the reason was the availability of secondary data
the existence of methodological uncertainties is men- at this scale. Based on RES indicators, climate regulation
tioned by 17.4% (8 papers) which was followed by data service was the most investigated topic in several publica-
and model limitations, which is present and discussed in tions. One of the reasons for the existence of large study
10.9% (5 papers) and 8.7% (4 papers) of the selected output on climate regulation service was the establishments

Fig. 7 Main purposes of the selected published articles

Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 10 of 14

Fig. 8 The most common difficulties mentioned by the selected studies

of “The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change” and was to find those habitats and indicators for which research
“reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degrad- should be prioritized. The existing research work thus con-
ation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sidered spatial extents ranging from local case studies to re-
sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of gional and global assessments. Results show that research
forest carbon stocks in developing countries” (Goslee et al. was compelled by divers’ motives like generating site-
2016). These consequently increase the information de- specific knowledge, methodological development, policy
mands of most governments and many other international implication, and management options (Fig. 7).
organizations (Egoh et al. 2012). However, the study un- Though the difficulties mentioned in the reviewed pa-
touched the effect of the trade-offs of climatic extremes pers, which are displayed in Fig. 8, were mainly focused
such as severe drought and global warming impacts that on uncertainties from methodological and data types, we
could negatively affect ecosystem functioning and stability. identified additional gaps in RES studies. These gaps
Other ecosystems like wetlands, sea/marine, and grazing may inhibit future progress in RES studies and slowly
land ecosystems had the least attention in the research mainstreaming them into the decision-making process.
community though they have had a significant contribution The identified gaps were grouped into five basic research
to human well-being. This created unbalanced research gaps. First, the literature misses a fair representation of
works and outputs on the different types of ecosystems and studies from each indicator of RES and ecosystems. The
indicators of RES. In addition, the study found out the pres- existed studies concentrated on climate regulation, haz-
ence of less care for documenting valuable information in ard regulation, water, and erosion regulation. There was
the articles like the geographical extent of the study site for no sufficient outlook on pollination, pest and disease, air
instance (Krkoška Lorencová et al. 2016; Li et al. 2018; quality regulation, and nutrient regulation services. Men-
Walz et al. 2019) and lack of stating explicitly the difficul- gist and Soromessa (2019) have noticed in their meta-
ties that impact the study findings. analysis study that the pollination, pest, and human dis-
The dominance of site-specific ecosystem assessment ease regulation services were the least addressed and re-
was observed. This was mainly applied to evaluate/quan- ceived less attention from the scientific community.
tify/map the specific ecosystem types using monetary and/ Among other things, the most common factors would
or biophysical terms. On the other hand, the number of be related to lack of data, challenges in estimating their
publications focusing on policy implication and suggesting value, and lack of well-designed methods. In terms of
methodological options was too small. This might be ecosystems, there are no adequate studies on wetlands,
linked with the development level of the concept and the grazing lands, and sea/marine ecosystems. These ecosys-
methodological advancement to measure the ecosystem tems need critical studies using biophysical, monetary/
services to persuade policymaker institutions. socio-economic, and socio-cultural data. Comparatively,
an urban ecosystem is widely investigated in scientific
Research gaps and future direction works from all indicators except in terms of pest and
This review has illustrated the view on RES studies, but disease and pollination services. Though the topic is
more than looking for gaps in RES research, our motive novel, it is unsurprising that most studies examine the
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 11 of 14

general view on the value of the RES. There is a lack of integration of knowledge on regulatory services. On the
an adequate number of studies that able to assess the other way, the existence of diverse ways of ES classifica-
various biomes of its regulatory services and/or chal- tion confirms that there are many useful ways to classify
lenges that affect those potentials. ecosystem goods and services. These pluralisms of ES
Second, most studies were site-specific and conducted classification may be helpful for studies to address differ-
by multi-disciplinary teams but lack forwarding strat- ent goals (Englund et al. 2017).
egies to link ES into the decision-making process. Ac- This is perhaps similar to the findings from Seppelt
cording to Droste et al. (2018) and Malinauskaite et al. et al. (2011) that aimed to quantitatively review of eco-
(2019), ecosystem service research needs multi- system service studies and the existence of inconsistent
disciplinary collaboration as well as the inclusion of local ES classification impacting to categorize in any of the
perspectives by involving local stakeholders. Most of the RES indicators. A similar conclusion was formed by
papers in this review work had a transdisciplinary back- Fisher et al. (2009) that inconsistency of ES classification
ground and are important to mainstreaming the concept can cause challenges for making meaningful research re-
with government policy, though the actual effort was sults and difficulties to make comparisons and integra-
weak. The same concept was mentioned by Weyland tion of study output with other data (Englund et al.
et al. (2019); mainstreaming ecosystem service assess- 2017). According to Villamagna et al. (2013), therefore,
ment into policymaking is helpful at the initial stage of to improve RES assessments, developing methodology is
the ecosystem service management phase. Besides, the a prerequisite. In the real term, there is no one-size-fits-
notion of ES is increasingly used for making a decision all approach to assess ecosystem benefits. It is important
on natural resource management (Grêt-Regamey et al. to be aware of the limitation of existing ES classification.
2013), and in the long run, the use of ES concept can Thus, choosing the most suitable ES classification that
help to develop policies to bring sustainability on the considers the purpose of studies is mandatory (Heink
functioning of ecosystems and its benefits into society et al. 2016; La Notte et al. 2017). The type and size of
(Balvanera et al. 2012). Thus, most of the selected RES benefits are related to the ecosystems. For instance, a
papers had predominantly discussed the conceptual and heterogeneous landscape can provide many ES. To re-
theoretical aspects, with only a few exceptions of case duce the challenge, the application of appropriate
studies for instance (Ifatimehin 2014; Missall et al. 2015; methods that examine the data availability, time frame,
Oka et al. 2019) those which address the interaction be- competence, and others to quantify the capacity, de-
tween human well-being and ecosystem services. mand, and flow services is essential (Englund et al. 2017;
At least the following two possible reasons can be out- Nemec and Raudsepp-Hearne 2013).
lined to explain for lack of mainstreaming outputs of The fourth challenge is the lack of nearly balanced
RES studies into policymaking agenda: (i) it demands the monetary value estimation per hectare per annum for
studies to have detailed and accurate information across nearly similar ecosystems. A meta-analysis on the forest
various spatio-temporal scale (Caro et al. 2020; Englund ecosystem services valuation methods by Mengist and
et al. 2017), and (ii) it needs sound result on the socio- Soromessa (2019) also concluded that methodological
ecological interrelationship between society and ecosys- inconsistency on monetary estimation exists for similar
tems, the ES society gain from the natural habitats, and ecosystems across the globe. There was also a challenge
human influence on the specified habitats (Lautenbach related to the existence of a small number of case stud-
et al. 2019). ies on similar ecosystems and indicators of RES. This
Third, there is a dearth of uniform methodology and can be a research challenge in the future to make sys-
inconsistency in ecosystem service classification. Both tematic analysis and comparison across site and scale, as
biophysical and/or monetary terms can be used in simi- also emphasized by Malinga et al. (2015). As a solution,
lar indicators and ecosystems, but the challenge was in- Costanza et al. (2017) forwarded the scientific commu-
consistency in ES classification. This may confirm that nity to develop a methodology that helps to map, model,
gaps remain in the ES classification. Similar to Nemec value, and manage ecosystem services and to effectively
and Raudsepp-Hearne (2013) and Englund et al. (2017), address the final output to the end-users. Finally, numer-
we find the existence of methodological and ES classifi- ous studies found in this review had a small area cover-
cation diversity on ES research. This may create difficul- age in hectares. However, their methods were poorly
ties to integrate ES assessment results for meta-analysis described, lack a detailed description of the data sources,
studies—an issue which is already discussed in CICES it- and have no justification for the use of generic data and
self by Haines-Young and Potschin (2011) and recently models at a small-scale level of studies. This might be
by Englund et al. (2017). In this context, providing sim- due to the high cost of resources and time for the pri-
ple and easy-to-use methods, models, tools, and ES clas- mary data collection, as also noticed by Malinga et al.
sification is fundamental to guarantee a successful (2015) and Nemec and Raudsepp-Hearne (2013). As a
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 12 of 14

result, the researchers have more relied on secondary of the ecosystem and its associated benefits (Maes et al.
data sources for ES estimation and assessment. This was 2012).
supported by the study of Martínez-Harms and Balva-
nera (2012) that one of the most common approaches in Limitations of the review
RES study was the application of secondary data to This study attempts to assess the general trends, the
model ecosystem services. types of RES indicators and ecosystems, and the gaps ob-
Therefore, there should be high research outputs with served in RES studies that were conducted from 2005 to
regard to RES across different ecosystems using regula- April of 2019 at the global level. The assessment tried to
tory ES indicators, because it is not yet possible to fully indicate the current state of knowledge in RES and the
account the role and benefits of RES to human safety indicators versus ecosystems that had more focus and
and for other ES provision. Also, there is no adequate the least attention from the scientific community. It is
size of studies to mainstreaming RES into the policy- not, however, this systematic review free from limita-
making agenda. In parallel, Sutherland et al. (2018) sug- tions. Firstly, the assessment ignores publications that
gest improving ES assessment frameworks “by including have a concern on RES without including the term regu-
indicators of regulating ES that differentiate between the lating ecosystem services in the title of the article. The
capacity to provide a regulating ES, the demand for the second limitation was linked to the databases used to
same, and the actual service that is conveyed.” search related literature on the issue. Other data sources
like the Web of Knowledge were inaccessible to search
Comparison to other ecosystem service review work the archives to broaden the possibility of including more
The research gaps mentioned in this paper coincided number of related publications. The third limitation was
with other review work on ecosystem services. One of the review process considered only peer-reviewed pub-
the main challenges was the inconsistency in method- lished articles on the English language. However, re-
ology and terminology used by the studies. Englund search on ecosystem services is rapidly changing and
et al. (2017) reviewed “How to analyze ecosystem ser- research publications are being published in a significant
vices in landscapes” and claimed that the existence of in- amount using other languages like Chinese, Spanish, and
consistency in the use of terminology affects the choice others. Other publications like proceedings, grey litera-
of methods used to value the services. Similarly, Cost- ture and policy documents, or publications written both
anza et al. (2017) and Mengist et al. (2019a) highlighted in English and other languages were excluded. There-
that ES research had inconsistent approaches to model, fore, the limitation was unavoidable and led to overlook
assess, and value ES. There was variation in the priority some relevant publications.
given to RES indicators and ecosystem types which was
also reported by Balvanera et al. (2012) on ecosystem Conclusion
service studies in Latin America. They mentioned that Despite broad recognition of the benefits of ES, several
the current ES research work focuses on those having knowledge gaps can be identified on the basis of the
impacts at a global level like carbon and a regional scale overview given in this article. Among them, existing
(water resources). On the contrary, other ES like disease studies on valuing and assessing RES fall short of the
regulation, coastal protection, pollination, and floods need to mainstreaming into decision-making and inte-
that have local-level importance had got less priority by grating into national-level environmental resource man-
the scientific communities. agement strategies. This was due to the fact that valuing
The interdisciplinary nature of ecosystem service work RES is not easy compared to other ES that has a direct
was observed in this systematic review work. The result link with human well-being. There was also the use of
was also supported by the findings of Malinga et al. multiple ES classifications and naming that makes com-
(2015) and Abson et al. (2014). This was also pinpointed parison and meta-analysis of studies and assessments
by Droste et al. (2018) that interdisciplinary research more difficult. As per a prerequisite, designing a com-
work and multiple perspectives and types of ES values mon ground that permits comparison between RES as-
were observed in ES researches. Another common con- sessments from different study sites has become more
cern, which coincides with the observation of this study, urgent.
was the lack of forwarding clear strategies in the selected In the last decade, ecosystem service studies increased
papers to integrate ecosystem services into a national steadily, but relatively no significant number of studies
policy of resource management and mainstreaming to were found from regulatory services, whereas the exist-
other development agenda (Malinauskaite et al. 2019; ing studies were concentrated on urban and forest eco-
Sutherland et al. 2018). However, mainstreaming ES to systems as they have more developed methods and link
policymaking and development agenda needs efficient with human safety. Thus, the existing knowledge gener-
and explicit information both on the status and trends ated on the importance of RES is still limited and more
Mengist et al. Ecological Processes (2020) 9:40 Page 13 of 14

research is needed to elucidate its synergy and tradeoff Services Provided by Marine Biodiversity. Implications for the Ecosystem
relation across space and time with other ES and human Approach”. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54(3):253–65.
Bicking S, Burkhard B, Kruse M, Müller F (2018) Mapping of nutrient regulating
health. ecosystem service supply and demand on different scales in Schleswig-
We, therefore, propose that future research works Holstein, Germany. One Ecosystem 3:e22509
should be painstakingly aiming to cover the RES that Boyd J, Banzhaf S (2007) What are ecosystem services? The need for standardized
environmental accounting units. Ecol Econ 63:616–626
has local scale impacts such as pollination, pest regula- Braat LC, de Groot R (2012) The ecosystem services agenda: bridging the worlds
tion, disease regulation, and air quality regulating ser- of natural science and economics, conservation and development, and
vices. Besides, future studies should give priority for public and private policy. Ecosyst Serv 1:4–15
Brainard DC, Bryant A, Noyes DC, Haramoto ER, Szendrei Z (2016) Evaluating
methodological development and proposing manage- pest-regulating services under conservation agriculture: a case study in snap
ment options for improving the RES of ecosystems. Fi- beans. Agric Ecosyst Environ 235:142–154
nally, most of the studies concentrated on secondary Brander L, Brouwer R, Wagtendonk AJ (2013) Economic valuation of regulating
services provided by wetlands in agricultural landscapes: a meta-analysis.
data and application of modeling to develop conceptual Ecol Eng 56:89–96
ideas even at local scale studies. Rather, scholars, there- Burkhard B, Kroll F, Nedkov S, Müller F (2012) Mapping ecosystem service supply,
fore, are encouraged to integrate primary data for scru- demand and budgets. Ecol Indic 21:17–29
Caro C, Cunha PP, Marques J, Teixeira Z (2020) Identifying ecosystem services
tinizing the link between human safety and RES. research hotspots to illustrate the importance of site-specific research: an
Atlantic coastal region case study. Environ Sustain Indic 6:100031
Abbreviations
Hepcan CC, Hepcan S (2018) Assessing regulating ecosystem services provided
ES: Ecosystem service; MA: Millennium ecosystem assessment; by the Ege University Rectorship Garden. Urban For Urban Green 34:10–16
RES: Regulating ecosystem services; SALSA: Search, appraisal, synthesis,
Costanza R, d'Arge R, De Groot R et al (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem
analysis; TEEB: The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity
services and natural capital. Nature 387:253–260
Costanza R, de Groot R, Braat L et al (2017) Twenty years of ecosystem services:
Acknowledgements how far have we come and how far do we still need to go? Ecosyst Serv 28:
We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and useful 1–16
comments. We wish to thank both Addis Ababa University and Debre- Daily GC (1997) Nature’s services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems.
Berhan University for the support of this initiative. Island Press, Washington, DC
Davies HJ, Doick KJ, Hudson MD, Schreckenberg K (2017) Challenges for tree
Authors’ contributions officers to enhance the provision of regulating ecosystem services from
MW had the initial idea and collected the related materials. ST and LG edited urban forests. Environ Res 156:97–107
the manuscript and improved the language. All authors read and approved Deal RL, Cochran B, LaRocco G (2012) Bundling of ecosystem services to increase
the final manuscript. forestland value and enhance sustainable forest management. Forest Policy
Econ 17:69–76
Funding Droste N, D’Amato D, Goddard JJ (2018) Where communities intermingle,
This research received no external funding. diversity grows – the evolution of topics in ecosystem service research. PLoS
ONE 13(9):e0204749
Availability of data and materials Egoh B, Drakou E, Dunbar M, Maes J, Willemen L (2012) Indicators for mapping
Not applicable. ecosystem services: a review JRC scientific and policy reports. Luxembourg
10:41823
Ethics approval and consent to participate Egoh B, Rouget M, Reyers B et al (2007) Integrating ecosystem services into
Not applicable. conservation assessments: a review. Ecol Econ 63(4):714–721
Englund O, Berndes G, Cederberg C (2017) How to analyse ecosystem services in
Consent for publication landscapes—a systematic review. Ecol Indic 73:492–504
Not applicable. Fagerholm N, Torralba M, Burgess PJ, Plieninger TA (2016) A systematic map of
ecosystem services assessments around European agroforestry. Ecol Indic 62:
Competing interests 47–65
The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Fisher B, Turner RK, Morling P (2009) Defining and classifying ecosystem services
for decision making. Ecol Econ 68:643–653
Received: 22 April 2020 Accepted: 25 June 2020 Fletcher S, Saunders J, Herbert R (2011) A review of the ecosystem services
provided by broad-scale marine habitats in England’s MPA network. J Coast
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