Evaluation of cultural ecosystem services is essential for sustainable ecosystem management, consensus formation among stakeholders, and decision making. Despite its importance, educational value of ecosystems has been rarely evaluated because of its intangible nature and the difficulty in monetary evaluation. Therefore, its linkages to natural and social attributes of landscape are still unclear. In this study, we evaluated educational value of ecosystems across Japan by using field trips of junior high schools accompanied by staying as an indicator. We quantified the effects of natural and social attributes of landscape on (i) a decision whether each junior high school conducts field trips, (ii) travel cost of each field trip, and (iii) spatial distribution of the destinations of field trips across Japan. We applied a machine-learning method to the results of questionnaire to 1655 junior high schools. Natural and social attributes of landscape, which include climate, forest cover, natural forest cover, natural park area, topography, population density, density of facilities for youth education, were summarized in five scales from 10 km to 210 km grid across Japan.
Results/Conclusions
Our results revealed that around 50% of junior high schools in Japan conduct field trips more than once a year. Schools located in the urban areas with poor natural environment (e.g. lower natural forest cover) tended to conduct field trips with higher probability. Travel cost for a field trip was higher when schools located in the urban areas with higher population density made the trip to an area surrounded by sea (e.g. remote islands) or to an area with lower population density and higher percentage of natural forest cover. Landscapes with higher density of facilities for youth education and higher percentage of natural park area were chosen with higher probability as destinations of field trips. These results suggest that landscapes with good natural environment have high educational value for schools located in the urban areas. However, social/infrastructural attributes such as presence of facilities for youth education are essential for actual use of the educational value (i.e. service flow). Overall, this study demonstrates that good natural environment is linked to high educational value, and both natural and social attributes of landscape complexly affect educational value of ecosystems and the service flow.