The Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources (SMMR) Network is excited to host another free Lunchtime Webinar!

~

This month Louise Anderson and Sam Matthews from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) will give an insight into:

New evidence and visualisations for a universal Asset Service Matrix that informs natural capital approaches to understanding ecosystem service delivery

In a natural capital-based framework, understanding the ecosystem services provided by the environment and its assets (habitats, species, and processes) is crucial to informing management decision-making. An asset-service matrix (ASM) is a tool used in natural capital approaches to describe and catalogue linkages between natural assets and the ecosystem services that they provide.

JNCC’s ‘universal’ ASM unifies ecosystem service – asset evidence links for UK marine ecosystems with a common crosswalk for classification and a standardised tool to assemble linkages and enable consistent, comparable outputs.

The uASM tool was first released in 2023. Now, in collaboration with the Marine Biological Association (MBA), we have developed a spatial visualisation of potential ecosystem service provision across UK subtidal habitats. The uASM has also had its first major evidence update since its launch, with over 11,800 new ecosystem service – asset linkages from UK marine habitats and species, representing an over 180% increase in the number of linkages.

In this talk, we will discuss the recent updates and their applications to natural capital and ecosystem service approaches. This work supports marine natural capital approaches and accounting by providing an iterative, evidence-driven tool to understand potential ecosystem service provision. The uASM tool supports decisionmakers and stakeholders to create bespoke ASMs, account for the full range of known services, and apply knowledge on varying levels of service delivery by marine assets.

Register Here!

Image credits: Unsplash