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Capacity, pressure, demand, and flow: A conceptual framework for analyzing ecosystem service provision and delivery
... The correlation discovered between urban landsparing and an improved performance of soil retention ES supply in China (Hu et al., 2020) supports the practice of deliberate land preservation in helping cities maintain ecological resilience while accommodating a growing urban population and expanding urban land use. However, the provision of regulatory and cultural ES often has limited geographical ow and extent, suggesting that regulatory and cultural ES demands have to be met in a site-speci c manner (Villamagna et al., 2013). Therefore, a landsharing practice which increases urban green space availability and accessibility can sometimes be preferred depending on the ES of interest. ...
... We observe land sharing to be the dominant pattern of urban design in Singapore, with well-integrated greenery in close proximity to the built living spaces -bringing the service-providing ecosystems closer to urban dwellers (Stott et al., 2015). Especially for regulatory ES such as temperature reduction and air quality regulation where the service bene tting area is localised to the positions of the service-providing ecosystems (Villamagna et al., 2013), over-reliance on the land-sparing practice could lead to undesired segregation between urban and natural landscapes, resulting in spatially uneven distribution in ES (Stott et al., 2015). The green spaces interspersed in Singapore's urban landscape in the form of neighbourhood parks, park connectors and green corridors are therefore expected to contribute to ES balance. ...
... For example, the temperature reduction service could be better estimated using the optimum temperature for thermal comfort for most Singapore residents. This would be in line with the de nition of demand for regulatory services as "the amount of regulation needed to meet predetermined conditions" (Villamagna et al., 2013). Nevertheless, previous studies on regulatory ES such as ood regulation and coastal protection have used population density as an indicator of demand -interpreted as the demand for protection from hazards (Wolff et al., 2015). ...
In the face of rapid urban densification, many cities have seen a decline in the extent of urban green spaces which are also the very landscape that provide a myriad of benefits for human well-being. This results in a mismatch between the ecosystem service supply from the urban natural landscape, and demand from the urban dwellers. While the mapping of ecosystem service supply and demand has been widely conducted for ecosystem service assessments, spatially explicit assessments of supply-demand balances and distributions are rarely explored in the urban context. Using Singapore as a case study, we mapped out the distribution of mismatches in six urban ecosystem services. In addition, we investigated the potential influence that a lived experience of ecosystem service supply-demand mismatch may have on residents’ perception towards the importance of ecosystem services. We found that the level of mismatch is predicted by proportion of unmanaged vegetation and distance to nature reserves. This is likely due to the distribution of unmanaged vegetation around the island state. Except for the noise abatement ecosystem service, we failed to find evidence of correlation between mismatch and Singaporeans’ perceived importance of ecosystem services, except in the case of noise abatement. This could potentially be influenced by the hyper-connectedness of Singapore’s landscape, allowing a locally unmet demand for ecosystem services to be fulfilled in a location with higher supply.
... Ecosystem services (ES) refers to the benefits that human receives directly or indirectly from an ecosystem, mainly including supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural services (MEA, 2005). ES not only influences human well-being, but also characterizes the structure, process, and function of ecosystem ( Villamagna et al., 2013). Series of ecoenvironmental problems related to ES have caused global concern (Schild et al., 2018). ...
... However, regional land use situation is also largely comprehensively created by natural conditions like climate and topography, e.g., tropical rainforests are mostly distributed in low latitudes and grasslands are distributed in semi-arid areas, thus finally influencing ES with land use as an intermediary. Above analysis of the conceptual framework suggests the socioeconomic and natural ecological drivers, ultimately influence ES through complex pathways from the demand and supply sides, respectively (Villamagna et al., 2013). However, the pathways of factors driving ES changes in the above conceptual framework are only theoretical for the overall ES, needing further empirical exploration. ...
... It provides a new perspective to understand the changes of ecological environment. Nowadays literatures begin to notice ES flow from the supply to demand side and propose some frameworks to describe this process ( Xu and Peng, 2022;Qiu et al., 2022;Villamagna et al., 2013). However, they focus on ES flow efficiency to make ES more satisfied human well-being demand, rather that investigating how ES change influence ecological environment under the interaction of supply and demand factors. ...
Characterizing the structure, process, and function of ecosystems, ecosystem services (ES) closely impacts human well-being. It is significant to reveal the complex pathways of factors driving ES based on the supply–demand framework to supplement knowledge about ES change. Therefore, A conceptual framework of ES change from the supply–demand perspective was constructed first. Then, the structural equation model (SEM) method was employed to reveal the mechanism of ES changes driven by socioeconomic and natural ecological factors and to measure their direct and indirect effects. The main findings are: The social and economic factors indirectly affect ES, with effects of −0.549 and −0.154, respectively, from the demand side. Natural conditions, as the supply-side factors, directly and indirectly affect ES, with effects of 4.342 and −1.721. Land use directly acts on ES from the supply side as an intermediary that links the socioeconomic factors and natural conditions, with a direct effect of −2.735. The effect sizes of drivers on different ES are different, however generally conform to the proposed mechanism framework. This study follows the theory of Coupled Human and Natural Systems and contributes to the construction of resilient social-ecological system.
... There are many different definitions of ESF in existing ES research. Some studies define ESF as the amount of a service actually used by people or delivered to people through certain transmission channels, regardless of where the service is generated and how the service flows Burkhard et al., 2014;Villamagna et al., 2013). Others define ESF as the transmission of a service from ecosystem to humans and focus on the process of the service flow (Bagstad et al., 2013;Shen and Wang, 2021). ...
... The inability to consistently define and quantify ESF limits the application of ES concepts in policy making. Although some previous studies and reviews have focused on concepts that discriminate ES potential supply and actual use (Villamagna et al., 2013;Hein et al., 2016;Jones et al., 2016), classify or characterize ESF according to spatial characteristics (Fisher et al., 2009;Ruhl et al., 2007), or focus on specific aspects of ESF (e.g. cultural flow, interregional flow or ES flow of marine systems) (Chalkiadakis et al., 2022;Schröter et al., 2018;Xiao et al., 2017), to the best of our knowledge, no systematic review has been conducted to summarize the main concepts, methods and applications of ESF. ...
... Based on the information from the ESF case studies, the preliminary concept of ES (benefits that people obtain from ecosystem) which emphasizes both supply and demand (MEA,2005), and the fact that existing studies have paid more attention to potential ES (Villamagna et al., 2013), we categorized existing ESF definitions, methods and applications from three aspects: the demand for ES, the spatial position of ES supply and demand and the flow process between ES supply and demand (Fig. 2). ...
Studying the whole process of ecosystem services (ES) realization by people (ecosystem services flow) is the key to ES management. However, varying concepts of relative ecosystem services flow (ESF) and different methods for measuring ESF have prevented its effective application in policy and management. In addition, there has been no systematic review of the concepts, methods and application of ESF. To address this research gap, we conducted a systematic review of ESF measurement, focusing on the main concepts, methods and applications. We used the key words ““ecosystem service*” AND (“flow*” OR “delivery*”)” in the core collection of the ISI Web of Science databases, with the aim of synthesizing the concepts, methods and applications of ESF. We propose future research directions to move the field of ESF toward a more accepted and consistent set of terminology and scientific practice. Eighty-two case studies were eventually selected for the review. We found that different understandings of the definition of ESF (actual use amount as flow, spatial connection as flow, flow process as flow and other flow) resulted in different measurement methods. Measuring the whole process of ESF may help us measure nature’s contribution to people, understand the relationship between supply and demand, which will facilitate the development of regional planning and policies (e.g. spatial conservation planning, infrastructure planning, interregional management), and in turn increase ESF. To effectively apply ESF in the future, first, we recommend combining existing flow definitions and redefining ESF as the whole ESF realization process with more focus on human needs. Second, ecological process-based dynamic models should be developed or improved to assess ESF by integrating the beneficiaries. Third, we should consider the impacts of both natural and human-derived capital on the delivery of ESF and ways to strengthen interregional flow management. Overall, this article contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the definition, methods and application for measuring ESF, which in turn will inform ES policy implementation.
... The assessment of ecosystem services requires a complete understanding of the flow of services from ecosystems to society, and consequently the use of different indicators that are based on meaningful science is required for an effective implementation of the ecosystem services concept Villamagna, Angermeier, & Bennett, 2013). This contribution provides an overview of the recent research activities mapping and assessing ecosystem services at a national scale, and briefly discusses the implications for decision-making. ...
... The ecosystem service framework adopted in this work (Figure 1), builds on existing widely used frameworks Villamagna et al., 2013), and distinguishes between different components along the ecosystem services delivery chain (Table 1). To understand the relationship between people and ecosystems, we need to identify both the functional characteristics of ecosystems that give rise to services and the benefits and values which arise from these . ...
The Digital Transformation of the Real World entails the need to move from analogue to digital to virtual in an attempt to recreate that reality into a digital twin that is enhanced through multi-domain, multi-disciplinary integration systems. The What factor in the W6H model (What, Why, Who, Where, When, How and Why Not) takes central stage in this publication through the plethora of research studies that pivot around the location kernel. The past two decades have been dedicated by scholars and in turn society to employing a bottom-up approach to the concept of digitisation and digitalisation. Through data, information and in turn knowledge, action can now be taken up by policy-makers and decision-takers to ensure that all are ready for a new research and analytical operand: an operand that pivots on the Digital Transformation through strategic, operational and tactical activities as the fourth industrial revolution takes hold (Lachvajderova at al (2021); Vrana et al, (2022).
This publication is the result of decades of collaboration in the academic, operational and strategic domains as exemplified by over 40 authors, each an established researcher in their own domain. What they succeeded in doing, is the bringing together of a diversified approach to integrative efforts for the spatial and virtualization resultant from the GI-based approach to spatial relationships to integration and immersion.
The publication contains twenty-four chapters authored by the SIntegraM and
SpatialTrain project contributors: a tsunami of information gleaned from data and in turn knowledge readied for positive action in the physical, natural and social environments. The publication which is the third of three books is categorised in four domains: Spatial technologies: GI and its real-life application, Project based Approaches: Benefits gained from National, EU and International Projects Domain, Thematic: Environmental, Social and Development Planning Domains, Emergent Realities: Virtuality, Augmented Reality and Innovation Domain. As in all three publications, such chapters can be recategorised by method, delivery, analytics and other facets, each sustained by the other domains as they seek fruition towards integration and eventually wellbeing.
... Many studies have begun to address ecosystem services flow, the agents through which ecosystem services are transferred from supply to benefit areas. However, most current research on ecosystem services flow is only conceptual [49,50], and many studies focus on easily quantifiable ecosystem services, such as food production and water supply [51,52]. Research scales are also small, such as urban and scenic areas, and large-scale studies are lacking [53]. ...
... The understanding of ecosystem services demand varies between scholars. Many scholars define the ecosystem services demand as the number of services that society needs or desires [49,50,[63][64][65]. This study adopts this view, considering that ecosystem services demand includes both products or services that are available or consumed and desired. ...
Carbon ecological compensation is essential to coordinate regional environmental protection, reduce the gap between the economic development of protected areas and beneficiary areas, and achieve carbon neutrality. This paper proposed a theoretical framework for ecological compensation using the theories of carbon balance, externality, ecosystem services, and carbon trading mechanisms. Based on the analysis of the ecological compensation priority sequence in Henan Province, the suppliers and consumers of carbon sequestration were identified, and cross-regional ecological compensation was realized through ecosystem services flow. The results showed that the carbon sequestration supply in Henan Province was characterized as being high in the west and low in the east, while the demand was the opposite. Affected by the suitable environmental conditions, many areas had an ecological surplus pattern, and the carbon sequestration supply was more significant than the demand. Central and south-western Henan Province were distinct ecological compensation payment areas and receiving areas, respectively. Nanyang, which had the largest carbon sequestration flow and the largest ecological contribution to other regions, received the highest ecological compensation fund of CNY 4.069 billion. This study can provide decision support for carbon ecological compensation in the context of carbon neutrality.
... Second, previous studies used the biophysical supply of ES to represent restoration benefits (Strassburg et al., 2019;Strassburg et al., 2020) while ignoring that the supply of ES is not a good surrogate for the demand in many situations (Burkhard et al., 2012;Zhao et al., 2018;Cui et al., 2019). ES supply represents what is potentially available from ecosystem processes and functions, while ES demand represents the amount of ES consumed or expected to be obtained by human society (Villamagna et al., 2013;Peng et al., 2017). For example, the supply of carbon sequestration service is often quantified with the net primary productivity of natural ecosystems, while the demand for carbon sequestration service is expressed with the carbon dioxide emitted by socioeconomic systems (Shi et al., 2020). ...
... Regional ecosystem health deteriorates as the mismatch between ES demand and supply increases (Villamagna et al., 2013;Pan et al., 2021). Thus, restoration actions should be prioritized in areas with serious deficits in ES supply and demand to truly improve local human-being (Peng et al., 2020). ...
Governments and non-governmental organizations have widely recognized tidal wetland restoration as a sustainable instrument to lessen the threat of climate change, which is reflected by the expansion of the spatial scale of coastal restoration projects. However, approaches to large-scale spatial planning of tidal wetland restoration remain sparse. Previous studies on site selection for restoration planning have focused on the potential supply of ecosystem services (ES) or restoration feasibility with less emphasis on the mitigation of the status of regional ES supply and demand mismatches. We developed a five-step workflow based on systematic conservation planning to identify priority areas for tidal wetland restoration and applied it to the coastal reclaimed areas of Shanghai, China. With this workflow, we analyzed the changes in spatial distribution and the potential ecosystem services supply and restoration costs of priority areas between the two different scenarios of ES demand ignored and ES demand considered. Results showed that the potential restorable areas only accounted for 31.4% (425.2 km²) of the original reclaimed area because of other land use demands (e.g., permanent basic farmland conservation). We extracted 50% of the potential restorable areas as priority areas based on Aichi Target 15. Compared with the ES demand-ignored scenario, the ES demand scenario resulted in a substantial increase in the priority areas of Baoshan District (~177%) and Pudong New Area (~15%) and a small decrease in Chongming District (~4%). No significant change in the potential ES supply for all priority areas was observed between the two scenarios. However, the total restoration cost of the ES demand scenario is 10% higher than that of the ES demand-ignored scenario. Our study highlights the importance of considering the status of regional ES supply and demand (mis)matches in large-scale spatial planning for tidal wetland restoration.
... Ecosystem service supply is defined as the "full potential of ecological functions or biophysical elements in an ecosystem to provide a given ecosystem service" (Tallis et al., 2012, S. 977). To define the capacity of ecosystems to supply ecosystem services, we follow the definition by Villamagna et al. as "an ecosystem's potential to deliver services based on biophysical and social properties and functions" (Villamagna et al., 2013). ...
This report summarizes the findings of a first ecosystem services assessment on territorial scale for the Outermost Region French Guiana, including a matrix assessment, ecosystem services maps and ecosystem services bundles.
... Ecosystem service demand refers to the quantity and quality of services that humans expect to obtain from natural systems, namely the potential demand [39,40]. Typically, latent demand includes not only the actual demand that humans have consumed but also the unfulfilled demand that humans would like to consume within ecosystem services. ...
With the rapid development of society and economy, people’s demand for ecosystem services is constantly increasing. All countries support this demand by vigorously developing green finance. The coordinated development of green finance and ecosystem service demand is of great significance for sustainable development. Most of the existing studies separately study green finance or ecosystem service demand, separating the relationship between the two. At present, there is still a lack of clear understanding of the coupling relationship between green finance and ecosystem service demand. In addition, in the existing coupling relationship calculation models, the setting of relevant parameters is subjective. Therefore, based on the green finance and ecosystem service demand database of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2017, this paper firstly evaluates the green finance and ecosystem service demand quantitatively, and then analyzes the coupling coordination relationship between them by using an improved coupling coordination degree model. The results show that: (1) compared with the traditional coupling coordination degree model, the contribution coefficient of each subsystem in the improved coupling coordination degree model has a more sufficient basis, and more objective evaluation results; (2) from 2010 to 2017, the level of green finance in China’s provinces increased significantly, showing a spatial pattern of “high in the east and low in the west”; the ecosystem services demand increased first and then decreased, with an increase in nearly two-thirds of provinces; (3) the coupling coordination relationship between green finance and ecosystem service demand in China’s provinces was optimized continuously from 2010 to 2017, showing the spatial differentiation of “eastern China > central China > northeast China > western China”; (4) in 2017, the coupling coordination degree of green finance and ecosystem service demand in Guangdong Province was the highest, reaching a high level of coordination, while Qinghai Province was the lowest, as a result of a serious level of incoordination. It is worth noting that the comprehensive development level of green finance in China is still low and seriously lags behind the development level of ecosystem services demand. In the future, green and low-carbon transformation should be accelerated to promote the sustainable development of financial ecology.
... Since remote times, interactions between natural factors, social dynamics, and economic activities have shaped and affected its morphology and functioning (Solidoro et al. 2010). Given the complexity of these interactions, understanding spatial and temporal patterns of ESs capacity and flow (sensu Villamagna et al. 2013) plays a key role in environmental decision-making regarding the Venice Lagoon, as suggested by Rova et al. (2015Rova et al. ( , 2019. ...
The Venice Lagoon social-ecological system is characterized by a strong relationship between the natural environment and human activities. This is especially noticeable in the aquaculture and hunting reserves of the lagoon, locally known as valli da pesca. Previous works about ecosystem services (ESs) in the Venice Lagoon focused on the so-called “open lagoon,” overlooking the role of the valli da pesca. Nonetheless, despite being completely managed ecosystems, the valli da pesca have conserved typical elements of transitional water environments that the other parts of the lagoon have lost. By evaluating nine ESs using a spatially explicit approach, we found that the valli da pesca, despite covering 17% of the surface, are contributing for 38% of the ESs total capacity, and for 24% of the ESs total flow, in comparison with the open part of the lagoon. Moreover, the management that aims to maximize in a perspective of sustainability of some provisioning ESs, such as extensive aquaculture, can positively influence the presence of factors on which other ESs capacity is also based. As a result, the open lagoon benefits from a sort of spill-over effect for lifecycle support, hunting, and cultural ESs such as tourism, information for cognitive development, and birdwatching. Such significant contributions could be endangered in the context of a lagoon subjected to increasing pressures from anthropic activities where even adaptations to impacts, as well as to climate change and sea-level rise effects, in the long run will modify the lagoon hydrodynamics and the sea-lagoon connectivity, threatening the valli da pesca and so their ESs supply.
... This is because the absolute level of service provision is not the appropriate metric for evaluating threat [118]. Any threat assessment framework must evaluate both ecosystem service supply (the potential for natural capital to generate benefit for people) [119], and demand (the level of service provision desired or acquired by people [120]. ...
Ecosystem services are the very essence of the inhabitants of the North-East Region of Nigeria; hence the sustainability of these services is very important. The concept of sustainability is imprecise and reveals two main underlying issues which are intergenerational fairness and the moral responsibility of the current generation to its descendants on the one hand, and the role of assets provided by nature including forest and marine ecosystems in satisfying both current interests and the obligations we assume to the future on the other. Many benefits from ecosystem services accrue to the six states of Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, Bauchi and Borno in the North-East Region of Nigeria. The economic value of Hadejia-Nguru wetlands which forms part of the Kamadougou-Yobe River Basin of the Lake Chad Basin was estimated at over US$16 million per year. The estimated value of ecosystem services that can be attributed to inland watersheds and wetlands range between US$5000 and US$100,000 per hectare while coastal watersheds and wetlands were between US$500 and US$1,000,000 per hectare in 2007. The product of the national average of 0.284 tonnes/person/year of fuel wood consumption and number of inhabitants of 24,051,418 (2006 census projected to 2014) gave an estimated consumption of 6,830,603 tonnes/person/year for the six North-Eastern States. However, there are threats to the sustenance of ecosystem services, some of which include urbanization, progressive industrialization, overgrazing, exploitation of natural resources, depletion of wetlands, watersheds and insurgencies which have drastically reduced production of and accessibility to ecosystem services. These threats can be mitigated through development of framework for assessing demand and supply of these services, restoration of terrestrial and marine ecosystems through biodiversity approach, capacity building and forestry extension services to create awareness among the populace on the importance and value of ecosystem services.
... In 2017/2018, a working group focused on understanding how landscape structure influences the provision of ES (the sLandServ group) met twice for 1-week summer and winter workshops in Leipzig to discuss and develop new knowledge on how landscape structure affects ES provision, by being explicit about the spatial socio-ecological processes that generate ES benefits. The group tried to understand how landscape structure drives ES supply, i.e., the capacity of an ecosystem to provide ES (Burkhard et al. 2012), ES demand, i.e., ES desired or required by people (Villamagna et al. 2013), and ES flows connecting supply and demand areas. The strong socialecological framing of this problem required a diverse group that spanned multiple disciplines and perspectives. ...
Inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration in environmental studies faces the challenge of communicating across disciplines to reach a common understanding of scientific problems and solutions in a changing world. One way to address current pressing environmental challenges is to employ a boundary work approach that uses activities across borders of separated field of research. But how can this look like in practice? In this research brief, we self-evaluated the boundary work approach in a synthesis group on socio-ecological systems, based on an online survey with participants. Here, we discuss how boundary work can be used to integrate the knowledge from natural and social scientists both working on social-ecological systems. We found participants were selected to be acted as boundary spanners and were willing to cooperate for solving multidisciplinary issues regarding the understanding, management, and maintenance of ecosystem services. A social-ecological network analysis framework served as a boundary concept and object for communication and knowledge integration. Being familiar with a joint boundary concept like ecosystem services prior to the working group event supported the communication of participants. These results indicate that synthesis initiatives could strategically leverage boundary work through the careful selection of members, with the inclusion of boundary spanners, as well as prior joint identification of boundary concepts and objects.
... ES accounting focuses on quantifying actual flows of ecosystem service effectively delivered from ecosystems to socio-economic systems [29,30]. There are many ways to quantify ES actual flows, with a varying degree of complexity: approaches overarch direct use of available data, to intermediate processing and modelling. ...
... As defined by Villamagna et al. (2013) and Wolff et al. (2015), the demand for regulatory ecosystem services is represented by the amount of regulation required to maintain desirable environmental conditions. In the case of nitrogen and water purification, WP D can be quantified as the amount of non-point sourced nitrogen loading that ought to be reduced by terrestrial ecosystems such as woodland and grassland for maintenance of desirable surface water quality. ...
Although it is challenging to integrate supply and demand to comprehensively understand urbanization effects on ecosystem services, this knowledge is essential, especially in rapidly urbanizing areas. A spatially explicit approach was developed here to synthesize supply and demand dynamics of the two most important hydrologic services in the rapidly urbanizing Taihu Lake Basin (TLB) of eastern China. The supply of water purification (WP S) and flood mitigation (FM S) were measured as nitrogen removal and runoff retention, respectively. Whereas the demand for water purification (WP D) was quantified as the difference between total and permitted nitrogen loading based on relevant water quality standards, the demand for flood mitigation (FM D) was estimated as the vulnerability to potential flood damage, including economic losses and causalities. We found a spatial mismatch where high WP S and FM S occurred in mountainous areas while high WP D and FM D concentrated in urban and agricultural areas across the basin. WP S and WP D decreased by 10% and 20%, respectively during 2000-2015, due mainly to loss of croplands to urban expansion. This was also the main cause of decreased FM S by 7% but increased FM D by 67%, which underscored the importance of conserving croplands in rapidly urbanizing regions of the TLB. Overall, land use composition had strong associations with WP D (r 2 ≥ 0.57) and FM S (r 2 ≥ 0.38) at the sub-basin scale, while the configuration of multiple land uses, such as urban sprawl, cropland fragmentation, and riparian buffers were crucial in influencing WP S. In comparison, FM D was most sensitive to urban expansion (r 2 = 0.74), economic development (r 2 = 0.81), and population growth (r 2 = 0.93). These findings provide new insights into sustainable land management for coordinating supply of and demand for hydrologic services in the TLB and other urbanizing watersheds of the world.
... These findings highlighted a strong need to integrate adaptation policies based on provisioning ecosystem services (food; energy; water resources) within a longterm sustainability framework that provides underpinning biodiversity, ecosystem functions, regulating ecosystem services and cultural benefits. Ecosystem service provision can be defined as sustainable when demand is met without decreasing capacity for future provision of that service or causing undesirable declines in other services (Villamagna et al. 2013), requiring improved monitoring and future projections. ...
National Climate Change Risk Assessments (CCRAs) have a key role in informing priorities for adaptation policy but face significant challenges due to multiple facets of risk and adaptation. Issues are especially pronounced for meeting goals of environmental sustainability due to the complex dynamics of socio-ecological systems. In practice, a CCRA can therefore differ from its original conceptual blueprint. These challenges are explored from a knowledge systems perspective, focusing on the role of stakeholders/policymakers, risk descriptors, methods, evidence sources, and scientists. A UK case study evaluates recent developments (CCRA3) including identification of policy urgency through adaptation shortfalls and its application to the natural environment. Important science-policy issues are also highlighted regarding inclusion of opportunities, systemic risks, residual risks, and risk tolerance. A general conclusion is that CCRAs inevitably leave open questions which lead back to their evolving role in the science-policy interface. A knowledge systems perspective identifies CCRAs as open, adaptive, reflexive processes that help redefine interpretations of risk and adaptation, rather than just providing a specific policy-relevant product. This perspective identifies scope for progressive refinement of CCRAs to enhance collective science-policy adaptive capacity whilst also engaging wider society. For environmental sustainability, this open process can be used to iteratively redefine robust future pathways and system reference conditions that also better reflect evolving societal perceptions and tolerance on sustainability risk in the face of climate change.
... By changing surface types, urbanization processes not only occupy a large amount of food production land (Wang et al., 2017), but also change various ecological processes of cultivated land, thus affecting the explicit structures (e.g., quantity structure, spatial pattern) (Li et al., 2017) and implicit functions (e.g., utilization quality, spatial function) of cultivated land systems (Castillo-Eguskitza et al., 2018) and limiting the supply of various service functions . However, through the impact on social system compositions (e.g., resident behavior, demographic migration, socioeconomic condition), urbanization processes significantly improve the functional demands of human beings for cultivated land systems (Villamagna et al., 2013). For instance, population agglomeration brought about by population urbanization increases consumption demand for cultivated land supply services (Schröter et al., 2014); the development of economic urbanization improves the living standards of residents, thereby increasing the demand for cultural and social services provided by cultivated land (Cao et al., 2021). ...
Rapid urbanization areas face multifunctional allocation problems of cultivated land, especially in spatial supply-demand mismatches. Deconstructing supply-demand characteristics of cultivated land multifunction and probing impacts of multidimensional urbanization on them will help achieve the sustainable development of limited cultivated land resources in rapid urbanization areas. This study constructed a theoretical framework oriented by four functions (production function, ecological function, cultural landscape function, and social security function) to map supply-demand match patterns of cultivated land multifunction at the multiscale. The main urban area of Hangzhou, with a high urbanization level, was used as an empirical area to discuss the effects of multidimensional urbanization processes on the supply-demand balance. Results showed that the widening supply-demand gaps of cultivated land multifunction and their significant spatial heterogeneity appeared in rapid urbanization areas. As the scale increased, deficit regions for production, cultural landscape, and social security functions shrank toward central urban areas, and smaller scales could better reflect their changes and development trends; deficit regions for ecological function expanded outward along central urban areas and had a higher agglomeration, and thus larger scales were more important. Economic urbanization had the greatest influence on the supply-demand balance of production, cultural landscape, and social security functions, while ecological function was more closely related to population urbanization. The interaction between the two urbanization dimensions had a greater effect on the supply-demand balance than a single dimension. These findings can provide new ideas for supply-demand balance paths of cultivated land multifunction in rapid urbanization areas.
... Unfortunately, methods for assessing sustainability do not differ in the universality of criteria for estimation an external effect taking into account industrial sectors and the diversity of regions (Villamagna, A. M., et al, 2013). However, sustainability accounting methods are often criticized because of their complex adaptation to modern technologies or new products. ...
Modern requirements for companies and consumers include the stability of financial performance amid increasing environmental attractiveness. Companies need to cover such seemingly diverse interests as profitability for owners, concern for staff, interest for partners and consumers, actions for environmental protection. It is essential to consider the growing role of conscious consumption, which is a direct regulator of production activity. The aim is to formulate a strategy and recommendations for combining sustainable initiatives in production and consumption in the context of European integration processes in Ukraine. The research object is sustainability in production and consumption. The article proposes a strategy that combines sustainable production and sustainable consumption into one cluster. It will allow sustainable initiatives are focused on systemic changes and essential areas of production and consumption. The practical value of the approach is in a strategy that includes measures stimulating environmental and socio-economic policy of production. It will allow moving from relative disunity of actions to technological standards. The proposed strategy can be implemented in recommendations for improving programs on changing behaviour from a gradual transition from individual consumers to broader initiatives to change the entire system – production and consumption. Today, this is especially important, including for Ukraine, considering its transition to sustainability and the implementation of sustainable development goals in the sphere of sustainable production and consumption. Also, we outlined directions for further research in the policy of sustainable production and consumption in the context of European integration processes in Ukraine.
... These weighted values were then summed for each stakeholder group. Measures therefore quantify the overall supply of all prioritized grassland ecosystem services, relative to stakeholder demand 47,62 , when priority is defined as the relative importance of an ecosystem service to a stakeholder 85 and demand is 'the amount of a service required or desired by society' 86 . While demand is a dynamic property, it is represented as a fixed value in ecosystem service multifunctionality measures. ...
The impact of local biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning is well established, but the role of larger-scale biodiversity dynamics in the delivery of ecosystem services remains poorly understood. Here we address this gap using a comprehensive dataset describing the supply of 16 cultural, regulating and provisioning ecosystem services in 150 European agricultural grassland plots, and detailed multi-scale data on land use and plant diversity. After controlling for land-use and abiotic factors, we show that both plot-level and surrounding plant diversity play an important role in the supply of cultural and aboveground regulating ecosystem services. In contrast, provisioning and belowground regulating ecosystem services are more strongly driven by field-level management and abiotic factors. Structural equation models revealed that surrounding plant diversity promotes ecosystem services both directly, probably by fostering the spill-over of ecosystem service providers from surrounding areas, and indirectly, by maintaining plot-level diversity. By influencing the ecosystem services that local stakeholders prioritized, biodiversity at different scales was also shown to positively influence a wide range of stakeholder groups. These results provide a comprehensive picture of which ecosystem services rely most strongly on biodiversity, and the respective scales of biodiversity that drive these services. This key information is required for the upscaling of biodiversity-ecosystem service relationships, and the informed management of biodiversity within agricultural landscapes.
... This study focuses on the stock of ecosystem services. The calculation results reflect the service capacity, which is an ecosystem's potential to deliver services based on biophysical properties, social conditions, and ecological functions (Villamagna et al., 2013). Our purpose is to investigate the severity of human-nature conflict in a city by comparing the total capacity to the total demand without relying on the flows from other areas. ...
The sustainability of coupled human and natural systems (CHANS), linked to several of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, affects both global sustainable development and human wellbeing. However, few studies have explored the relationship between the whole human system and the natural system from the perspective of supply and demand. Based on ecosystem service concept and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we constructed an ecosystem services supply index (ESSI) and a human demand index (HMDI) and then analyzed the spatial mismatch of the ESSI and HMDI in 338 prefecture cities in China. We propose a supply-demand balance index inspired by the doughnut theory and demonstrate the conflicts and synergies between ecosystems and human systems. Our results show that the ESSI decreased from 2000 to 2010, but remained almost unchanged from 2010 to 2020. The low ESSI values were mainly distributed over the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Sichuan Basin. The HMDI increased from 2000 to 2020, but the rate of increase has slowed since 2010. The high HMDI values were mainly distributed over the east coast of China, Inner Mongolia, and part of Xinjiang province. From 2000 to 2020, the cities with spatial mismatches of the ESSI and HMDI showed a significant increase and spatial agglomeration. The sustainability of most regions showed a decreasing trend, and the higher the value of the supply-demand balance index, the faster the speed of decrease. Overall, there were more regions in a state of conflict between the natural ecosystem and humans than in a synergistic state, although this number has decreased since 2010. Urban agglomerations and western regions should receive more attention for their ecological health. This study provides a new methodology to assess the sustainability of CHANS that could be applied to other locations. Our findings could support the Chinese government in regional ecosystem governance and territorial space planning.
... Agricultural ecosystems ensure the sustainability of agricultural landscapes by providing the ecosystem services that humans desire (Hodbod et al., 2016). By linking ecosystem functions and social benefits, ecosystem services have great potential to influence natural resource management (Villamagna et al., 2013). There are still challenges that prevent the application of the ecosystem services concept to achieve land management goals (De Groot et al., 2010). ...
Clarifying the spatial pattern of multiple ecosystem services and the production-living-ecology is crucial for promoting the sustainable development of regional agricultural ecosystems. In this paper, taking the Huaihai Economic Zone (HEZ) as a case study area, we used a series of geospatial models and multisource data to construct a framework for assessing the production-living-ecology of agricultural ecosystem services. Then, the ecosystem services and comprehensive production-living-ecology index of the cropland in the entire study area were evaluated and analyzed. Finally, we used a method of regionalization with dynamically constrained agglomerative clustering and partitioning to identify the subclusters of agricultural ecosystems in the study area and proposed the concept of regional management. We found that (1) for the single service of agricultural ecosystems, based on warm temperate semihumid climatic conditions and topographic factors, water conservation , carbon sequestration and oxygen release and grain production services in the HEZ showed spatial consistency in 2017; the distribution characteristics of these factors were high in the south and low in the north; the distribution of soil maintenance services was the opposite, and the high value of culture and recreation services was scattered and distributed in areas with good ecological background conditions and convenient transportation. (2) The production-living-ecology index in the HEZ generally showed a distribution pattern of high in the south and low in the north. (3) Through zoning, the 1884 grids, 12 partitions, and 6 subclusters provide references for the management of different types of agricultural ecosystem services. Our results can provide scientific guidance for the development of effective agricultural ecosystem management programs and the optimization of cropland development.
Anthropogenic pressures, including urban and agricultural expansion, can negatively influence a lake’s capacity to provide aquatic ecosystem services (ES). However, identifying lakes most at risk of losing their ES requires integrating information on lake ecological state, global change threats, and ES demand. Here, we provide a social-ecological framework that combines these features within a regional context based on an ecological evaluation of the state of 659 lakes across Canada. From deviation of impacted lakes to reference ones, we identified much higher concentrations of total nitrogen and chloride as the main indicators of altered lake ecological state in all regions identified. Lake ecological state was mapped using an additive colour model along with regional scores of threat levels and recreational ES demand. Population density and agriculture were linked to high lake vulnerability. Lakes in Southern Ontario were most concerning, being highly altered, under threat, and heavily used. Lakes near urban centers along coasts were altered and used, but less threatened, whereas those in the Prairies were altered and threatened, but less used. Our novel framework provides the first social-ecological geography of Canadian lakes, and, is a promising tool to assess lake state and vulnerability at scales relevant for management.
Plan language summary
Plain language title: Assessing overall lake health across Canada to identify sites for restoration and conservation
Canadians love to swim, fish, and navigate in and on the countless lakes across the country. But Canadian lakes are under a considerable amount of pressure from human activities in their watershed. The expansion of cities, intensive farming, wetland loss, and industrial development all results in the transfer of pollutants to aquatic habitats, threatening the health of lakes and the ecosystem services they provide. Where are lakes being used across Canada? What condition are they in and is their use under threat from different pressures? To answer these questions, we combined information from many different sources, including a national scale lake assessment, through the NSERC Strategic Network Cluster Lake Pulse to create the first social-ecological geography of southern Canadian lakes. Regionally specific baseline conditions were established from lakes considered healthy due to limited human activities in their watershed. When lakes with impacted watershed were compared to healthy ones within their specific region, two early warning signals of human pressure, pollution from nitrogen found in fertilizers and sewage, and chloride found in road salt, determined whether a lake was altered. We combined these two health indicators, with information on future potential lake threats and use by the population for recreational purposes. Using a colour-coded mapping technique, we were able to identify regions where lakes were altered, threatened, and used. These regions occurred primarily around dense urban areas, of southern Ontario and Quebec, and major cities on the east and west coast. Lakes were altered and threatened, but seemingly less used in the Prairie Provinces. The novel approach is very adaptable, easy to understand, and can be used at more regional levels for management to determine priority sites for conservation and restoration, as well as in science communication to describe overall lake health.
Cooperate social responsibility (CSR) has presented a new set of challenges in the emerging era of artificial intelligence (AI) and big-data analytics to managerial decision-makers and investors alike. Access and statistical manipulation of personally sensitive information as well as transaction datasets provide an opportunity for CSR and the social contract, which examines the relationship of workers with a living wage versus automation, between society and corporate leaders. The initial cost of developing and deploying the appropriate hardware and the software for automation, especially if does not pass the costs-benefit test, may not labor replacement based on operational elements alone (e.g., high levels of output, improved quality, reduced fewer errors, reduced administration and monitoring) may be more important that just reducing labor costs. A discussion of the characteristics of automation in light of AI and big-data analytics in managerial decision making and its relationship to the tenants of CSR that takes care of people before profits highlights these opposing forces.
To facilitate sustainable urban development, a pressing issue is how to integrate the water-energy-food nexus (WEF-Nexus) into the assessment of supply and demand of urban ecosystem services (UESs). This study proposed a conceptual framework for the supply-demand assessment of UESs from the WEF-Nexus perspective. Taking the city of Suzhou, China, as an example, the relationships between UESs and WEF-Nexus were identified by the correlation and regression analyses based on the total supply of each urban ecosystem service and evaluation value of each subsystem of WEF-Nexus. Then the supply-demand matching of UESs was evaluated by the supply-demand matching degree and z-score standardization. The results indicated that the water and energy subsystems were positively correlated with water yield/soil retention, and negatively correlated with carbon storage/food production. The food subsystem showed significant positive correlations with carbon storage/food production. Three UESs related to WEF-Nexus, carbon storage, soil retention and food production, were always in short supply, while water yield has shifted to oversupply. The supply-demand spatial mismatches of carbon storage/food production became more pronounced, showing a trend of spreading from urban central areas to the periphery. Therefore, this study provides a scientific basis for proposing supply-demand management strategies of UESs from the WEF-Nexus perspective.
Ecosystem services (ES) has an important place in sustainability science research as a powerful bridge between society and nature. Based on 513 papers correlated with ES in the field of green sustainable science and technology (GSST) indexed in ISI Web of Science database, we employ the bibliometric methods to analyze the disciplinary co-occurrence, keyword co-occurrence, partnerships, publication characteristics, co-citation, research themes, and transformative potential of these papers. The results show that innovation in research themes of the ES research in the GSST field is increasing rapidly in 2015–2018, while innovation in research themes is decreasing in 2018–2021. Moreover, keyword co-occurrence analysis indicates that the hot topics of previous research with respect to “environmental service”, “capacity”, “perception”, “landscape”, “forest management”, “carbon sequestration”, “contingent valuation”, and “sustainable development”. Recent hotspots include “blue carbon”, “environmental impact”, “coastal”, “ecosystem services mapping”, and “use/land cover change”. Finally, the cluster analysis of co-cited references abstract thirteen largest clusters. The top six clusters are “mapping ecosystem service”, “spatial gradient difference”, “ecosystem service value”, “water-related ecosystem service”, “linking forest landscape model”, and “culture ecosystem service”. Moreover, the integration of spatial, value, environmental, and sociocultural dimensions may help to develop supportive policies, which is a future direction of ES research in the GSST field.
Study region
The Yellow River basin (YRB), China.
Study focus
To alleviate flood risks and safeguard human well-being, understanding the spatiotemporal pattern of and factors influencing flood-regulating ecosystem service capacity and demand relationship is crucial. This study quantifies the capacity-demand ratio and identifies the regions where capacity did not meet demand from 2000 to 2020. The spatial Durbin models (SDM) were employed to detect the spillovers and assess the direct and indirect effects of factors influencing the capacity-demand relationship in the YRB and across different reaches.
New hydrological insights for the region
The results show that regions with unmet demand has increased since 2000 due to a dramatic increase in demand and a reduction in capacity in the YRB. The SDM results reveal that wetlands and forests had positive direct effects, and cropland and built-up land had adverse effects on the capacity-demand ratios. Heterogeneity tests show that wetland, forest and low-coverage grassland were the biggest contributors to the capacity-demand ratios across upper-, mid- and downstream areas, respectively. Forest in the upper reach had positive direct effects and spillovers on the capacity-demand ratio. Cropland and low-coverage grassland negatively affected the capacity-demand ratio in the middle reach. The capacity-demand relationship in the lower reach needs to be improved by restoring ecologically functional land and enhancing the capacity of artificial hydro facilities.
The Venice lagoon social-ecological system is characterized by a strong relationship between the natural environment and human activities. This is especially noticeable in the aquaculture and hunting reserves of the lagoon, locally known as valli da pesca. Previous works about Ecosystem Services (ESs) in the Venice lagoon focused on the so-called “open lagoon”, overlooking the role of the valli da pesca. Nonetheless, despite being completely managed ecosystems, the valli da pesca have conserved typical elements of transitional water environments that the other parts of the lagoon have lost. By evaluating nine ESs using a spatially explicit approach, we found that the valli da pesca, despite covering 17% of the surface, are contributing for 38% of the ESs total capacity, and for 24% of the ESs total flow, in comparison to the open part of the lagoon. Moreover, the management that aims to maximize in a perspective of sustainability some provisioning ESs, such as extensive aquaculture, can positively influence the presence of factors on which other ESs capacity is also based. As a result, the open lagoon benefits from a sort of spill-over effect for lifecycle support, hunting, and cultural ESs such as tourism, information for cognitive development, and birdwatching. Such significant contributions could be endangered in the context of a lagoon subjected to increasing pressures from anthropic activities, where adaptations to impacts, as well as to climate change and sea-level rise effects, in the long run, will modify the lagoon hydrodynamics and the sea-lagoon connectivity, threatening the valli da pesca and so their ESs supply.
Modern requirements for companies and consumers include the stability of financial performance amid increasing environmental attractiveness. Companies need to cover such seemingly diverse interests as profitability for owners, concern for staff, interest for partners and consumers, and actions for environmental protection. It is essential to consider the growing role of conscious consumption, which is a direct regulator of production activity. Today, this is especially important for Ukraine, considering its transition to sustainability and the implementation of sustainable development goals in the sphere of sustainable production and consumption. The aim is to formulate a strategy and recommendations for combining sustainable initiatives in production and consumption in the context of European integration processes in Ukraine. The research object is sustainability in production and consumption. The article proposes a strategy combining sustainable production and consumption into one cluster. It will allow sustainable initiatives are focused on systemic changes and essential areas of production and consumption. The work used the method “Sustainable value of the business”. This method includes detailed reporting on the sustainable development of production with relevant ratings and indices. It’s recommended for use in decision-making, investment management for business development, comparative analysis, and communication with stakeholders; it also provides a comprehensive view of the company’s impact on six standardized parameters. The result is a proposal to create an algorithm to combine sustainable production and consumption into one cluster. It will allow sustainable initiatives to focus on systemic changes in crucial production and consumption areas – energy, transport, housing, agriculture, and food. The practical value of the approach is in a strategy that includes measures stimulating environmental and socio-economic policy of production. It will allow moving from relative disunity of actions to technological standards. The proposed approach can be implemented in recommendations for improving programs on changing behavior from a gradual transition from individual consumers to broader initiatives to change the entire system – production and consumption.
A sufficient supply of ecosystem services (ESs) in agriculture provides the basis for human sustainable development. Intensified large-scale farming has changed wetland ecosystems extensively by reducing both the resilience and capacity to support production of many ESs. Small-scale farming may also affect the generation of ESs where the impact often reflects the differences in farming practices. This paper explores the supply and demand of the ESs between management practices, irrigated and rainfed, of smallholder farmers in Kilombero wetland, Tanzania. We conducted interviews involving 30 households and two focus groups with five discussants for each practice, rainfed and irrigation. Generally, we found that the need for ES, especially food, water and flood control, in both farming practices, were exceeding the capacity to supply. In general, irrigation farming compared to rainfed farming was associated with higher levels of food production, increasing flood regulation and erosion control. However, the ES delivery and need were not uniform depending on the river discharge. The differences in supply and demand of ESs between farming practices suggest that society would benefit from investing in irrigation and regulatory infrastructures to minimize flooding risk and to build up the ecosystem’s natural capacity to produce services. Such practical policy-relevant measures could balance the gap between supply and demand of ESs in smallholder farming systems in Tanzanian wetland.
The supply and demand of ecosystem services is a popular research topic, however, studies on ecosystem services related to hydropower are rare. We selected hydropower stations in the Lhasa River of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as the beneficiaries of hydropower development. We then identified three ecosystem services. We assessed the supply of ecosystem services and the demand of hydropower for them. Finally, we discussed the relationship between hydropower and watersheds.
The results demonstrated the following: (1) Water yield was 309.0 ± 110.3 mm, with a decreasing spatial pattern from the northeast to the southwest. Soil conservation was 119.2 ± 224.6 t/(hm ² ⋅a), with a spatial pattern that was high in the southeast and low in the northwest. Flood mitigation was 21.3 ± 2.9 mm, and the lower values were in lower elevation areas. (2) Hydropower has produced demands for the three services. The demand for the water yield of the five stations was 0.45 × 10 ⁸ m ³ − 1.64 × 10 ⁸ m ³ . The demand for soil conservation from the Pangduo and Zhikong stations were 7.87 and 4.53 times their storage capacity, respectively. The demand for the flood mitigation of these two stations were 1.49 times and 1.09 times that of their flood regulation storage capacities. (3) The supply of the water yield service was greater than the demand for nearly the entire year, with an ecosystem supply and demand index between 4.73 and 14.06. The supply and demand of soil conservation services was nearly balanced. The flood mitigation service provided by the upstream ecosystem of Pangduo was 70.18 times the demand and 20.58 times the service of Zhikong. The results demonstrated that hydropower has a strong dependence on ecosystem services. This indicated that both enhancement and mitigation should be considered in the design payment of ecosystem service roles.
Ecosystems play a very important role in the sustainable development of remanufacturing. Research has often focused on the sustainability of remanufacturing systems from the aspect of general technological activities, for which there is a lack of an in-depth consideration of ecological services. This may lead to an imbalanced development of ecosystems. This paper proposes a full lifecycle-based sustainability evaluation model for remanufacturing ecosystem services (ESs) from the novel perspective of technology-ecology synergy. Firstly, by analyzing the coupling effect of technical activities and ecological services, a technology-ecology synergy in a lifecycle assessment (TES-LCA) computing model is established to quantify the sustainability of remanufacturing ESs. Secondly, the supply and allocation of ESs considering multiple users are proposed and addressed. Thirdly, regional differences in ESs are investigated. The sustainability of ESs is then analyzed and calculated on a multi-spatial scale. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed model is verified by performing a case analysis of the remanufacturing of a spindle of a machine tool that is to be adopted in two regions. The case study results showed that the air quality control service in both two regions is unsustainable; however, the water supply service is sustainable. The proposed model can provide data support for governmental policy makers and businesses to formulate relevant policies to maintain a balanced development of ecosystems.
The research paper is devoted to the study and comparative analysis of the English and Ukrainian phraseological units with the ornithonym component, revealing their linguistic, cultural and pragmatic peculiarities. The empiric material of the research includes English and Ukrainian phraseological units selected by continuous sampling from phraseological, explanatory, and bilingual dictionaries. The sample size is 601 phraseological units. Analyzing Ukrainian and English phraseological units with an ornithonym component, it can be seen that the names of birds are more often used to denote positive concepts. In both linguistic cultures, the imagery of the stork, chicken, and cock components completely coincide. Most phraseological units were formed on the basis of objective observations of domestic and wild birds. However, extralinguistic factors such as fairy tales, holidays, geography, and gastronomic traditions were singled out. The research material can be used in further research on comparative, contrastive phraseology of English, Ukrainian and other languages.
Some regions like Europe have experienced a net gain in forest areas over the last decades, but intact areas of natural forests are declining worldwide, accompanied by changes in forest ecosystem functions and benefits to humans. We conduct a biophysical assessment of trends, condition, and drivers of change of forest ecosystem services in Norway from 1950 to 2020. Four main results are highlighted. First, industrial forestry, large scale measures of re- and afforestation, and infrastructure development (e.g., roads and recreational homes) have been the main direct drivers of forest transformation. Second, deep transformations in the Norwegian economy shaped trends of forest ecosystem services over the study period. Third, with the shifts towards the tertiary (service) sector and the mechanization of forestry, the economic and material relations between forests and local communities are waning. Overall, people’s primary relationships to forests have shifted from livelihood to recreation. Fourth, forest management in Norway has largely favored provisioning services at the expense of supporting services and some cultural and regulating services. Consequently, while Norwegian forests retain strong capacity to deliver provisioning services, the overall ecological condition is relatively poor. Our assessment provides an approach to identify and explain trends of ecosystem services at a national scale, over a long period of time. We argue that growth in forest area and biomass are insufficient indicators for sustainable forest management, and that future forest polices would benefit from improved knowledge on forests ecological condition, resilience against climate change, and socio-cultural contributions to human well-being.
Effective management of cities using ecosystem services from green infrastructure (GI) requires explicit consideration of the linkages between provision of services and ecosystem service demands (i.e., governance priorities). Identification of stakeholder knowledge and objectives in GI decision-making contexts with respect to ecosystem services may improve urban planning; yet this information is rarely explicit in local contexts and cases. We address this gap by surveying environmental stakeholders and practitioners to investigate how perceptions of ecosystem services influence GI practice in Tucson, AZ. Results indicate that the semi-arid environment and urban design led to prioritizations that focus on water sustainability and urban heat mitigation. We found strong agreement in environmental perceptions between different management sectors. We observed matches (as well as mismatches) between the ecosystem service priorities and important environmental issues. Ecosystem services prioritization revealed a unique classification of ecosystem services that reflects stakeholder priorities. Our findings suggest the study of ecosystem services supply and demand can inform local urban management. These findings from a semi-arid city further suggest that understanding stakeholder knowledge, perceptions, and priorities should be important for cities in other regions where GI is being implemented as an environmental solution to provide ecosystem services.
Understanding the supply and demand characteristics of ecosystem services (ESs) and their trade-offs is the basis for effective ecosystem management and the improvement of human well-being. However, current management practices based on the trade-offs between the supply and demand for ESs remain limited. This study aimed to integrate ES trade-offs into regional spatial management. With Changzhi, China, as the study area, this study evaluated the supply, demand, and trade-offs of food provision, water conservation, soil retention, and carbon sequestration by linking multi-source data and using spatial analysis tools, including the InVEST model, ArcGIS, and GeoDA. Based on the trade-offs and importance of different ecological functions, we constructed an urban spatial management framework and proposed recommendations for optimization in different management zones. The results showed that (1) the supply and demand for multiple ESs exhibited spatial heterogeneity. Except for water conservation, the supply of other ESs met the demand of the city, but there were still obvious deficits in some regions. (2) In terms of the ES supply, there were trade-offs between food production and other ESs, and synergies existed among water conservation, soil retention, and carbon sequestration. In terms of the ES demand, the four ESs exhibited synergistic relationships. In the cluster analysis, ES supply and demand were divided into four ES bundles, respectively. (3) The spatial mismatch of ESs in the sub-watersheds of the study area was obvious. The ESDR coldspots for the four ESs were primarily located in the urban built-up areas in the central and southern regions of the city. The ESDR hotspots of soil retention and carbon sequestration were mainly distributed in the eastern and northwestern regions of Changzhi, which are less urbanized. There were few ESDR hotspots for food production and water conservation. (4) Based on the regional spatial management framework, Changzhi was divided into ten zones, including extremely important, moderately important, important, supply–demand risk management, soil erosion management, and high food production areas. The results and conclusions of this study provide a basis for spatial planning and ecosystem management.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
Freshwater fish are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, but are also amongst the most threatened. With contributions from leaders in the field, this is the first assessment of the global state of freshwater fish diversity, synthesising the opportunities, challenges and barriers facing the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity. The book includes the first global assessment of the number, type and distribution of threatened freshwater fish species, discussing the features of freshwater fish biology and ecology that render so many species vulnerable to extinction. Introductory chapters on why freshwater fish are so sensitive to environmental change and disturbance lead into chapters providing detailed reviews of the key threatening processes and potential solutions. A concluding chapter summarises the key issues and looks to the future for opportunities and challenges for the conservation and management of freshwater fish.
This study assesses the feasibility of setting up a suitable framework for measuring progress towards a more sustainable use of land as a resource. The objectives and targets proposed by the Roadmap for a Resource Efficient Europe (related to land take, land recycling and land degradation) are used as a starting point. Possible indicators and targets to promote the multi-functionality of land and preserve its environmental functions, as well as to reduce the impacts of EU demand on global land degradation, are also analysed. Where appropriate indicators are available and the associated baseline is well defined, the relevance and feasibility of setting targets is assessed, covering technical, socio-economic and administrative aspects. This is informed, in particular, by the experience from the few MS having defined land and soil-related targets. The study proposes several possible future targets that could be set at the EU level, subject to a number of improvements with regard to indicators definitions, monitoring processes (methodologies, resources and timeliness), methodological approaches (e.g. with regard to relatively new indicators such as the Weighted Urban Proliferation or the Land Footprint), and the overall knowledge base. Alternative approaches to target setting (e.g.
policy guidance) are also identified.
This work aims to map and assess the recreational culture ecosystem services (CES) supply and demand in Vilnius. A novel framework individually assessed natural recreational CES supply and cultural recreational CES supply dimensions. So far, the previous works did not consider both CES components individually. Also, the validation of CES models is scarce and challenging. This work aims to map and assess natural recreational supply CES, cultural recreational CES supply, natural + cultural recreational CES supply, and cultural recreational CES demand. The results showed that the natural recreational CES supply dimension was the highest in protected areas. In contrast, the cultural, recreational CES supply dimension had the highest scores in the city centre. Natural + cultural recreational CES supply was high in the areas where the previous models had the highest values (e.g., protected areas and the city centre). The natural + cultural recreational CES supply model was validated using an online survey. Recreational CES demand was the highest in the areas near the city centre. There was a mismatch between the natural recreational CES supply and recreational demand. Nevertheless, we identified a match between cultural recreational CES supply dimension, Natural + cultural recreational CES supply and recreation CES demand. All the studied parameters had a clustered pattern. The natural recreational CES supply dimension had a hot spot in the northern part of the city. In contrast, cultural recreational CES supply dimension, Natural + cultural recreational CES supply and recreational CES demand were clustered in the city centre. Overall, it is vital to preserve the areas with maximum natural recreation CES supply and limit the urban expansion in these areas. Also, it is essential to reduce the car traffic to the centre and improve public transport accessibility to increase air quality and the impact of pollutants on cultural heritage sites.
Urban green space (UGS) contributes significantly to urban settlements with respect to frequent rainstorm events and population agglomeration issues, but there is limited understanding of the spatial match between green space supply and social demand. This study established an integrated evaluation framework relating to the supply–demand balance of UGS. In a case study of Beijing, the urban waterlogging risk was simulated with an ICM model, and specific demand criteria of waterlogging hazards and population needs were considered. The street-scale supply–demand balance of demands for existing and future UGS was then quantified with the two-step floating catchment area method. Comparison of the street-level balance in large rainstorms and populated areas identified the key locations where the green space supply should be strengthened in Beijing. This study may provide an integrated evaluation of green space accessibility and a solid foundation for refined urban land-use planning strategies.
Due to the high intensity of urban construction and human intervention, the imbalance between ecosystem service supply and demand (ESSD) in urban agglomerations is deteriorating. The quantitative study of ecosystem service flow (ESF), as a critical process connecting ESSD, can assist decision-makers in accurately identifying the potential for ecological cooperation among cities, solving the conflict between ESSD in urban agglomerations, promoting regional ecological integration, and achieving sustainable and healthy development. Currently, quantitative research on ESF is focused chiefly on flow direction identification. However, the relationship between ESSD and ESF, flow scope, path, and rate measurement, are still in the exploratory stage. Using the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) as an example, this paper evaluated the four ESSDs based on the InVEST model: habitat quality (HQ), carbon storage (CS), water yield (WY), and soil retention (SR), and quantified the comprehensive economic value of the four ESSDs using the alternative cost method with the city/county as the basic units. Finally, utilizing the breakpoint model and the field intensity model, we built an ESF value transfer model and estimated the value of ESFs transmitted from ESSD surplus cities/counties to the deficit in the GBA. The findings revealed an imbalance between ESSD in the GBA, with most of them being in severe ESSD deficit or surplus, and ESFs had played a key role in improving this. The primary transfer out locations (TOL) of ESFs were Huizhou, Zhaoqing, and Jiangmen. In contrast, the primary transfer in locations (TIL) of ESFs were Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and other highly urbanized areas. The total value of ESFs in the GBA was as high as 4.218 billion yuan. As an attempt toward quantifying the ESF, this work provides a framework for the future establishment of scientific ecological compensation norms for urban agglomerations to encourage benign and equitable ecological exchanges between cities/counties.
An increasing amount of information is being collected on the ecological and socio-economic value of goods and services provided by natural and semi-natural ecosystems. However, much of this information appears scattered throughout a disciplinary academic literature, unpublished government agency reports, and across the World Wide Web. In addition, data on ecosystem goods and services often appears at incompatible scales of analysis and is classified differently by different authors. In order to make comparative ecological economic analysis possible, a standardized framework for the comprehensive assessment of ecosystem functions, goods and services is needed. In response to this challenge, this paper presents a conceptual framework and typology for describing, classifying and valuing ecosystem functions, goods and services in a clear and consistent manner. In the following analysis, a classification is given for the fullest possible range of 23 ecosystem functions that provide a much larger number of goods and services. In the second part of the paper, a checklist and matrix is provided, linking these ecosystem functions to the main ecological, socio–cultural and economic valuation methods.
Sustainable exploitation of renewable resources depends on the existence of a reproductive surplus, which is determined by the balance between births, deaths, and somatic growth. The reproductive surplus differs spatially and temporally as environmental conditions vary, and even in the absence of exploitation, change is the rule and constancy is the exception. Sustainable yields may be estimated by direct experimentation, observation of natural systems, or deduction from biological understanding. Each of these approaches has limitations, and for large-scale unique resources, the only way to determine the response of the population to harvesting is by direct exploitation. To find the maximum potential yield, the resource must be overexploited at some time, or very similar resources must have been overexploited. Temporal changes in environmental conditions mean that information on sustainability collected in the past may have limited applicability in the future. The unregulated dynamic of exploiters is to push the resources to overexploitation, and even when regulated, exploiters have been very successful at modifying their behavior so that regulations are less effective than anticipated. The most successful institutions at maintaining sustainability have been small-scale community or private ownership.
Ecosystem service approaches have become a prominent basis for planning and management. Cultural services and non-use values are included in all major typologies and present some of the most compelling reasons for conserving ecosystems, though many barriers exist to their explicit characterization. The values that conform least well to economic assumptions—variously lumped together with/as cultural services—have proven elusive in part because valuation is complicated by the properties of intangibility and incommensurability, which has in turn led to their exclusion from economic valuation. We argue that the effectiveness of the ecosystem services framework in decision-making is thwarted by (i) conflation of services, values, and benefits, and (ii) failure to appropriately treat diverse kinds of values. We address this challenge by (1) distinguishing eight dimensions of values, which have implications for appropriate valuation and decision-making; (2) demonstrating the interconnected nature of benefits and services, and so the ubiquity of intangible values; (3) discussing the implications of these propositions for ecosystem-services research; and (4) outlining briefly a research agenda to enable decision-making that is ecologically appropriate and socially just. Because many ecosystem services (co-)produce ‘cultural’ benefits, full characterization of services must address non-material values through methods from diverse social sciences.
Earth's life-support systems are in flux, yet no centralized system to monitor and report these changes exists. Recognizing
this, 77 nations agreed to establish the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO
BON) integrates existing data streams into one platform in order to provide a more complete picture of Earth's biological
and social systems. We present a conceptual framework envisioned by the GEO BON Ecosystem Services Working Group, designed
to integrate national statistics, numerical models, remote sensing, and in situ measurements to regularly track changes in ecosystem services across the globe. This information will serve diverse applications,
including stimulating new research and providing the basis for assessments. Although many ecosystem services are not currently
measured, others are ripe for reporting. We propose a framework that will continue to grow and inspire more complete observation
and assessments of our planet's life-support systems.
Despite broad recognition of the value of the goods and services provided by nature, existing tools for assessing and valuing ecosystem services often fall short of the needs and expectations of decision makers. Here we address one of the most important missing components in the current ecosystem services toolbox: a comprehensive and generalizable framework for describing and valuing water quality-related services. Water quality is often misrepresented as a final ecosystem service. We argue that it is actually an important contributor to many different services, from recreation to human health. We present a valuation approach for water quality-related services that is sensitive to different actions that affect water quality, identifies aquatic endpoints where the consequences of changing water quality on human well-being are realized, and recognizes the unique groups of beneficiaries affected by those changes. We describe the multiple biophysical and economic pathways that link actions to changes in water quality-related ecosystem goods and services and provide guidance to researchers interested in valuing these changes. Finally, we present a valuation template that integrates biophysical and economic models, links actions to changes in service provision and value estimates, and considers multiple sources of water quality-related ecosystem service values without double counting.
Ecosystem service assessments have increasingly been used to support environmental management policies, mainly based on biophysical and economic indicators. However, few studies have coped with the social-cultural dimension of ecosystem services, despite being considered a research priority. We examined how ecosystem service bundles and trade-offs emerge from diverging social preferences toward ecosystem services delivered by various types of ecosystems in Spain. We conducted 3,379 direct face-to-face questionnaires in eight different case study sites from 2007 to 2011. Overall, 90.5% of the sampled population recognized the ecosystem's capacity to deliver services. Formal studies, environmental behavior, and gender variables influenced the probability of people recognizing the ecosystem's capacity to provide services. The ecosystem services most frequently perceived by people were regulating services; of those, air purification held the greatest importance. However, statistical analysis showed that socio-cultural factors and the conservation management strategy of ecosystems (i.e., National Park, Natural Park, or a non-protected area) have an effect on social preferences toward ecosystem services. Ecosystem service trade-offs and bundles were identified by analyzing social preferences through multivariate analysis (redundancy analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis). We found a clear trade-off among provisioning services (and recreational hunting) versus regulating services and almost all cultural services. We identified three ecosystem service bundles associated with the conservation management strategy and the rural-urban gradient. We conclude that socio-cultural preferences toward ecosystem services can serve as a tool to identify relevant services for people, the factors underlying these social preferences, and emerging ecosystem service bundles and trade-offs.
Agroforestry systems are believed to provide a number of ecosystem services; however, until recently evidence in the agroforestry
literature supporting these perceived benefits has been lacking. This special issue brings together a series of papers from
around the globe to address recent findings on the ecosystem services and environmental benefits provided by agroforestry.
As prelude to the special issue, this paper examines four major ecosystem services and environmental benefits of agroforestry:
(1) carbon sequestration, (2) biodiversity conservation, (3) soil enrichment and (4) air and water quality. Past and present
evidence clearly indicates that agroforestry, as part of a multifunctional working landscape, can be a viable land-use option
that, in addition to alleviating poverty, offers a number of ecosystem services and environmental benefits. This realization
should help promote agroforestry and its role as an integral part of a multifunctional working landscape the world over.
Managed ecosystems experience vulnerabilities when ecological resilience declines and key flows of ecosystem services become
depleted or lost. Drivers of vulnerability often include local management actions in conjunction with other external, larger-scale
factors. To translate these concepts to management applications, we developed a conceptual model of feedbacks linking the
provision of ecosystem services, their use by society, and anthropogenic change. From this model we derived a method to integrate
existing geodata at relevant scales and in locally meaningful ways to provide decision-support for adaptive management efforts.
To demonstrate our approach, we conducted a case study assessment of southeast Alaska, where managers are concerned with sustaining
fish and wildlife resources in areas where intensive logging disturbance has occurred. Individual datasets were measured as
indicators of one of three criteria: ecological capacity to support fish/wildlife populations (provision); human acquisition of fish/wildlife resources (use); and intensity of logging and related land-use change (disturbance). Relationships among these processes were analyzed using two methods—a watershed approach and a high-resolution raster—to
identify where provision, use and disturbance were spatially coupled across the landscape. Our results identified very small focal areas of social-ecological coupling
that, based on post-logging dynamics and other converging drivers of change, may indicate vulnerability resulting from depletion
of ecosystem services. We envision our approach can be used to narrow down where adaptive management might be most beneficial,
allowing practitioners with limited funds to prioritize efforts needed to address uncertainty and mitigate vulnerability in
managed ecosystems.
This study mapped the production of five ecosystem services in South Africa: surface water supply, water flow regulation, soil accumulation, soil retention, and carbon storage. The relationship and spatial congruence between services were assessed. The congruence between primary production and these five services was tested to evaluate its value as a surrogate or proxy ecosystem service measure. This study illustrates that (1) most of South Africa's land surface is important for supplying at least one service, (2) there are low levels of congruence between the service ranges and even lower levels between the hotspots for different ecosystem services, and (3) primary production appears to show some potential as a surrogate for ecosystem service distribution. The implications of a heterogeneous landscape for the provision of ecosystem services and their management are highlighted and the potential for managing such services in a country like South Africa is discussed.
What started as a humble metaphor to help us think about our relation to nature has become integral to how we are addressing the future of humanity and the course of biological evolution. The metaphor of nature as a stock that provides a flow of services is insufficient for the difficulties we are in or the task ahead. Indeed, combined with the mistaken presumption that we can analyze a global problem within a partial equilibrium economic framework and reach a new economy project-by-project without major institutional change, the simplicity of the stock-flow framework blinds us to the complexity of the human predicament. The ecosystem services approach can be a part of a larger solution, but its dominance in our characterization of our situation and the solution is blinding us to the ecological, economic, and political complexities of the challenges we actually face.
Since the late 1960s, the valuation of ecosystem services has received ample attention in scientific literature. However, to date, there has been relatively little elaboration of the various spatial and temporal scales at which ecosystem services are supplied. This paper analyzes the spatial scales of ecosystem services, and it examines how stakeholders at different spatial scales attach different values to ecosystem services. The paper first establishes an enhanced framework for the valuation of ecosystem services, with specific attention for stakeholders. The framework includes a procedure to assess the value of regulation services that avoids double counting of these services. Subsequently, the paper analyses the spatial scales of ecosystem services: the ecological scales at which ecosystem services are generated, and the institutional scales at which stakeholders benefit from ecosystem services. On the basis of the proposed valuation framework, we value four selected ecosystem services supplied by the De Wieden wetlands in The Netherlands, and we analyze how these services accrue to stakeholders at different institutional scales. These services are the provision of reed for cutting, the provision of fish, recreation, and nature conservation. In the De Wieden wetland, reed cutting and fisheries are only important at the municipal scale, recreation is most relevant at the municipal and provincial scale, and nature conservation is important in particular at the national and international level. Our analysis shows that stakeholders at different spatial scales can have very different interests in ecosystem services, and we argue that it is highly important to consider the scales of ecosystem services when valuation of services is applied to support the formulation or implementation of ecosystem management plans.
Environmentalists have argued that ecological degradation will lead to declines in the well-being of people dependent on ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite large global declines in most ecosystem services. We assess four explanations of these divergent trends: (1) We have measured well-being incorrectly; (2) well-being is dependent on food services, which are increasing, and not on other services that are declining; (3) technology has decoupled well-being from nature; (4) time lags may lead to future declines in well-being. Our findings discount the first hypothesis, but elements of the remaining three appear plausible. Although ecologists have convincingly documented ecological decline, science does not adequately understand the implications of this decline for human well-being. Untangling how human well-being has increased as ecosystem conditions decline is critical to guiding future management of ecosystem services; we propose four research areas to help achieve this goal.
"The Northern Highlands Lake District of Wisconsin is in transition from a sparsely settled region to a more densely populated one. Expected changes offer benefits to northern Wisconsin residents but also threaten to degrade the ecological services they rely on. Because the future of this region is uncertain, it is difficult to make decisions that will avoid potential risks and take advantage of potential opportunities. We adopt a scenario planning approach to cope with this problem of prediction. We use an ecological assessment framework developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to determine key social and ecological driving forces in the Northern Highlands Lake District. From these, we describe three alternative scenarios to the year 2025 in which the projected use of ecological services is substantially different. The work reported in this paper demonstrates how scenarios can be developed for a region and provides a starting point for a participatory discussion of alternative futures for northern Wisconsin. Although the future is unknowable, we hope that the assessment process begun in this paper will help the people of the Northern Highlands Lake District choose the future path of their region."
"Ecosystem service (ES) trade-offs arise from management choices made by humans, which can change the type, magnitude, and relative mix of services provided by ecosystems. Trade-offs occur when the provision of one ES is reduced as a consequence of increased use of another ES. In some cases,a trade-off may be an explicit choice; but in others, trade-offs arise without premeditation or even awareness that they are taking place. Trade-offs in ES can be classified along three axes: spatial scale, temporal scale, and reversibility. Spatial scale refers to whether the effects of the trade-off are felt locally or at a distant location. Temporal scale refers to whether the effects take place relatively rapidly or slowly. Reversibility expresses the likelihood that the perturbed ES may return to its original state if the perturbation ceases. Across all four Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios and selected case study examples, trade-off decisions show a preference for provisioning, regulating, or cultural services (in that order). Supporting services are more likely to be 'taken for granted.' Cultural ES are almost entirely unquantified in scenario modeling; therefore, the calculated model results do not fully capture losses of these services that occur in the scenarios. The quantitative scenario models primarily capture the services that are perceived by society as more important-provisioning and regulating ecosystem services-and thus do not fully capture trade-offs of cultural and supporting services. Successful management policies will be those that incorporate lessons learned from prior decisions into future management actions. Managers should complement their actions with monitoring programs that, in addition to monitoring the short-term provisions of services, also monitor the long-term evolution of slowly changing variables. Policies can then be developed to take into account ES trade-offs at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Successful strategies will recognize the inherent complexities of ecosystem management and will work to develop policies that minimize the effects of ES trade-offs."
This article outlines an approach, based on ecosystem services, for assessing the trade-offs inherent in managing humans embedded
in ecological systems. Evaluating these trade-offs requires an understanding of the biophysical magnitudes of the changes
in ecosystem services that result from human actions, and of the impact of these changes on human welfare. We summarize the
state of the art of ecosystem services–based management and the information needs for applying it. Three case studies of Long
Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites—coastal, urban, and agricultural—illustrate the usefulness, information needs, quantification
possibilities, and methods for this approach. One example of the application of this approach, with rigorously established
service changes and valuations taken from the literature, is used to illustrate the potential for full economic valuation
of several agricultural landscape management options, including managing for water quality, biodiversity, and crop productivity.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) introduced a new framework for analyzing social-ecological systems that has had wide influence in the policy and scientific communities. Studies after the MA are taking up new challenges in the basic science needed to assess, project, and manage flows of ecosystem services and effects on human well-being. Yet, our ability to draw general conclusions remains limited by focus on discipline-bound sectors of the full social-ecological system. At the same time, some polices and practices intended to improve ecosystem services and human well-being are based on untested assumptions and sparse information. The people who are affected and those who provide resources are increasingly asking for evidence that interventions improve ecosystem services and human well-being. New research is needed that considers the full ensemble of processes and feedbacks, for a range of biophysical and social systems, to better understand and manage the dynamics of the relationship between humans and the ecosystems on which they rely. Such research will expand the capacity to address fundamental questions about complex social-ecological systems while evaluating assumptions of policies and practices intended to advance human well-being through improved ecosystem services.
Copyright:2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was designed to meet the needs of decision-makers for scientific information on the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. Even though the intended audience is decision-makers, the scientific community is involved as assessments are being made, especially when research and data gaps become apparent. Here we (the authors) summarize the most important information needs encountered in the MA work.
Despite increasing attention to the human dimension of conservation projects, a rigorous, systematic methodology for planning for ecosystem services has not been developed. This is in part because flows of ecosystem services remain poorly characterized at local-to-regional scales, and their protection has not generally been made a priority. We used a spatially explicit conservation planning framework to explore the trade-offs and opportunities for aligning conservation goals for biodiversity with six ecosystem services (carbon storage, flood control, forage production, outdoor recreation, crop pollination, and water provision) in the Central Coast ecoregion of California, United States. We found weak positive and some weak negative associations between the priority areas for biodiversity conservation and the flows of the six ecosystem services across the ecoregion. Excluding the two agriculture-focused services-crop pollination and forage production-eliminates all negative correlations. We compared the degree to which four contrasting conservation network designs protect biodiversity and the flow of the six services. We found that biodiversity conservation protects substantial collateral flows of services. Targeting ecosystem services directly can meet the multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity goals more efficiently but cannot substitute for targeted biodiversity protection (biodiversity losses of 44% relative to targeting biodiversity alone). Strategically targeting only biodiversity plus the four positively associated services offers much promise (relative biodiversity losses of 7%). Here we present an initial analytical framework for integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services in conservation planning and illustrate its application. We found that although there are important potential trade-offs between conservation for biodiversity and for ecosystem services, a systematic planning framework offers scope for identifying valuable synergies.
'This book presents a comprehensive collection of essays from some of the world's leading experts, surveying and highlighting both the potential and the limitations of a number of indicators specifically designed to measure sustainable development. Illustrative applications are presented throughout in order to demonstrate the value of the approaches discussed. This book is highly recommended for all those who are interested in a better understanding of what sustainable development is and its likely associated indicators, and ultimately aims to contribute to a better foundation for public decision-making.' - Paulo A.L.D. Nunes, Venice International University, Cà Foscari University, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Venice, Italy and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, national governments have introduced a range of policy measures designed to steer their economies along a more sustainable path. Yet how are we to know how successful these have been? This significant new book discusses the ways in which sustainable development indicators can be improved in order to both assess the impact of past policies and avoid the repetition of previous failings.
Despite recent interest, ecosystem services are not yet fully incorporated into private and public decisions about natural resource management. Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are among the most challenging of services to include because they comprise complex ecological and social properties and processes that make them difficult to measure, map or monetize. Like others, CES are vulnerable to landscape changes and unsustainable use. To date, the sustainability of services has not been adequately addressed and few studies have considered measures of service capacity and demand simultaneously. To facilitate sustainability assessments and management of CES, our study objectives were to (1) develop a spatially explicit framework for mapping the capacity of ecosystems to provide freshwater recreational fishing, an important cultural service, (2) map societal demand for freshwater recreational fishing based on license data and identify areas of potential overuse, and (3) demonstrate how maps of relative capacity and relative demand could be interfaced to estimate sustainability of a CES. We mapped freshwater recreational fishing capacity at the 12-digit hydrologic unit-scale in North Carolina and Virginia using a multi-indicator service framework incorporating biophysical and social landscape metrics and mapped demand based on fishing license data. Mapping of capacity revealed a gradual decrease in capacity eastward from the mountains to the coastal plain and that fishing demand was greatest in urban areas. When comparing standardized relative measures of capacity and demand for freshwater recreational fishing, we found that ranks of capacity exceeded ranks of demand in most hydrologic units, except in 17% of North Carolina and 5% of Virginia. Our GIS-based approach to view freshwater recreational fishing through an ecosystem service lens will enable scientists and managers to examine (1) biophysical and social factors that foster or diminish cultural ecosystem services delivery, (2) demand for cultural ecosystem services relative to their capacity, and (3) ecological pressures like potential overuse that affect service sustainability. Ultimately, we expect such analyses to inform decision-making for freshwater recreational fisheries and other cultural ecosystem services.
Recent ecosystem services research has highlighted the importance of spatial connectivity between ecosystems and their beneficiaries. Despite this need, a systematic approach to ecosystem service flow quantification has not yet emerged. In this article, we present such an approach, which we formalize as a class of agent-based models termed “Service Path Attribution Networks” (SPANs). These models, developed as part of the Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES) project, expand on ecosystem services classification terminology introduced by other authors. Conceptual elements needed to support flow modeling include a service's rivalness, its flow routing type (e.g., through hydrologic or transportation networks, lines of sight, or other approaches), and whether the benefit is supplied by an ecosystem's provision of a beneficial flow to people or by absorption of a detrimental flow before it reaches them. We describe our implementation of the SPAN framework for five ecosystem services and discuss how to generalize the approach to additional services. SPAN model outputs include maps of ecosystem service provision, use, depletion, and flows under theoretical, possible, actual, inaccessible, and blocked conditions. We highlight how these different ecosystem service flow maps could be used to support various types of decision making for conservation and resource management planning.
The use of contour and riparian buffer strips planted with perennial vegetation has been found to improve surface water quality by reducing NO3-N and sediment outflow from cropland to a river. Modeling such a system to compare alternative layout and different strip sizes often faces challenges in flow routing scheme. The hillslope scheme in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) offers the flexibility of allowing the flow from a crop area to be routed through a buffer and/or contour strip, in which a thin sheet flow represents more closely the natural condition of a watershed. In this study, the SWAT model was applied to the Walnut Creek watershed and the hillslope option was used to examine the effectiveness of contour and riparian buffer strips in reducing NO3-N outflows from crop fields to the river. Numerical experiments were conducted to identify potential subbasins in the watershed that have high water quality impact, and to examine the effects of strip size and location on NO3-N reduction in the subbasins under various meteorological conditions (dry, average and wet). Variable sizes of contour and riparian buffer strips (10%, 20%, 30% and 50%, respectively, of a subbasin area) planted with perennial switchgrass were used to simulate the effects of strip size on stream water quality. Simulation results showed that a filter strip having 10–50% of the subbasin area could lead to 55–90% NO3-N reduction in the subbasin during an average rainfall year. Strips occupying 10–20% of the subbasin area were found to be more efficient in reducing NO3-N when placed along the contour than that when placed along the river. Varying the area and location of the contour and buffer strip affects NO3-N outflow and crop yields as well since it takes the land out of production. The size of the filter strip has economic implications in deciding how much land area to dedicate to prevent NO3-N loss to a desired limit or vice versa. The results of this study can assist in cost-benefit analysis and decision-making in best management practices for environmental protection.
Analyses used to value ecosystem services often confuse final ecosystem services with ecological functions that provide indirect benefit. Typologies of ecosystem services, such as that developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, do not ameliorate these challenges. Among the causes of ambiguity in classifying values associated with intermediate versus final ecosystem services are (1) the lack of simple, broadly applicable guidelines to assist natural and social scientists in deriving consistent and replicable classifications, and (2) attempts to define universal typologies of final services that apply to all beneficiaries. This paper presents an operational mechanism for determining whether a biophysical feature, quantity, or quality represents a final ecosystem service for an inclusive suite of beneficiaries. It is designed for straightforward application by those without expertise in natural or social sciences, and can be used within existing typologies. Illustrations of the structure demonstrate how the resulting classifications avert double counting and other ambiguities.
Tropical montane cloud forests deliver important goods and services to society, such as timber, the supply and purification of fresh water, and carbon sequestration. In spite of their relevance, current deforestation rates are very high, at the expense of affecting the provision of ecosystem services. We explore the impact of land use change in terms of provision of ecosystem services by following two approaches, one very detailed (focused on hydrological services – water quality) and another one with a broader perspective (at a large scale and considering the ecosystem service value (ESV) of several ecosystems and their ecosystem services at the same time). In the highlands of the State of Veracruz, previously forested lands were converted into coffee plantations and cattle ranches. To evaluate the role of species composition and community structure on water quality, we studied nine small watersheds (
Among the main effects of human activities on the environment are land use and resulting land cover changes. Such changes impact the capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services to the human society. This supply of multiple goods and services by nature should match the demands of the society, if self-sustaining human–environmental systems and a sustainable utilization of natural capital are to be achieved. To describe respective states and dynamics, appropriate indicators and data for their quantification, including quantitative and qualitative assessments, are needed. By linking land cover information from, e.g. remote sensing, land survey and GIS with data from monitoring, statistics, modeling or interviews, ecosystem service supply and demand can be assessed and transferred to different spatial and temporal scales. The results reveal patterns of human activities over time and space as well as the capacities of different ecosystems to provide ecosystem services under changing land use. Also the locations of respective demands for these services can be determined. As maps are powerful tools, they hold high potentials for visualization of complex phenomena. We present an easy-to-apply concept based on a matrix linking spatially explicit biophysical landscape units to ecological integrity, ecosystem service supply and demand. An exemplary application for energy supply and demand in a central German case study region and respective maps for the years 1990 and 2007 are presented. Based on these data, the concept for an appropriate quantification and related spatial visualization of ecosystem service supply and demand is elaborated and discussed.
Floods exert significant pressure on human societies. Assessments of an ecosystem's capacity to regulate and to prevent floods relative to human demands for flood regulating ecosystem services can provide important information for environmental management. In this study, the capacities of different ecosystems to regulate floods were assessed through investigations of water retention functions of the vegetation and soil cover. The use of the catchment based hydrologic model KINEROS and the GIS AGWA tool provided data about peak rivers’ flows and the capability of different land cover types to “capture” and regulate some parts of the water. Based on spatial land cover units originating from CORINE and further data sets, these regulating ecosystem services were quantified and mapped. Resulting maps show the ecosystems’ flood regulating service capacities in the case study area of the Malki Iskar river basin above the town of Etropole in the northern part of Bulgaria. There, the number of severe flood events causing significant damages in the settlements and infrastructure has been increasing during the last few years. Maps of demands for flood regulating ecosystem services in the study region were compiled based on a digital elevation model, land use information and accessibility data. Finally, the flood regulating ecosystem service supply and demand data were merged in order to produce a map showing regional supply-demand balances. The resulting map of flood regulation supply capacities shows that the Etropole municipality's area has relatively high capacities for flood regulation. Areas of high and very high relevant capacities cover about 34% of the study area. The flood regulation ecosystem service demand map shows that areas of low or no relevant demands far exceed the areas of high and very high demands, which comprise only 0.6% of the municipality's area. According to the flood regulation supply-demand balance map, areas of high relevant demands are located in places of low relevant supply capacities. The results show that the combination of data from different sources with hydrological modeling provides a suitable data base for the assessment of complex function–service–benefit relations.
The concept of ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly being used in environmental policy and decision making. We report here on the empirical results which emerged from stakeholder discussions within the PRESS (PEER Research on EcoSystem Services) project on certain unresolved challenges related to the use of the ES concept in decision making. The results show that the occurrence of synergies and trade-offs between different ES and their relevance for decision making depends significantly on the scale involved (in particular regarding the levels of policy formulation and policy implementation respectively) and on the specific ways in which ecosystems are managed (e.g. different practices in forestry and agriculture). We conclude that using the concept of ecosystem services, would enable a comprehensive evaluation of policy impacts. Such an evaluation would contribute to an increased congruence between policies by uncovering and discussing trade-offs and realize synergies. Crucial to this, however, is a sound assessment that incorporates the diversity of stakeholder perceptions, knowledge and preferences at the different scales.
ExEcutivE Summary Ecosystem services are the benefits that people derive from nature. Some benefits, such as crops, fish, and freshwater (provisioning services), are tangible. Others such as pollination, erosion regulation, climate regulation (regulating services) and aesthetic and spiritual fulfillment (cultural services) are less tangible. All, however, directly or indirectly underpin human economies and livelihoods. Despite their critical importance, the capacity of ecosystems to provide these myriad services are being degraded at an alarming rate. In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year study of the state of the world's ecosystems involving more than 1,300 experts from 95 coun-tries, reported that over 60 percent of ecosystem services were already degraded. This negative trend, they concluded, was set to continue at an accelerating pace over the next half century. The ecosystem services conceptual framework provided by the MA has proven effective for communicating how ecosystems underlie human well-being. Early efforts to apply ecosystem services concepts and information have strengthened both public and private sector development strategies and improved environmental outcomes. However, mainstreaming ecosystem services concepts more broadly will require information designed for policy-makers, including data, decision-support tools, and "indicators"—information that condenses complexity to a manageable level and informs decisions and actions (Bossel, 1999). Knowing where indicators and data are already sufficient to inform policy-makers' understanding of ecosystem services, and where they fall short, will help inform such mainstreaming efforts in international and national arenas. This paper compiles and assesses current ecosystems services indicators in order to inform and advance such efforts.
