Applying ecosystem benefit valuation to inform quarry restoration planning

European societies and economies depend heavily on a steady supply of materials extracted from quarries. Due to this dependence, a significant amount of space in Europe is covered with minerals extraction sites. For each of these, plans for the post-extraction phase are a policy-required need. The decision on after-use offers room for support by appropriate information to assess which restoration scenario delivers the highest benefits for society and nature. In this paper, we suggest an approach for assessing the wide range of information on ecosystem benefits that are provided by alternative restoration scenarios. Three case studies are presented, for which we develop and discuss integrated ecosystem benefit valuation approaches. The results suggest that, for these three case studies, the value of socio-cultural fulfillment provided by conservation-focused restoration outweigh the value of benign climate that is foregone by restoring to habitats with lower carbon storage and sequestration. Further, these site-specific results demonstrate how information can be narrowed down to be relevant for decision making in quarry restoration. Communication of these results is also key to improve decision making in quarry restoration, in order to increase ecosystem service knowledge among all stakeholders involved.