Collection of field-based indicators for biophysical assessment of ecosystem services in crop fields

The file contains a list of indicators that can be used for quantifying provisioning and regulation ecosystem services (ES) in crop fields via empirical measure methods.

It aims to support researchers and practitioners in selecting context-specific indicators that enhance site-specific knowledge about ES in crop fields, for the development of sustainable cropping systems.

The list of indicators was designed as a relational dataset, which relationship model is presented in the first sheet of the file. Each indicator is characterized by the ES it quantifies (3 classifications available), by its level in the ES cascade model, by its method(s) of data collection, and by the reference papers that used it in ES studies. Each ES is characterized by the section it belongs to (provisioning or regulating) and by its position in the framework of ES “to and from agriculture”. The definitions of each indicator characteristic are presented in the first sheet of the file.

The indicators presented in this dataset were extracted from the articles corpus of a systematic review : Boerema, A., Rebelo, A. J., Bodi, M. B., Esler, K. J., & Meire, P. (2016). Are ecosystem services adequately quantified? Journal of Applied Ecology, 54(2).

Boerema et al. (2016) review compiles 507 indicators used in the scientific literature for measuring ES across various ecosystems from 2006 to 2014. We examined the corpus of articles from their review and filtered all the linked indicators to retain a collection of 119 indicators that are: 

Usable for assessing provisioning and regulation ES in agroecosystems, specifically in crop fields; 

Using empirical data collection methods such as field observations and remote sensing to obtain biophysical data about ES.

The dataset includes the original names used in Boerema et al. (2016) review, and the simplified names we use for our list.