Felix Müller

Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel | CAU · Department of Ecosystem Management

This Chapter has the function of introducing the different starting positions of the authors and to provide a first list of viewpoints on social-ecological systems of the southern Baltic region. After a short general introduction, Chap. 2 describes the central role of human needs for the construction of a unified human-environmental model conceptio...

Coastal lagoons provide important ecosystem services, but are simultaneously highly vulnerable. We aim at a better understanding of the mechanisms of ecosystem service production in these ecosystems. Three case studies, based on results obtained during the BACOSA and SECOS projects, identify the impact of the functional organism groups bioturbating...

After the comprehensive description of the ecosystem processes in Chap. 4, the following paragraphs are dedicated to the philosophical, social, and economic aspects of the Baltic human-environmental systems. While in Chap. 2 the foundations of these disciplines have been discussed, those basic ideas are deepened and applied in Chap. 5. The narrativ...

Agriculture’s primary function is the production of food, feed, fibre and fuel for the fast-growing world population. However, it also affects human health and ecosystem integrity. Policymakers make policies in order to avoid harmful impacts. How to assess such policies is a challenge. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework to help evalua...

Spatial assessments of ecosystem services (ES) are needed to fulfil EU policy requirements and to support practical applications of the ES concept in policy implementation. So far, ES assessments have largely focused on terrestrial systems. A joint approach for land and sea is especially lacking. To overcome this gap, we present a novel spatial hab...

Anthropogenic and natural ecosystems in coastal dunes provide considerable benefits to human well-being. However, to date, we still lack a good understanding of how ecosystem services (ES) supply varies from young dunes (e.g., embryo and fore dunes) to mature dunes (e.g., brown and red dunes). This study proposed a novel modelling methodology by in...

Maintaining ecological integrity is globally acknowledged as a strategic goal, yet there is no consensus on a practical and widely usable methodology to assess it. This study proposes a comprehensive approach to quantify regional ecosystem integrity based on FAIR data, obtained using satellite remote sensing and image analysis. Three variables are...

The Andean páramo is notable for high soil carbon storage and its contribution to ecosystem services. However, the páramo’s ability to maintain high soil carbon levels is threatened by land use change from tussock grassland and shrublands to agricultural uses. A chronosequence study was conducted in the páramo around Quito, Ecuador, to determine th...

Spatially explicit assessments of ecosystem services (ES) potentials are a key component in supporting a sustainable land use management. The ES matrix method is a commonly used approach as it allows for a comparably fast, comprehensible and accessible ES assessment. As it is often based on land use/land cover data (LULC) with no spatial variabilit...

Nutrient regulation is an important ecosystem regulating service in watersheds. However, systematic investigations of the spatial associations between the potential, flow, and demand of the nutrient regulation service are still lacking. Therefore, we performed a case study comparing the total phosphorus (TP) retention in the Dianchi Lake (DL) water...

: How to predict the evolution of ecosystems is one of the numerous questions asked of ecologists by managers and politicians. To answer this we will need to give a scientific definition to concepts like sustainability, integrity, resilience and ecosystem health. This is not an easy task, as modern ecosystem theory exemplifies. Ecosystems show a hi...

With the Ecosystem Service (ES) concept's popularisation, the need for robust and practical methodologies for ES assessments has increased. The ES matrix approach, linking ecosystem types or other geospatial units with ES in easy-to-apply lookup tables, was first developed ten years ago and, since then, has been broadly used. Whereas detailed metho...

Human well-being is highly dependent on nature, especially with respect to food provision. This study has been developed in the ecosystem service framework and focuses on the evaluation of ecological integrity as a base for the capacity of Schleswig-Holstein to provide ecosystem services. The ecosystem service potential is assessed based upon a Bay...

In this study, the nutrient regulation ecosystem service (ES) demand was quantified and mapped in an agriculturally-dominated landscape in the federal German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The demand was assessed in a case study area on an individual field scale. As an indicator for the nutrient regulation ecosystem service demand, nitrogen budge...

The Southern Ocean and coastal Antarctica provide a variety of ecosystem services with benefits for humankind that are of regional and global importance. Despite being nearly uninhabited, increasing exploitation of natural resources, a growing human presence, and environmental change threaten the sustained provisioning of these services. Ecosystem...

Ökosysteme und ihre Biozönosen sind komplexe, sich selbst regulierende Systeme, die in ständigem Austausch mit der sie umgebenen Umwelt stehen. Die hohe Variabilität in Arten-zusammensetzung, Biomasse und Produktion der Lebensgemeinschaften innerhalb eines Ökosystems wird durch jahreszeitliche Veränderung von Umweltfaktoren, wie Temperatur, Licht u...

This study aims to assess the potential supply of the ecosystem service (ES) nutrient regulation on two spatial scales, the federal German state of Schleswig-Holstein (regional) and the Bornhöved Lakes District (local), exemplarily for the nutrient nitrogen. The methodology was developed using the ES matrix approach, which can be applied to evaluat...

Processed data BBN—Bornhöved Lakes District. (CSV)

Processed data BBN—Schleswig-Holstein. (CSV)

Environmental stressors and population growth have significantly affected terraced rice ecosystems, such as in the Sapa district in northern Vietnam. The question arises how natural and socio-economic components determine the amount of rice yields. This study combines a hybrid neural-fuzzy inference system (HyFIS) with GISbased methods to generate...

The representation of the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services (ES) is a crucial research frontier in the field of ES modeling. In fact, most current ES models focus on static ES assessments, that need to be repeated with different inputs per time step to explore potential changes in ES. Here, we present a new approach for the dynamic modeling o...

The multiple ecosystem services (ES) co-produced by social-ecological systems include ES directly resulting from ecosystem functioning, and ES mediated by human activities, which can have negative effects on the system and on the ES provided. As a result, different patterns of multiple ES delivery can be characterized by sustainable or unsustainabl...

Recent scientific developments are advancing to link land use and land cover (LULC) change with ecosystem service (ES) potentials. Such links within peri-urban ecosystems are scanty due to methodological and expertise challenge, and data limitation. The study applies the 'ES matrix approach' to spatially display potentials for regulating ES in main...

Recent scientific developments are advancing to link land use and land cover (LULC) change with ecosystem service (ES) potentials. Such links within peri-urban ecosystems are scanty due to methodological and expertise challenge, and data limitation. The study applies the ‘ES matrix approach’ to spatially display potentials for regulating ES in main...

The European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action ESMERALDA aimed at developing guidance and a flexible methodology for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) to support the EU member states in the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s Target 2 Action 5. ESMERALDA’s key tasks included network cr...

Based on GIS data sets an add-on for a coastal classification system was developed which takes Ecosystem Services (ESS) into account. The coastal area is segmented and afterwards classified. The segmentation is based on Google Earth. Each segment can be characterized by 10 different features including ecosystem services perpendicular to the coastli...

Land use change due to the development of agriculture and community-based tourism has resulted in an increase in natural hazards (e.g. erosion and landslides) that affect sustainability in the Sapa mountainous area in northern Vietnam. Natural hazard regulating ecosystem services have protected the local people from the destruction of their village...

Editorial

Rice production and related ecosystem services provision are strongly dependent on environmental characteristics and socio-economic factors. There are still various knowledge gaps among decision makers for the development of sustainable agriculture strategies and to improve food security. Farmers can often not clearly understand issues related to r...

Ecosystem service (ES) hotspot mapping is a promising method to spatially identify priority areas for conservation planning. Our study aims to develop a decision-making framework for ES conservation across administrative levels based on ES hotspot and interaction analyses on multiple spatial scales. To demonstrate the framework, we used the Dianchi...

To safeguard the sustainable use of ecosystems and their services, early detection of potentially damaging changes in functional capabilities is needed. To support a proper ecosystem management, the analysis of an ecosystem's vulnerability provide information on its weaknesses as well as on its capacity to recover after suffering an impact. However...

Emerging as an important issue in the disciplines of landscape ecology and landscape hydrology which inspired it, defining the concept of landscape metrics in a hydrological context has become a challenge to both landscape planners and engineers. Accordingly, the present study addresses the relationships existing between flooding phenomena and land...

This study deals with one of the regulating ecosystem services, nutrient regulation. In order to guarantee sustainable land management, it is of great relevance to gain spatial information on this ecosystem service. Unsustainable land management with regard to nutrient regulation may, for example, result in eutrophication which has been identified...

The complex interactions between environmental and anthropogenic components have significantly influenced rice cultivation. The clear understanding of these interactions is important to (i) optimize rice provisioning ecosystem service (ES) supply, (ii) minimize negative impacts on other ES and (iii) choose suitable strategies for sustainable agricu...

Global change effects on biodiversity and human wellbeing call for improved long-termenvironmental data as a basis for science, policy and decision making, including increased interoperability, multifunctionality, and harmonization. Based on the example of two global initiatives, the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network and t...

This article describes how ecosystem services depend on ecological functions and biodiversity. It shows the mechanisms behind it in some comprehensible figures and tables. It is based on a chapter of the book "mapping ecosystem services".

Recently, ecosystem services assessment has been developed as an effective tool to exchange and understand science, develop policies, especially in cultural ecosystem services. However, quantification and mapping of cultural ecosystem services are obstructed by complications in their definitions and suitable indicators. It can be solved based on a...

Der Artikel enthält folgende Tabellen: Bedeutung, Abkürzung und Umrechnungen von SI‐Einheiten Griechisches Alphabet SI‐Einheiten und Umwandlungsfaktoren Physikalische Konstanten Eigenschaften von Luft, Wasserdampf und CO2 HAUDE‐Koeffizienten in mm/hPa, Bornhöveder Seen, 1993 Größen, die sich um mehr als 1 % pro Grad ändern Untere und obere Grenzen...

Die systematische Untersuchung stofflicher und energetischer Austauschprozesse zwischen benachbarten Ökosystemen ist bislang weit weniger gefördert worden als die intrasystemare Analyse derartiger Flüsse. Ausgehend von den Ergebnissen und Erfahrungen des inter‐ und transdisziplinären Bornhöved‐Projektes ist es daher die Zielsetzung dieses Beitrags,...

Das Handbuch der Umweltwissenschaften wurde als ein interdisziplinäres Forum für Fragestellungen, Methoden, Ergebnisse und Probleme der neu entstehenden Disziplingruppe “Ökosystemforschung” konzipiert. Dabei soll der Rahmen nicht auf eine exklusive Diskussion des naturwissenschaftlichen ‘Begründungszusammenhangs’, also der Hypothesenbildung, ‐opera...

Emergente Eigenschaften ökologischer Systeme werden in diesem Text als Konsequenzen aus Selbstorganisationsprozessen aufgefasst, die bei der spontanen Bildung makroskopischer Strukturen aus mikroskopischer Unordnung erwachsen. Die Emergenz als ganzheitliche Systemqualität basiert auf den Wechselwirkungen zwischen den beteiligten Subsystemen: Emerge...

There is a rapidly growing body of literature on the theory about the ecosystem service concept and the practical assessment of ecosystem services in different contexts ranging from natural to urban environments. Yet, where does the concept reach its limits? This paper critically reflects the application of the ecosystem service concept in urban en...

Inadequacies in the indication of cultural ecosystem services (CES) are a hindrance in assessing their comprehensive impacts on human wellbeing. Similarly, uncertainties about the quantity and quality of CES, in real time and space, have hampered the ability of resource managers to precisely take responsive management actions. The aim of the study...

A clear link between ecosystem services (ES) and human well-being has been established in the recent decades. Thus, forests are recognised as extremely important ecosystems in relation to their capacity to provide goods and services to society. Nevertheless, this capacity greatly depends on the type of forest and on the management applied. Some typ...

Watersheds provide multiple ecosystem services. Ecosystem service assessment is a promising approach to investigate human-environment interaction at the watershed scale. The spatial characteristics of ecosystem services are closely related to land use statuses in human-dominated watersheds. This study aims to investigate the effects of land use on...

To address the challenges inherent in accessing spatiotemporal hydrological data, water resources professionals have developed various regionalization tools. The present study examines the possibility that changes in landscape metrics including mean shape index, mean perimeter-area ratio, mean patch size and patch density of land use/ land cover co...

In this perspective paper a critical discussion about the concept of the Ecological Footprint is documented based on 10 questions which are answered from critical and supporting points-of-view. These key questions are directed toward the underlying research objectives of the approach, a comparison with similar concepts, the quantification methodolo...

Assessments of ecosystem services (ES) are vital for Africa?s sustainability. ES supply and demand take place in distinctive patterns in Africa due to the continent?s characteristic spatial heterogeneity, rich biodiversity, demographic developments, resource endowment, resource management conflicts, and fragile political landscapes, along with curr...

For discussing and planning sustainable land management of river basins, stakeholders need suitable information on spatio-temporal patterns of natural processes and human actions. This study shows an approach to use ecohydrological modelling results for assessing water-related ecosystem services in three lowland river basins in Western Siberia. Bas...

The social-ecological systems of rice terraces across Southeast Asia are the result of centuries of long-term interactions between human communities and their surrounding ecosystems. Processes and structures in these systems have evolved to provide a diversity of ecosystem services and benefits to human societies. However, as Southeast Asian countr...

This chapter discusses recent approaches for the indication of ecosystem services. The starting point is an introductory description of basic concepts of environmental indication and fundamental steps of indicator derivation and application. Based on this information, criteria of indicator quality are identified, which in the end are applied to rec...

The theory of resilience is increasing in applied ecosystem research and has become a valuable concept for analyzing relationships between natural environments and various stressors, e.g., global warming or direct human impacts. This concept offers opportunities to apply management strategies to different system levels and can provide insights into...

For planning and obtaining a sustainable environmental management of river basins, stakeholder information and participation is an important procedure for the decision-making process. Stakeholders need suitable information on spatio-temporal variations in ecosystem services which can be derived by different quantification methods such as modelling....