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Policy objectives to maintain ecosystem services are increasingly set. Methods to identify priority areas for ecosystem services can assist in the implementation of such policy objectives. While land use change is an important driver of changes in ecosystem services over time, most prioritization studies do not account for land use change or only assess negative effects. We assessed the effect of land use change on ecosystem services in Europe for a 40-year period and the subsequent consequences for identifying priority areas.

We quantified five services under current and future land use. For both time frames all sites were ranked based on their service provision using Zonation. To assess the sensitivity of the prioritization to land use change we compared the location of priority areas and the level of ecosystem services within priority areas in the two time frames.

Land use change shifts the location of priority areas …