3.3. Budgets of energy provisioning ecosystem services’ supply
and demand
The energy provisioning ecosystem services supply–demand
budget maps indicate dynamics in the production-consumption
respectively source-sink patterns. In the year 1990 (Fig. 5; bottom
right), when lignite was the only energy supplier in the region,
all areas in the region (except the mineral extraction sites) can
be characterized as sinks of energy provisioning ecosystem services.
Especially the urban, industrial and commercial areas but
also the rural regions were dependent on flows of energy supplied
in only one land cover type. A different pattern emerges for the
year 2007 (Fig. 6; bottom right). Even though the urban, industrial
and commercial areas are still remarkable sinks of energy provisioning
services, the amount and spatial extension of areas with
oversupply of energy have been increasing significantly due to the
area-wide use of renewable energy sources. In combination with
decreasing energy demands, the former dependence on only one
source of energy supply could be reduced on the one hand. On
the other hand, several open pit mining areas were closed down