Discussion

For a validation of the rule-based rating of the three ecosystem services examined in more depth, the classification and mapping of 135 current near-natural ecosystem types (ANOEST) in Germany derived from vegetation and soil data of about 22,000 forest stands (Schröder W, Schlutow A, Dworcyk C, Jenssen M, Nickel S, Regelbasierte Einstufung und Kartierung von Ökosystemleistungen mit Daten zur Integrität von Waldökosystemtypen. In Handbuch der Umweltwissenschaften. 28. Erg. Lfg. [Rule-based classification and mapping of ecosystem services with data on the integrity of forest ecosystem types. In: Handbook of environmental sciences, 2020; Schlutow A, Schröder W, Jenssen M, Nickel S, Environ Sci Eur 33:87, 2021), was compared with the results at hand.