Abstract
Ecosystem services, a fuzzy concept (Maillefert, 2016), refer to the benefits offered to humans by ecosystems (MEA, 2005). Evaluations of ecosystem services are still mainly focused on the supply of services or their monetary value, without explicitly studying their actual contribution to the well-being of inhabitants or users (Prévot & Geijendorffer, 2016). Our work therefore proposes an explicit evaluation of individuals' representations of ecosystem services' contributions as a component of their well-being. The methodology implemented is based on the assessment of social representations through a combination of interviews, cognitive mapping, and cognitive graphs. These representations are related to socio-professional categories (i.e., fishermen represent well-being differently from other stakeholders) and ecosystem type (i.e., beaches and seasides generate more well-being services than mangroves and coral reefs). We verify empirically the hypothesis of a positive impact of ecosystem services on well-being.