Ecosystem services trade-offs in landscapes: trends, areas of greatest impact, and temporal evolution of the scientific field

Context Trade-offs between ecosystem services (ES) occur by premeditated decision or as an involuntary consequence of landscape change. This has been highlighted as a challenge to human well-being and landscape sustainability. Little is known about the main research topics on ES trade-offs and the evolution of this subject over time. Objectives To identify the main areas of research in the study of ES trade-offs in landscapes and analyze the temporal evolution of the scientific field. Methods We conducted a scientometric analysis to visualize the structural configuration of the ES trade-offs field of study; and identify its thematic trends and temporal evolution employing CiteSpace co-citation analysis. Results We identified seven articles that are pivotal to the discipline and four main areas of research: (1) landscape functioning and ES, (2) interactions between multiple ES, (3) landscape management, (4) social-ecological perspective. The field of study is evolving through a transition to a qualitative perspective with approaches that includes social perceptions of ES trade-offs across landscapes. This transition is driven by the emerging trend in the discipline: social-ecological perspective in ES trade-off assessments. Conclusions The scientific field is contributing to the construction of a body of knowledge about the relationship between ES and human well-being which is a substantial support to for advancing in landscape sustainability science. Future works could focus on the development of methodologies that strongly incorporate the temporal scale in ES trade-offs, including social variables and participatory approaches in ES trade-offs assessments.