Methods and approaches used for assessing ecosystem services provided by grazing systems

To date, scientific literature provided a vast amount of studies on Ecosystem Services (ES) underpinning their benefits to human well-being. Livestock grazing systems occupy a vast area of the terrestrial surface and are essential to the livelihood especially for vulnerable communities. Grazinglands are able to provide a wide array of ES depending on management practices and intensity. In this perspective and according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) framework, the paper reviews the methods and the approaches used in the analysis of the main ES provided by grazing systems. The search criteria produced a scarce amount of papers (few referred to Mediterranean climate areas), also because many authors did not consider ‘goods’ or ‘benefits’ (e.g. food) as ES. The bibliography review highlighted that: i) some papers misunderstood the concept of ES as defined by MA (e.g. biodiversity considered as ES; lack of anthropocentric vision); ii) ES planning need management and development options to be based on systems’ internal dynamics; iii) ES multiscale and multisectoral analysis emerged in many papers but just few included stakeholder (SHs) involvement; iv) a better SHs awareness of the wellbeing provided by ES in livestock grazing systems could foster agri-environmental schemes and the willingness to pay for their services