Toolkit for Ecosystem Service
Site-Based Assessment
Request Form
Understanding the impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services of actual and potential changes in state at individual sites is important for promoting better planning decisions to support both biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery. This approach has been relatively little used because it has been assumed that ecosystem services are technically difficult and expensive to measure.
This toolkit is designed to overcome this obstacle by providing practical guidance on how to identify which services may be significant at a site of interest, what data are needed to measure them, what methods or sources can be used to obtain the data and how to communicate the results.
The toolkit emphasizes the importance of comparing estimates for alternative states of a site (for example, before and after conversion to agriculture) so that decision-makers can assess the net consequences of such a change, and hence the benefits for human well-being that may be lost through the change or gained by conservation.
The toolkit has attempted to find a balance between simplicity and utility of developing convincing information for decision-makers and therefore excludes consideration of some of the more advanced concepts in ecosystem services. This is so that it can be used by non-experts, yet still provide scientifically robust information.
For more information on the toolkit, please refer to the additional resources below.
Information Resources
TESSA is currently available in English (Version 3.0) and French (Version 1.2).
To request a copy of the toolkit, please fill in the following details. The
information you provide will help the toolkit compilers to understand how it
is being used and by whom and where, in order to shape its further development.
The Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment (TESSA) has been
compiled by the following organisations
The development of TESSA was supported by the following organisations
