A priory allocation of ecosystem services to forest stands in a forest management context considering scientific suitability, stakeholder engagement and sustainability concept with multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique: A case study in Turkey.

Various research endeavours are designed to identify ecosystem services, assess their spatial distribution, and prioritize them in a given forest landscape. The Turkish State Forest Organization has introduced an ecosystem-based multiple-use forest management philosophy since 2008, which emphasizes the need for identifying and allocating ecosystem services to each forest planning unit. This paper aims to investigate the use of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques and explores their effectiveness and suitability in identifying and allocating ecosystem services to forest units, considering scientific suitability, stakeholder engagement and the sustainability concept in the context of ecosystem-based forest management decision-making processes in a case study area of Turkey. We propose a framework that entails an iterative process comprising various stages, starting from identifying ecosystem services (ES) to allocating them to forest stands with a participatory approach. We employed the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Delphi method to determine stakeholder preferences and allocate ecosystem services to forest stands. This was achieved through an equation newly developed using scientific suitability, stakeholder preferences, and the sustainability concept. The landscape percentage allocated primarily to ES was as follows: water regulation (55.44%), soil protection (16.47%), biodiversity conservation (14.03%), wood production (13.08%), and aesthetic-recreation (0.84%). Notably, no allocations were made for national defence and climate regulation services. In conclusion, the stratification of Posof forests into zones was efficiently achieved a priori, considering both scientific-technical and socio-cultural criteria through MCDA techniques based on stakeholder preferences. This study streamlines the decision-making process involved in spatially allocating ecosystem services and provides crucial information instrumental in determining management objectives and optimal forest activities.