A Review of Empirical Studies of Cultural Ecosystem Services in National Parks: Current Status and Future Research

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. What is the main question addressed by the research?
This paper aims to provide a (systematic) literature review (SLR) of empirical studies assessing the valuation of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) in National Parks. Usually SLRs follow some protocol guidelines (e.g. PRISMA). However, this paper only presents the selection criteria of 199 studies but it not clarifies if it follows a standardized protocol.

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address a specific gap in the field?
In the literature there are several SLRs regarding the valuation of CES,
Mengist, W., Soromessa, T., & Legese, G. (2020). Ecosystem services research in mountainous regions: A systematic literature review on current knowledge and research gaps. Science of the Total Environment, 702, 134581.
Kosanic, A., & Petzold, J. (2020). A systematic review of cultural ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Ecosystem Services, 45, 101168.
Martin, C. L., Momtaz, S., Gaston, T., & Moltschaniwskyj, N. A. (2016). A systematic quantitative review of coastal and marine cultural ecosystem services: current status and future research. Marine Policy, 74, 25-32.
Cheng, X., Van Damme, S., Li, L., & Uyttenhove, P. (2019). Evaluation of cultural ecosystem services: A review of methods. Ecosystem services, 37, 100925.

Nevertheless, besides Mengist, Soromessa and Legese (2020), there are few papers that are focused in Natural Parks. Therefore, I think this topic is relevant.

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?
The contribution of this paper is a analysis of the empirical studies that assess CES in this specific type of territory such as the natural parks

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?
There is no specific improvement in the methodology. As I said before, the author should have adopted one standard protocol of SLR such as PRISMA.

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?
The author should also provide information about the results of the evaluations of National Parks, for example in terms of monetary units/ km2, or using multidimensional radar graphs so readers can have comparative references for future studies.

6. Are the references appropriate? Yes
7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.
The author should add a table with information about the findings and quantitative measurements obtained in those 199 studies.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your helpful comments and valuable suggestions. After carefully reviewing the comments, the author has made revisions to the manuscript, and the point-by-point responses have been uploaded as a separate file.

1. What is the main question addressed by the research?

This paper aims to provide a (systematic) literature review (SLR) of empirical studies assessing the valuation of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) in National Parks. Usually SLRs follow some protocol guidelines (e.g. PRISMA). However, this paper only presents the selection criteria of 199 studies but it not clarifies if it follows a standardized protocol.

Thank you for your comments. This study follows a review protocol, and Appendix A presents the key content of each selected paper.

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address a specific gap in the field?

In the literature there are several SLRs regarding the valuation of CES,

Mengist, W., Soromessa, T., & Legese, G. (2020). Ecosystem services research in mountainous regions: A systematic literature review on current knowledge and research gaps. Science of the Total Environment, 702, 134581.

Kosanic, A., & Petzold, J. (2020). A systematic review of cultural ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Ecosystem Services, 45, 101168.

Martin, C. L., Momtaz, S., Gaston, T., & Moltschaniwskyj, N. A. (2016). A systematic quantitative review of coastal and marine cultural ecosystem services: current status and future research. Marine Policy, 74, 25-32.

Cheng, X., Van Damme, S., Li, L., & Uyttenhove, P. (2019). Evaluation of cultural ecosystem services: A review of methods. Ecosystem services, 37, 100925.

Nevertheless, besides Mengist, Soromessa and Legese (2020), there are few papers that are focused in Natural Parks. Therefore, I think this topic is relevant.

Thank you for your comments. The papers mentioned by the reviewer were highly referenced and appreciated by the author. Various authors have distinct focuses rooted in their academic backgrounds. CES have garnered growing attention across diverse fields. This study, in particular, focuses on national parks and conducts a literature review on this topic to construct a knowledge map of the current status while also exploring future directions.

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?

The contribution of this paper is a analysis of the empirical studies that assess CES in this specific type of territory such as the natural parks.

Thank you for your comments. This study specifically focuses on CES within NP. NP has become increasingly popular as destinations, serving a dual role as both tourist and recreational attractions, as well as tools for nature conservation. This duality has brought to the forefront concerns related to environmental issues in these vulnerable protected areas. While there has been a growing emphasis on addressing the evaluation of CES, there is a noticeable absence of a systematic review of CES generated by NP. Therefore, this study conducted a literature review on this topic.

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?

There is no specific improvement in the methodology. As I said before, the author should have adopted one standard protocol of SLR such as PRISMA.

Thank you for your comments. Section 2.2 outlines the criteria used for reviewing each paper, while Appendix A provides key information from the selected papers.

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?

The author should also provide information about the results of the evaluations of National Parks, for example in terms of monetary units/ km2, or using multidimensional radar graphs so readers can have comparative references for future studies.

Thank you for your comments. This study has refrained from presenting evaluation results because these outcomes are contingent on the selected methods, which can yield vastly different results. Consequently, the references value is limited. This limitation underscores the challenge of integrating CES into the ES framework, making it difficult to support practical applications. Monetary methods have the potential to heighten awareness among policymakers and facilitate the integration of CES assessments into the ES framework, thereby enabling more informed decision-making regarding environmental investments, management, and conservation. However, some research has pointed out that the real monetary value of CES is often inadequate. Some services, such as cultural diversity, and social relations, are poorly reflected in and investigated by monetary methods. Scholars have also highlighted the social values of cultural services because cultural services are recognized to be heavily dependent on human perception. This is why there is a growing trend among researchers to explore non-monetary methods. Non-monetary approaches emphasize the perceptions and preferences of individuals. However, the challenge remains in how to effectively integrate the outcomes of non-monetary methods into the ES framework and practical applications. Therefore, the focus of this study is on methods, and highlights diverse methods should be tested to ensure the high consistency of results. Hence it presents an interesting and independent avenue for future research to study evaluation results based on different methods. The author has added the discussion in section 4.2 (lines 512-514).

6. Are the references appropriate? Yes

Thank you for your comments.

7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.

The author should add a table with information about the findings and quantitative measurements obtained in those 199 studies.

Thank you for your suggestions. Appendix A presents the results of the quantitative measurements of the 199 studies.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

This study discusses the methods used to evaluate CES in national parks.

It would be good if the data could show how the evaluation methods have changed and what new values have been revealed by these changes. It would also be good if we could discuss specifically how the values revealed by the new methods can be applied to the establishment and management of national parks.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your helpful comments and valuable suggestions. After carefully reviewing the comments, the author has made revisions to the manuscript (indicated in red), and the point-by-point responses have been uploaded as a separate file.

This study discusses the methods used to evaluate CES in national parks.

It would be good if the data could show how the evaluation methods have changed and what new values have been revealed by these changes. It would also be good if we could discuss specifically how the values revealed by the new methods can be applied to the establishment and management of national parks.

Thank you for your helpful comments and suggestions. The author has added Figure 6 to show the change of the evaluation methods, and the relevant text has been added in section 3.4, specifically lines 300-305. Furthermore, corresponding discussions have been incorporated into Section 4.1.3, visible at lines 404-409 and lines 426-442. Additionally, a discussion regarding the application for supporting NP management has been included in Section 4.2. Please see lines 499-506.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript deals with a very relevant topic, is structured in a comprehensible way, and the results are presented in a comprehensible way. The methodology, although not particularly innovative, is appropriate in terms of content, as it is presented in a comprehensible manner. The presentation of results is routine, with descriptive elements dominating.

A (remediable) weakness of the essay is that it presupposes a scientific consensus in central aspects of the subject area, which does not exist in this way. For example, there has been a well-founded critique of the concept of cultural ecosystem services for years. Especially from a social and cultural science perspective. This must be taken into account in an article dealing with the topic. The same applies to the concept of cultural landscape. Here, too, there has been intense debate in philosophy, geography, and the social sciences in recent decades. This has led to a differentiation of the term. In this respect, one's own understanding of the term should be introduced and justified here.

Overall, this is a routinely written contribution that provides an overview of the current state of research in the CES research program. Thereby, a critical distance to it is refrained from as well as a stronger content-related discussion. As mentioned above, this should be done at least to some extent.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your helpful comments and valuable suggestions. After carefully reviewing the comments, the author has made revisions to the manuscript, and the point-by-point responses have been uploaded as a separate file (indicated in red).

The manuscript deals with a very relevant topic, is structured in a comprehensible way, and the results are presented in a comprehensible way. The methodology, although not particularly innovative, is appropriate in terms of content, as it is presented in a comprehensible manner. The presentation of results is routine, with descriptive elements dominating.

Thank you for your kind comments.

A (remediable) weakness of the essay is that it presupposes a scientific consensus in central aspects of the subject area, which does not exist in this way. For example, there has been a well-founded critique of the concept of cultural ecosystem services for years. Especially from a social and cultural science perspective. This must be taken into account in an article dealing with the topic. The same applies to the concept of cultural landscape. Here, too, there has been intense debate in philosophy, geography, and the social sciences in recent decades. This has led to a differentiation of the term. In this respect, one's own understanding of the term should be introduced and justified here.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Indeed, the concepts and classifications of CES have been discussed by many researchers, especially in the last decade. Both the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) define CES as non-material benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) defines CES as 'all the non-material, normally non-rivalrous, and non-consumptive outputs of ecosystems (both biotic and abiotic) that affect the physical and mental states of people.' Whether or not people are familiar with the term, the concept resonates with nearly every human being, although the specifics of what resonates may vary among individuals. Furthermore, there are several classifications of CES, such as those provided by MEA, TEEB, and CICES. For instance, CICES primarily focuses on the 'final services' that most directly impact human well-being. While these classifications exhibit clear differences, they also share many commonalities. For example, 'recreation and ecotourism' in MEA is similar to 'recreation and mental and physical health' and 'tourism' in TEEB. Similarly, 'symbolic' (CICES v4.3) and 'information and cognitive development' (TEEB) refer to 'spiritual and religious values' (MEA), despite the usage of different terms. The classification of CES is a complex and ongoing process. However, delving deeply into these classifications is beyond the scope of this paper, which primarily focuses on CES evaluations in NPs. For this study, the definitions and classifications provided by MEA were selected, as they have consistently been referenced and emphasized in numerous studies. The author defines CES as the non-material benefits derived from ecosystems (national parks in this study), as introduced in the beginning of the introduction section. In addition, section 2.2.3 has presented the definitions and classifications of CES in detail. Moreover, the author discussed about the issue in section 4.1.2.

In addition, the concept of a cultural landscape has sparked intense debate in various research areas in recent decades. The term 'cultural landscape' encompasses a wide range of manifestations resulting from the interaction between humanity and its natural environment, giving rise to diverse Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES). This paper defines the cultural landscape by adopting the definition provided by the U.S. National Park Service, which describes a cultural landscape as 'a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources, as well as the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity, or person, or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values.' The relevant text has been added to the introduction section, and you can refer to lines 50-55.

Overall, this is a routinely written contribution that provides an overview of the current state of research in the CES research program. Thereby, a critical distance to it is refrained from as well as a stronger content-related discussion. As mentioned above, this should be done at least to some extent.

Thank you for your comments. The author has incorporated additional discussion in Section 4.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the changes, the manuscript has gained so much more relevance.