Cultural Ecosystem Services Connected to Water

People derive multiple non-material benefits from ecosystems. For example, forest-dwellers, fishers, and birdwatchers’ identities all depend on forests, fish, and birds respectively. We also derive recreational benefits from nature and develop place attachment to certain landscape and seascape characteristics. The purpose of this session is to show novel approaches to studying and characterizing water-related cultural services. With examples from pre-Hispanic fisheries in Peru and from riparian areas and rivers in Idaho, USA, we will have a discussion session on qualitative and quantitative methods for evaluating cultural services of people in the past and present.