Guest Editors
Fausto Manes1, Salvatrice Vizzini2, Elvira Buonocore3, Monia Renzi4, Pier Paolo Franzese3

1 Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
2 Department of Earth and Marine Sciences, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
3 Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, Naples, Italy.
4 Bioscience Research Center, Via Aurelia Vecchia 32, Orbetello, Grosseto 58015, Italy.

Scope and goal of the special issue

Healthy, resilient, and diverse ecosystems are capable of generating the biotic and abiotic components of natural capital, providing a bundle of ecosystem services vital for human well-being. Natural capital stocks and ecosystem services flows directly and indirectly support socio-economic systems, while their exploitation by human activities release waste and emissions in the environment. Increasing pressures and impacts of human activities cause habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, and local and global changes in natural ecosystems, seriously threatening their capacity to provide benefits to humans. The interaction between natural and socio-economic systems has been discussed through the concept of “ecosystem services cascade”, showing how ecological structures and functioning are linked to societal values. Integrated approaches capable of assessing ecological and socio-economic aspects are much needed to sustainably exploit natural capital stocks, ensuring the delivery of ecosystem services in the long run. Over the past decade, there have been increasing research efforts to assess the biophysical and economic value of natural capital and ecosystem services in natural and human-dominated ecosystems, also exploring how these values can be addressed into decision making. The implementation of sustainable management strategies requires the assessment of environmental costs, impacts, and benefits associated with the exploitation of natural ecosystems. In this regard, the implementation of multicriteria assessment frameworks capable of assessing pressures and impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services will support managers and policy makers towards an adaptive management approach. Given this premise, the special issue will gather theoretical, methodological, and applied papers focusing on the assessment of pressures and impacts on structure, functioning and services in marine, terrestrial, and transitional ecosystems.
Important dates
• First submission date: September 16th, 2019
• Last submission date: March 16th, 2020
• Publication fees: open source journal, fees not applied
Submission
Please follow the “Guide for Authors” of the journal to prepare your manuscripts:
http://www.eq.umk.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2
Please submit your manuscript by e-mail to pierpaolo.franzese@uniparthenope.it (Managing Guest Editor) indicating in the subject of the message “special issue SITE-2019”.