Freshwater ecosystems supply a wide range of regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services (ES) and are key to human wellbeing. Lakes are one of the most important freshwater environments and are especially valuable in landlocked countries. Although this is recognized, these environments are subjected to multiple drivers of change (e.g., habitat, climate change, overexploitation, invasive species and pollution) that contribute substantially to the degradation of these environments and the ES supplied. To understand the capacity for lakes to supply ES, mapping is essential in identifying areas with a higher capacity that are subject to a higher threat. Most of the mapping studies were based on a qualitative approach (e.g., matrix), which presents many limitations.

In this talk, taking Lithuania, a country with more than 1000 lakes, we will map and assess several regulating, supporting and cultural ES supply and demand dimensions using a quantitative approach (e.g., field data, remote sensing).