To identify where conservation actions are most needed to benefit ecosystem services, the authors mapped the distribution of four ecosystem services across the Southeast region of the United States: Wild Pollination Potential, Open Space Recreation Access, Water Purification, and Recreational Birding. These maps consider both the availability of a particular ecosystem service (supply) and the local need for that ecosystem service (demand). These maps were used to identify areas where supply was low and demand was high – areas likely in need of restoration – and areas where supply was better but demand still high, that are likely in need of conservation to maintain services. For some of the ecosystem services, both restoration and conservation priorities were identified. For others, only conservation priorities were identified. These differences are due to the data available for each ecosystem service and what researches know about how the ecosystem service is provided. Priority areas were identified based on thresholds for the supply and demand metrics. Thresholds were developed from scientific literature or the distribution of the metric within the study area (e.g. the counties scoring in the top 10% on supply and demand metrics for an ecosystem service). Thresholds can be adjusted to identify priorities for a subset of the study area, such as an individual state. Information about the specific thresholds used for each ecosystem service are available in the methods briefs.
