Participatory Ecosystem Service Assessment To Enhance Environmental Decision-Making In A Border City Of South Korea

Participatory methods can be used to assess the ecosystem services provided by specific areas and to identify development and conservation preferences in local communities that support the preparation of ecosystem service management strategies and conflict resolution. In this study, local participants selected ecosystem assets in a border city of South Korea and assessed the ecosystem services provided by these assets through rapid assessment. Thereafter, Q methodology was applied to assess preferences for development and conservation of ecosystem assets and the results were compared with the rapid assessment results. The local ecosystem assets contributed to the provision of ecosystem services, which were divided into cultural ecosystem services (CES) and rice field ecosystem service (RES) groups. When the results of the management preference assessment were compared with those obtained using factor analysis, ecosystem assets belonging to the CES group showed a high development preference, whereas ecosystem assets belonging to the RES group showed a high conservation preference. When formulating management plans, these findings can be used to reduce conflicts resulting from differences in the preferences for development and conservation within local communities to provide direction to ecosystem asset managements, while maintaining the ecosystem service characteristics of ecosystem assets.