Modeling interactions among multiple ecosystem services. A critical review

Abstract Knowledge about the interactions among multiple ecosystem services is crucial for the design of land-use strategies that optimize their delivery. A systematic review of the literature available from 2005 to 2019 was performed to assess the current state of knowledge on this topic. The number of scientific papers on interactions among multiple ecosystem services (trade-offs, synergies, bundles/clusters, and flows) has increased exponentially since 2005. The review shows that researchers usually only consider a limited number of ecosystem services, which restricts the ability to explore their interactions with one another. In general, logical and empirical models are used most often, followed by extrapolations, simulation processes, data integration methods, and direct-mapping models. Although our review shows an increase in the use of two or more modeling techniques in a complementary way (77% of the studies), this practice needs to be more broadly adopted. And though the diversity of modeling tools applied to the study of the interactions among multiple ecosystem services (26 tools in 209 studies) was high, InVEST was still the most applied tool despite its limitations for integrating multiple ecosystem services. Based on these findings, we discuss possible ways for improving our understanding of the interactions among multiple ecosystem services and examine the main barriers and limitations mentioned in the studies reviewed.