Mapping supply and demand of a provisioning ecosystem service across Europe

Human welfare is dependent on the availability of ecosystem services (ESs). There is an urgent need to explore the balance between ES production and consumption areas to ensure the sustainable use of the natural capital. Here, we present a spatial accessibility analysis to explicitly evaluate the balance between ES supply and demand across Europe. We used a central food product (crop) as an example of provisioning ES, where transportation is required to satisfy the demand. Our results show large differences in a country's ability to produce food in relation to its demand, leading to significant risks of over- and underproduction on a regional scale. An ecosystem's capacity to provide services exceeded especially in the middle of Europe. The majority of the countries would benefit significantly by balancing the supply and demand at international level, even at close distances. Our results demonstrate how the situation in Europe can change if the international distribution of the food ES is prevented. By using a state-of-the-art accessibility method instead of commonly used overlay analysis, it is possible to identify where to invest in transportation and enhance natural capacity to respond to the possible changes in food production or the growing demand of food energy.