What is restoration success? Integrating AHP with a choice experiment to monetize the multifunctionality of grasslands

To support the transition towards a multifunctional understanding of restoration success, we monetize the multifunctionality of grasslands, a concept increasingly embraced by decision-makers and guidelines but not yet widely adopted. A novel, cost-efficient experimental design with the criteria of the analytic hierarchy process as attributes of the discrete choice experiment tightly integrates both methodologies. The presented methodological approach is more holistic than a stand-alone choice experiment, thus reducing the risk of bias caused by attribute selection. The novel integration couples the analytic hierarchy process to the utility framework and enables additional checks for consistency in behavior across experiments. It can be used ex-ante of restoration to identify restoration targets. Constituting the first global assessment of restoration multifunctionality, we conduct compositional data analysis to identify differences in stakeholder- and region-specific preferences. Farmers differ strongly from non-farming stakeholders by placing larger emphasis on provisioning services. Stakeholders from Asia and Australia, South America, and Africa place less emphasis on the provision of biodiversity and more on provisioning services than European and North American stakeholders. Based on grasslands as our case-study, we present a multifunctional framework of restoration success including socio-economic factors. We suggest to objectify the term restoration success by defining success as up-scaling of restoration, while restoration projects should be evaluated in terms of target compliance.