The Service Connecting Area (SCA) is the space between non-adjacent ecosystem service-providing and benefiting areas. The properties of the connecting space influences the transfer itself (Syrbe et al. 2017) ¹⁾. The connection between Service Benefitting Area (SBA) and Service Providing Area (SPA) may be directional (ES or benefit flows always in one direction, e.g. drinking water flowing downslope) or non-directional (ES or benefit has no defined areas of provision and benefit, e.g. food products being transported to costumers).

Within AlpES it is not possible to outline the SCA for all ES on an alpine wide scale. They are often well identifiable through local knowledge for most ecosystem services though.