Identification and Prioritization of Effective Criteria for Cultural Ecosystem Services Assessment in Golestan Province

Cultural ecosystem services are defined as non-material benefits people obtain from a direct contact with ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences. Policy and decision-making for environmental management, land-use planning and development at different scales can be enhanced by quantification and incorporation of ecosystem services. Incommensurability with valuation methods has led researchers to assess the cultural services using noneconomic techniques such as multi criteria analysis. However, cultural services are assessed less than other services due to the lack of sufficient knowledge and appropriate criteria. Therefore, this research has tried to identify criteria for evaluation of cultural services using literature review and content analysis. Then, the criteria have been prioritized for cultural services assessment through Delphi method. In the study area, the aspects aesthetic, educational, heritage, inspirational, sense of place, recreational, religious and spiritual with a normalized coefficient of 0.1808, 0.1545, 0.1382, 0.1303, 0.1265 and 0.1190 were the most important criteria, respectively.