Ecosystem services are the services that biodiversity and its ecosystems provide to humans. The concept describes the relationship between the well-being of humans and their environment.

The analysis of the ecosystem services provided and the changes in them by a plan or complex project gives a picture of the (socio-economic and cultural) consequences of that plan or complex project for people and society and is therefore essential for good decision-making on spatial developments. A key challenge here is operationalising the ecosystem services concept in policy implementation.

In turn, the environmental impact assessment portrays the environmental effects of a plan or project. This is done by depicting the impact on water, soil, air, noise, biodiversity, people, and so on.

Environmental impact assessment is integrated into spatial planning processes, complex projects and the environmental permit procedure.

Environmental impact assessment and an ecosystem services approach can therefore interact and make an important contribution to the relevant decision-making processes. In this research project, we want to investigate how and in what way they do this. This can then be used to design a methodology and create the necessary tools to successfully integrate ecosystem services into existing processes so that this ecosystem services approach contributes to robust and supported decision-making on plans and projecten.