Boundary Concepts

Terms, such as “ecosystem services” that help to structure and ease exchange across policy fields, political-administrative levels, and stakeholder groups by providing the basis for a shared understanding, but are still sufficiently vague, so that they can be integrated into different backgrounds and contexts (Mollinga, 2010). As a boundary concept, the ES concept (see also Potschin and Haines-Young, 2014) enables researchers from other disciplines, policy makers and other stakeholders to speak a common language and each can select knowledge relevant to their particular field.