Acknowledgement

This project has received funding from European Social Fund project LINESAM No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0104 under grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT).

The aim of LINESAM (Lithuanian National Ecosystem Services Assessment and Mapping) is to develop a national ES mapping and assessment framework to improve the understanding of the relationships between ecosystems, biodiversity and human wellbeing and how drivers of change may affect ES supply in Lithuania. ES will be assessed and mapped across ecosystems (urban areas, agricultural, forested and coastal environments) and across spatial scales (national level and case study specific) using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) class types. Through a stakeholder engagement process, we will identify the actual beneficiaries of ES and their power relations.

The final aim is to improve the understanding of nature-society interaction through an ES based approach, identify national drivers of change (environmental and socio-economic) and their effect on ES supply and demand, support the development of planning and management strategies grounded on socio-ecological principles of ecosystems and biodiversity. Moreover, LINESAM aims to create a common knowledge baseline on ES, accessible to decision-makers, planners, academics and the public through the development of a Geoportal, based on open source technologies that will support storing, sharing and mapping of the results throughout the project lifetime.

The project is divided into five work packages (WP) consisting of (1) the development of a conceptual framework for the analysis ES class types and their socio-economic drivers of change, (2) the development of a stakeholder capacity model involving stakeholders of different scales and sectors into ES assessment and drivers of change analysis, (3) a national assessment and mapping of ES according to the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) class types including and analysis of drivers of change affecting the services, (4) case study level analysis of ES through the implementation of site specific geo-spatial models and (5) the design and implementation of a Geoportal for visualization and sharing of geospatial outputs generated.

Leader of the project:
Paulo Pereira is an internationally recognized researcher and has a large experience in spatial modelling and mapping. He holds a post-doc at Michigan State University, the USA and works with scientists from many countries, such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, UK, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Australia, the USA and Canada. Paulo is author or co-author of more than 50 ISI Web of Science articles, 33 book chapters and a great number of communications in conferences.

Paulo Pereira received internationally recognized awards, such as the Soil System Sciences Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award, and recognized by several journals for the excellent and outstanding revision in the journals, Forest Ecology and Management, Catena, Science of the Total Environment and Environmental Geochemistry and Health. He organized 10 International conferences and short courses related to mapping. He is also one of the co-authors of the single international paper available focused on mapping ecosystem services in Lithuania. Paulo Pereira is the representative of Lithuania for the H2020 Enhancing ecoSysteM Services Mapping for Policy and Decision Making (ESMERALDA) project and he is participating in other ES projects, such as ERA-LEARN 2020 UrbanGaia. He is working and worked in many other projects, from the FP7 framework (RECARE), Cost action (Connecteur), and Spanish Ministry of Science (PostFire and PostFire Care).

More Information about Paulo Pereira profile is available in http://paspereira.weebly.com

Miguel Inácio

Miguel Inácio - a marine biologist who holds a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences at Klaipėda University (Lithuania). He completed a Master's degree in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation from Ghent University (Belgium). His research was developed at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemuende (Germany) and is focuses on assessing and mapping ecosystem services provision in coastal and marine systems, to support coastal and marine management approaches. Miguel has collaborated in the international BONUS BaltCoast and BONUS DESTONY projects and in the national SECOS-Synthesis project.

Eduardo Gomes

Eduardo Gomes has a PhD in Geography from University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and in Geographic Information Science from University of Lisbon (joint-supervision programme). Eduardo Gomes latest research work has been focused on the design of modelling and collaborative simulations applied to analyse land use and land use cover changes using different methods (e.g., cellular automata, artificial neural networks, and agent-based model).

Katažyna Mikša

Katažyna Mikša has a PhD in Law from Law and Administration Faculty of Jagiellonian University. Her scientific interests are related to Environmental Law, International Law, European Union Law, Human Rights, compliance of national law with international and European law, implementation of international standards into national legal system, urban planning.

Marius Kalinauskas

Marius Kalinauskas has a PhD in Educational Sciences. His scientific interests are related to gameful system design, game-based learning, and human – computer interaction research. Marius Kalinauskas is a skilled creator of digital contents for media outlets, static and motion graphics, website tools and content management systems. Additionally he is a consultant of gamified system design and educational media content creator.