Planning requirements relate to spatial design goals as well as usage, protection, and revitalization decisions. Now and in the near future, nationwide strategies are needed for protecting open spaces, for soil and climate protection, climate adaptation, the development of renewable energies, and the protection of biodiversity, including ensuring the diverse appearance and recreational value of landscapes. In the course of the dynamic development of digital data and information bases, specialist data on land use, ecosystems and biodiversity (among others) is generated and incorporated into ecologically-oriented indicator systems. In this article we provide an overview of national indicators for evaluating ecosystems and their services. The indicator system laid out in the ecosystem service concept can make the intended environmental states of spatial planning measurable and evaluable, thus opening the way to a dynamic planning process. The spatial representation of the state and development of ecosystem services is particularly useful and necessary where large-scale relationships are involved, for example in the case of a high level habitat network, flood retention, landscape fragmentation, but also when highlighting areas that are particularly important nationwide for ecosystem services, such as recreational areas or the protection of important natural and cultural landscapes.