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The current state of knowledge of ecosystems and ecosystem services in Russia: A status report

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Abstract

This paper focusses on a conceptual overview of ways to address a comprehensive analysis of ecosystem services (ES) in a country as large and heterogeneous as Russia. As a first step, a methodology for assessing the services for the federal subjects of Russia was chosen, i.e., its constituent provinces and similar entities, in physical terms. Russia harbors a great diversity of natural conditions and ecosystems which are suppliers of ES, and likewise a variety of the socio-economic conditions that shape the demand for these services and their consumption. The methodological approach described permits several important tasks to be addressed: the evaluation of the degree of satisfaction of people’s needs for ES, the identification of ecological donor and acceptor regions, and zoning of the country’s territory for ES assessment. The next step is to prepare a prototype of a National Report on ES in Russia, for which we are presenting the planned structure.

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Acknowledgments

The following Russian colleagues helped prepare the initial draft of the Status Quo Report: Oleg F. Filenko, Vasiliy I. Grabovskiy, Aleksey A. Danilkin, Yury Y. Dgebuadze, Alexander V. Drozdov, Alexander V. Khoroshev, Gleb N. Kraev, Ilya N. Mordvintsev, Bella R. Striganova, Arkady A. Tishkov, and Armen R. Grigoryan. The German–Russian Project “Ecosystem Services Evaluation in Russia and other NIS Countries of Northern Eurasia: First Steps” is sponsored by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), with funds from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). We are particularly grateful to Heinrich Schmauder and Jürgen Nauber (BfN) for their commitment to the project, and three unknown reviewers for their advice, as well as to Phil Hill († 22. Dec. 2014), Berlin, for polishing the language.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prosp. 33, 119071, Moscow, Russia

    Elena N. Bukvareva

  2. Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Weberplatz 1, 01217, Dresden, Germany

    Karsten Grunewald & Olaf Bastian

  3. Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    Sergey N. Bobylev

  4. Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    Dimitry G. Zamolodchikov

  5. Biodiversity Conservation Center, Vavilova Street 41, Office 2, 117312, Moscow, Russia

    Alexey V. Zimenko

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  1. Elena N. Bukvareva
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Correspondence to Karsten Grunewald.

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Bukvareva, E.N., Grunewald, K., Bobylev, S.N. et al. The current state of knowledge of ecosystems and ecosystem services in Russia: A status report. Ambio 44, 491–507 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0674-4

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