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Abstract

Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULCC) are interrelated with other global processes like global climate change, population growth, land degradation etc. Land use structure of a given area, region is adapted to the requirements of human society since the appearance of human beings. Land use structure is understood as the proportion of land use types orruring in a given area. The objective of the paper is to analyse land use changes in Lake Balaton catchment, Hungary and to present the role of changes of one ecosystem service, i.e. recreation and tourism by quantitative methods, based on spatial and statistical databases of land use and tourism in Lake Balaton catchment, Hungary between 1990 and 2012. The study area is a frequented touristic region of Hungary with variegated and beautiful landscape mosaics. The lake (595 km²) is exposed to various kinds of environmental impacts including agricultural activities and tourism. For the quantification of the Recreation and Ecotourism Ecosystem Service potential the Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) method was applied. Land use changes between 1990 and 2012 were identified from the CORINE Land Cover Database and evaluated from ecological aspects and from the aspect of ecosystem services. The main changes include a continuous increase of the forest area and a remarkable on-going decrease of arable land. Soil erosion as the main land degradation process in the area endangering the quality of ecosystem services. The remarkable decrease of arable fields reduces erosion risk. Ecosystem services provided by each land use type were analysed. The main conclusion is that long term trend of land use changes is beneficial for ecosystem services.

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... Under the new situation, how to improve the sustainability of agroforestry benefits and the level of regional ecosystem services in KRD control is imminent. There has been global research on ecosystem quality [14,50,51], landscape optimization [52,53], benefit coupling mechanisms [13,54], and strategic practices which has laid foundational work for exploring the sustainability of agroforestry tem services, but there has not yet been a systematic review (Table 1). Therefore, paper, we used a bibliometric statistical approach to systematically review the re progress and landmark results of global ELA [56]. ...
... This study is based on a structured literature review of ELA-related researc goal is to collect a large number of peer-reviewed scientific publications from arou world, from which to identify and catalogue the knowledge field and to provide i tion for current agroforestry development in the KRD region. To facilitate a sc quantitative evaluation, we used a systematic literature review framework to trac There has been global research on ecosystem quality [14,50,51], landscape pattern optimization [52,53], benefit coupling mechanisms [13,54], and strategic practices [7,55], which has laid foundational work for exploring the sustainability of agroforestry ecosystem services, but there has not yet been a systematic review (Table 1). Therefore, in this paper, we used a bibliometric statistical approach to systematically review the research progress and landmark results of global ELA [56]. ...
... Therefore, parametric design and training in the field is necessary to find the best balance between trees and crops or pastures for each combination. However, with the development of remote sensing technology, methods for assessing the quality of agroforestry ecosystems based on remote sensing spatial models are commonly applied [51,102,103]. Therefore, an attempt can be made to explore effective ways to improve the quality of agroforestry ecosystems based on a larger spatial scale using 3S technology, with proper spatial planning and design, and all the above parameters should not be considered to be insurmountable [14]. ...
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Since the 1950s, the rapid depletion of natural capital due to human activities has led to a growing global demand for ecological and socioeconomic sustainability, driving the development of agroforestry. Although agroforestry ecosystems can maintain sustainable land resources and maximize land productivity, their quality continues to fluctuate. Moreover, there is no clear review of studies addressing the impact of the evolution of agroforestry landscape patterns on their ecosystems , and to fill this gap, we conducted an inclusive review. A total of 163 publications related to agroforestry ecosystem quality and landscape patterns (ELA) that met a set of inclusion criteria were obtained through the Scopus database using the literature review method of searching, appraisal, and synthesis report. The objectives were to summarize the research progress on ELA, reveal the dynamic coupling mechanism between landscape pattern evolution and ecosystem quality, explore the role of landscape pattern optimization in ecological processes and services in agroforestry, and suggest future research and policy directions. Although the understanding of landscape patterns and ecological processes has been deepened, there are limitations in the study of scales, habitats, and other aspects. It is emphasized that understanding the interaction between agroforestry and other landscape elements in spatiotemporal organization is a prerequisite for promoting sustainable benefits, and that the challenges of spatiotemporal dynamics are integrated to scientifically optimize agroforestry landscape patterns. Finally, it is necessary to gain revelations based on the coupling relationship of ELA, through scientific management of agroforestry landscapes, in order to sustainably consolidate the effectiveness of karst rocky desertification (KRD) control and to enhance human welfare.
... Lakes in land-locked countries are essential since they are among the most important water sources (Knoll et al., 2019). However, they are subjected to degradation, overexploitation (Jenny et al., 2020), area loss due to unsustainable water abstractions (e.g., Goshime et al., 2019), increase in global temperature (e.g., Jeppesen et al., 2015), changes in precipitation patterns (e.g., Woolway et al., 2020), changes in water supply due to dams building (e.g., Søndergaard and Jeppesen, 2007), land-use changes (e.g., Kertész et al., 2019), chemical (e.g., Li et al., 2019) and physical pollution (e.g., Cable et al., 2017) or unsustainable tourism activities (e.g., Amalu and Ajake, 2019). Also, the rising water demand is increasing water scarcity (Liu et al., 2017), which is predicted to increase in a climate change context (Gosling and Arnell, 2016). ...
... The studies covered 11 countries: China, USA, Germany, Austria, Poland, Greece, Colombia, Cyprus, Canada, Hungary, and Myanmar ( Fig. 3; Table S3). China has the highest number of studies with 19 studies (63 %) (e.g., Yushanjiang et al., 2018), followed by the USA and Hungary with 2 studies each (7 %) (e.g., Allan et al., 2017;Kertész et al., 2019). All other countries have only one study. ...
... Most of the qualitative studies were conducted in Asia (10 studies -83 %) (e.g., Gao et al., 2021), followed by America and Europe (with 1 work each -8 %) (Hainz-Renetzeder et al., 2015;Ricaurte et al., 2017). Quantitative studies were mainly identified in Asia (7 studies -64 %) (e.g., Chen et al., 2020), followed by America and Europe (with 2 works each -18 % -) (e.g., Allan et al., 2017;Kertész et al., 2019). The mixed approach was only conducted in Asia and Europe, with 3 (43 %) and 4 (57 %) studies, respectively, in each continent (e.g., Kulczyk et al., 2018;Ma et al., 2020) (Table S3). ...
Article
Lake ecosystems are essential for human wellbeing and development for their capacity to provide multiple ecosystem services (ES). However, because of an anthropogenic-driven ecologic degradation, the sustainable supply of lake ES is at risk. It is, therefore, necessary to restore lake ecosystems and their ES for the sustainable support of future generations. There is a lack of knowledge about mapping lakes ES at the global level. This study conducts a systematic literature review focused on mapping lake ES. Initially, 617 studies were identified. However, only 30 studies were considered. The 30 studies identified were published between 2015 and 2021. Most of them were conducted in Asia, followed by Europe and America. The selected works covered all three Common International Classification of ES sections (regulating and maintenance, provisioning and cultural). We identified a similar number of works carried out in all the sections. Most of the studies were performed at a regional scale and focused on ES supply. Methodologically, an equal number of works followed qualitative and quantitative approaches. In total, 13 different methods were identified. The most used were the ES value (ESV) and biophysical modelling. Less than half of the works that applied the ESV method mapped all the ES analysed. Among the studies assessed, most were focused on environmental and socio-economic aspects. Only 1 study attempted to validate the results. Overall, 16 studies assessed the drivers of change impacts on ES supply. Nevertheless, only 1 considered climate change. The other 15 only considered land-use changes. This systematic review showed that a small number of works focused on lake ES mapping. Although challenging, there is an urgent global need for studies in this domain.
... Both features are subject to change over time, with the former transforming primarily as a result of political and socio-economic decisions and the latter (land cover) evolving in accordance with natural changes, e.g. climatic and, nowadays, primarily anthropogenic (Kertész et al., 2019). ...
... Bajkiewicz- Grabowska, 1987aGrabowska, , 1987bBoryczko et al., 2018;Kudelska et al., 1994;Tórz et al., 2020;Yesuf et al., 2015). To evaluate qualitative changes in lake catchments, in addition to land use changes, quantitative changes related to tourism and recreation are usually taken into account through application of a multi-criteria method (MCE) (Kertész et al., 2019). The research team of Singh, Kumar and Mishra (2021) points out the need to also take into account the ecological characteristics of the lake, lake catchment characteristics, threats to the lake ecosystem, and conservation and management policies when scoring the effectiveness of a lake conservation plan. ...
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Changes in land ownership, generally resulting in changes in land cover and progressive fragmentation of catchments, often result in the inability to take pro-environmental measures. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of land ownership on the environmental status of small, but environmentally valuable lake catchments. The study of environmental quality in terms of ownership and land cover was conducted in lake catchments located in the central part of the West Polesie Transboundary Biosphere Reserve. In total, the ownership type was determined for 5661 plots and the land cover type was determined for 2502 subdivisions. The quality of the analysed elements of the study catchments was subjected to expert evaluation using a modified Stapel Scale and was presented using two Qualitative Indexes proposed: Land Cover [Lc] and Land Ownership [Lo]. The obtained values of Index Lc ranged from -0.18 to +1.97, and Index Lo from -1.87 to +2.00. Application of the Average Land Quality Index [LQ], in turn, made it possible to randomise the environmental quality of the analysed catchments, for which it was from -1.02 to +1.99 (areas of very good and very poor environmental quality, respectively). The analyses indicated, for example, catchments that were significantly degraded because of a very large number of private plots in their area - in the five analysed catchments, this ranged from 505 to 719 and their average area was 0.19–1.10 ha. It is noteworthy that very unfavourable land ownership conditions and land cover structure were found in the Poleski National Park catchments – the area with the highest protection status. The proposed assessment system can be used for preliminary analysis of actual and potential threats to lake catchments so as to indicate possible directions of conservation measures and their sensibility.
... Another choice is the Land Change Modeler (LCM), which provides a tool for evaluating and modeling LUCC by performing three steps: change analysis, transition sub-models, and LUCC predictions [99]. From the three separate empirical models, the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network is the only procedure that can model multiple transitions at the same time, and it was the selected option in most of the papers analyzed. ...
... The dominance of CA is even greater if we consider (i) the Monitoring Land Cover/Use Dynamics (MOLAND) model, an improved CA version developed by [97]; and (ii) the artificial neural network-based cellular automata (ANN-CA) model, because CA is used to model the LUCC by applying the transition probabilities from the ANN learning process [98]. Another choice is the Land Change Modeler (LCM), which provides a tool for evaluating and modeling LUCC by performing three steps: change analysis, transition sub-models, and LUCC predictions [99]. From the three separate empirical models, the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network is the only procedure that can model multiple transitions at the same time, and it was the selected option in most of the papers analyzed. ...
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This contribution assesses a new term that is proposed to be established within Land Change Science: Spatio-TEmporal Patterns of Land (‘STEPLand’). It refers to a specific workflow for analyzing land-use/land cover (LUC) patterns, identifying and modeling driving forces of LUC changes, assessing socio-environmental consequences, and contributing to defining future scenarios of land transformations. In this article, we define this framework based on a comprehensive meta-analysis of 250 selected articles published in international scientific journals from 2000 to 2019. The empirical results demonstrate that STEPLand is a consolidated protocol applied globally, and the large diversity of journals, disciplines, and countries involved shows that it is becoming ubiquitous. In this paper, the main characteristics of STEPLand are provided and discussed, demonstrating that the operational procedure can facilitate the interaction among researchers from different fields, and communication between researchers and policy makers.
... The Mount Bromo Special Purpose Forest Area (KHDTK Gunung Bromo) is a forest area that acts as a regulator of environmental balance because it can maintain the balance of water management and act as a water catchment area, as well as preventing natural disasters such as erosion and flooding. According to Kertész et al. (2019), the continuous change in forest land use for ecotourism activities can result in land degradation that endangers ecosystem services. Erosion is a manifestation of the impact of land degradation. ...
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Plant canopies can protect the soil surface from raindrops and rooting activities that cause changes in biophysical properties. A low infiltration rate will reduce the soil’s capacity to store water to be low, resulting in a high soil erodibility value. This research aims to obtain infiltration values on different land cover, analyze the effect of land cover on soil infiltration rate, and analyze the effect of soil infiltration rate on soil erodibility. The research includes exploratory, descriptive research with a purposive sampling method. The study results show an increased soil infiltration rate can reduce soil erodibility. The infiltration rate of 74-year-old mahogany land cover ranged from 1.94–3.03 cm/hour, 50-year-old mahogany 1.61 cm/hour, old pine 1.53–1.89 cm/hour, old tapped pine 1.54–3.43 cm/hour, young pine 0.48–1.60 cm/hour, young pine 0.37–0.61 cm/hour, and 5-year-old sonokelling 0.56–0.73 cm/hour. The highest infiltration value is in 74-year-old mahogany and the lowest in young pine. The highest soil erodibility value is in young tapped pine and the lowest in 50-year-old mahogany. Erodibility is the sensitivity of soil to erosion. It is easier to erode if its erodibility value is higher; conversely, erosion is less likely to occur if its erodibility value is lower. An increase in soil infiltration rate can reduce soil erodibility. Keywords: Horton method, land cover, Mount Bromo, soil erodibility, soil infiltration rate
... Changes in the permeability of surfaces resulting from changes in land use may exacerbate the NPS pollution of nearby rivers and lakes [20][21][22]. Therefore, the identification and monitoring of land use types with different surface characteristics that influence NPS transportation and water degradation is increasingly important in basin management [23][24][25][26]. ...
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The alterations in runoff resulting from changes in land use and land cover (LULC) were the primary influencing factors contributing to non-point source pollution (NPS). In order to evaluate the long-term hydrological consequences of LULC for the purposes of land use optimization in the Hulan River Basin, Northeast China, the validated Long-term Hydrological Impact Assessment (L-THIA) model was employed to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) non-point source (NPS) loads from 2000 to 2020. Additionally, the load per unit area index (LPUAI) method was utilized to identify critical source areas. The findings indicated that the regions with elevated pollution levels were predominantly situated in areas designated for agricultural and construction activities. The greatest contributor to nitrogen and phosphorus loads was agricultural land. There were clear increases in both TN and TP during the study period, with increases of 51.73% and 55.56%, respectively. As a consequence of the process of urbanization in the basin, the area of land devoted to construction activities increased, reaching a coverage of 5.02%. Nevertheless, the contribution of construction land to the total basin NPS load exceeded 10% in 2020. This was the primary factor contributing to the observed increase in pollution loads despite a reduction in agricultural land area over the past two decades. TN and TP loads were markedly higher during the flood season than the non-flood season, accounting for over 80% of the NPS load. The sub-watersheds in the southwest and northeast have been identified as significant sources of nitrogen and phosphorus loss, contributing to the overall burden of NPS pollution. Implementing measures such as fertilizer reduction and conversion of farmlands to forests and grasslands can effectively mitigate NPS pollution, particularly TN pollution. This study proposes that the integration of L-THIA with GIS can serve as a valuable tool for local planners to consider potential pollution risks during future planning and development activities.
... LULC changes represent the most direct and comprehensive characterization of terrestrial environments [9][10][11]. These surface cover alterations have a profound impact on soil and vegetation distribution, leading to significant changes in ecosystem carbon storage [12][13][14]. Zhang et al. [15] demonstrated that LULC changes in China's terrestrial ecosystems resulted in a loss of approximately 279 Tg of carbon storage from 1980 to 2010. Furthermore, the IPCC has reported that LULC changes contribute to atmospheric carbon emissions at a rate of 1.5 Pg per year [16]. ...
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The role of carbon storage in coastal wetlands is crucial to the global carbon cycle and human production activities. An accurate quantitative assessment and understanding of its spatial distribution are essential for informed decision-making on sustainable development goals. This study focuses on the wetlands in the coastal zones of Hebei and Tianjin. It develops a comprehensive assessment model that spans a long time series, covering the past, present, and future, aiming to provide insights into the intrinsic linkages between coastal wetland types and carbon storage, as well as projected future trends under three different scenarios. The results of the study demonstrate the following: (1) between 1990 and 2020, the area of coastal wetlands in Hebei and Tianjin decreased by 365.63 km², resulting in a loss of 5.15 Tg of carbon storage, which represents approximately 20.82% of the total carbon storage; (2) temperature, precipitation, and the intensity of human activities are key factors influencing carbon storage in coastal wetlands; (3) carbon storage in the coastal wetlands of Hebei and Tianjin is primarily composed of natural wetlands, which account for 59.62% to 60.69% of the total carbon storage, and this ratio is not expected to change significantly in the future; (4) under WRS, carbon storage in the Hebei–Tianjin coastal wetlands is projected to increase, reaching 19.76 Tg by 2050—an increase of 0.21 Tg compared to 2020. This growth trend in carbon storage is significantly better than under the natural and EPS scenarios and aligns more closely with dual-carbon goals. This study not only provides managers with valuable insights into land use and urban development planning but also highlights the positive role of WRS in contributing to the growth of carbon storage in coastal wetlands.
... The varying ESV change rates for forests, grasslands, and waterbodies from 1992 to 2050 reflect the diverse impacts of both natural and anthropogenic factors on these ecosystems (Yin et al. 2023). The overall decrease in total ESV from 1992 to 2050, despite fluctuations in individual LULC categories, is a concerning indicator of broader ecosystem service degradation, calling for urgent policy actions (Eguiguren et al. 2019;Kertész et al. 2019;Hossu et al. 2019;Hasan et al. 2020;Li et al. 2022). Notably, the projected reduction in overall ESV, driven primarily by declining forest cover, emphasizes the critical role of forest ecosystems (Fenta et al. 2020). ...
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In an era where global biodiversity hotspots are under unprecedented threat, understanding the intricate balance between land use land cover (LULC) changes and their implications on ecosystem services value (ESV) becomes paramount. The region of Jammu and Kashmir, with its distinctive ecological importance, is well known for these challenges and opportunities. This region embodies various conservation reserves and national parks, and one of the most ecologically rich is called Kishtwar High Altitude National Park. It is often considered an example of biodiversity richness in the Indian subcontinent, as it protects a myriad of species and provides essential ecosystem services. However, despite its significance, it faces pressures from both peripheral human activities, such as seasonal grazing by nomadic communities and broader climatic changes. This study aims to investigate the complex relationship between these LULC shifts and their consequent effects on the park's ESV. We used the cellular automata (CA)-Markov model to simulate the LULC for the future. Using the LULC from 1992 to 2020 and projecting for 2030, 2040, and 2050, we employed the global value coefficient method to understand the ESV contributions of different LULC types. Our results revealed a 7.43% increase in ESV from 1992 to 2020, largely due to the increase of forests and waterbodies. In contrast, our projections for 2020 to 2050 intimate a 7.55% decline in ESV, even amidst anticipated grassland expansion. These results highlight the role of forests in securing resilient ecosystem services. These findings shall help offer informed conservation strategies, that are relevant both regionally and globally.
... All the above activities also conditioned the land use in the area of influence of the lake ecosystem. Kertész et al. [71] have reported that the conversion of lake ecosystems into agricultural lands and pastures for livestock is one of the main drivers of change in land use. This practice, driven by the growing demand for food and the intensification of agriculture, leads to the loss of aquatic habitats, landscape fragmentation, and the alteration of hydrological cycles [72]. ...
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An invasive assemblage refers to a group of invasive species that coexist and interact within an ecosystem, significantly altering its dynamics, biodiversity, functions, and ecosystem services. Their presence in lakes can severely affect these ecosystems. The objective of this article is to present an assessment using indexes of socioecological resilience to the impact of an assemblage of two invasive species (P. clarkii and E. crassipes) in a lake ecosystem, the Fúquene Lagoon in Colombia. Socioecological resilience indexes (rating scale: 0.0–100%) are developed based on community perception within the area of influence of the lake ecosystem under study. Indexes are developed for each dimension of analysis (ecological, social, and economic) and include a global resilience index. Community perception is obtained through a survey according to the dimensions of analysis. The results of the comprehensive assessment using the developed indexes suggest significant vulnerability of the ecological (index = 37.7%) and social (index = 40.9%) resilience of the lake ecosystem to the invasive species assemblage. The low-risk perception and limited implementation of preventive measures accentuate this fragility. Although the economic dimension shows greater robustness (index = 56.9%), it is imperative to strengthen the adaptive capacity of the socioecological system to mitigate the adverse impacts of biological invasions and ensure the sustainability of the ecosystem (global resilience index = 45%). Assessing lake ecosystems’ recovery from invasive species requires a multidimensional approach, focusing on ecological, economic, and social factors to develop integrated management strategies for resilience and sustainability.
... Moreover, community participation is crucial to achieve sustainable growth [5,6]. Involving residents in sustainable tourism development is increasingly recognized as a privileged means to reconcile the local socio-economic growth with the conservation of both the natural ecosystem and the cultural heritage [7,8]. Along with community participation, cross-border partnerships can be the key for sustainable development [9]. ...
Article
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We propose a composite index to measure and benchmark community participation in cross-border tourism development processes. The index synthesizes information regarding three dimensions of this construct, deemed as very important by the extant literature: residents’ engagement in the planning process and willingness to proactively welcome tourists and provide tourist services directly through sharing-economy platforms. The latter aspect is crucial to develop a local tourist supply able to combine environmental sustainability and financial feasibility in marginal areas, where public funding is scarce and private investments are unprofitable. This study offers a methodological innovation using response rates to open-ended questions to measure residents’ engagement in tourism planning. By applying the ELECTRE III algorithm, which is non-compensatory and ensures reliability in the presence of a high degree of uncertainty, survey information is aggregated in a single figure, which can be easily interpreted by destination managers and policymakers. After COVID-19, in readying for the next pandemic, decision makers should find our index as a very relevant and useful tool for tourism recovery and innovation planning, including compliance with measures to prevent the spread of future infections. We apply the proposed index to ten Croatian and Italian lands involved in a European development project. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with residents, according to an availability sampling design. We obtained 879 valid questionnaires. The robustness of the resulting index is tested through an uncertainty and a sensitivity analysis.
... Human activity has a significant impact on the value of ecosystem services (Keller et al. 2015;Msofe et al. 2019). Irrational human actions will reduce the benefits that ecosystems provide or even undermine the ecological foundation that sustains human society's ability to grow sustainably, if people fail to recognize or value ecosystem services (Soy-Massoni et al. 2016;Kertész et al. 2019). ...
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Land use and land cover (LULC) have a significant impact on changes in the value of ecosystem services. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between ecosystem service value (ESV) and LULC in Aceh Besar Regency by calculating nine ESV variables, namely gas regulation (GR), water supply (WS), soil formation (SF), waste treatment (WT), biodiversity protection (BP), food production (FP), raw materials (RM), recreation (RC), and culture (CT) on each type of land cover in Aceh Besar Regency in three years: 2000, 2010 and 2020. The results showed that both decades saw in all three years, there was a decrease in the value of the forest ecosystem in Aceh Besar Regency due to the addition of activities and population needs, resulting in the conversion of forest land into built-up areas. This indicates that there is a relationship between land use and land cover change and human activities that have the potential to negatively affect the value of ecosystem services.
... Of the studies on freshwater ESS, interestingly, there are far more studies on rivers, wetlands, and streams than on lakes [8,13]. "Lake studies" focus mostly on land use/land cover changes and related ESS in the basins of lakes [14,15]. Although some of these studies examine certain key freshwater ESS (e.g., aquatic production or fish yields), they do not provide a detailed inventory of within-lake ESS. ...
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Freshwaters provide essential ecosystem services (ESS) to humanity. However, most studies on freshwater ESS focus on a few services and ignore temporal changes in driver–ESS relationships. Using graph-based visualization, we examine co-occurrence patterns among drivers and among ESS across characteristic sociopolitical eras in the history of the largest shallow lake in Central and Eastern Europe (Lake Balaton, Hungary). We also evaluate driver–ESS relationships to characterize whether there are distinct clusters in these relationships, which can help to better understand how the different types of drivers influence provisioning, regulating, and cultural ESS and basic ecological functions of the lake. The analyses revealed that Lake Balaton suffers from several alteration effects, which are frequently cited as top threatening drivers in the decline of the ecological integrity and ESS of lake ecosystems. Of these, eutrophication, the spread of invasive species, fishery, urbanization processes, and, recently, the effects of climate change were the most important. Despite these threats, the lake still maintains diverse ESS, which are in complex relationship with each other and their drivers. We highlight that major past environmental changes substantially influence present and forecasted future patterns of driver–ESS relationships. Based on these results, we discuss the possibilities of management to ensure the sustainability of ESS Lake Balaton provides to society. Overall, this study underscores the complex influence of various drivers on freshwater ESS and emphasizes the importance of understanding temporal changes in human-modified lakes, considering societal, ecological, and economic factors comprehensively.
... Ecosystem services (ESs) are the ecosystem's direct or indirect benefits to mankind (Costanza 2008). The concept of ecosystem services was initially developed in the 1960s (Kertész et al. 2019) to emphasize ecosystems' positive effects on society and promote biodiversity conservation (Birkhofer et al. 2015). ESs are broadly classified into four categories, i.e., provisioning services (direct benefits from the ecosystems, e.g., food and fiber, timber, medicine, water); regulating services (benefits gained from regulating ecosystem processes, e.g., water filtration and regulation, air quality optimization, soil erosion reduction, waste disposal, and pollination services); cultural services (immaterial benefits that humans derive from ecosystems as spiritual uplift, intellectual advancement, introspection, leisure, and aesthetic experiences, e.g., traditional knowledge systems, ecotourism, aesthetic and recreational services); and supporting services (these serve as driving force for all other ESs, e.g., nutrient cycle, water cycle, soil formation processes. ...
Chapter
Livelihood refers to the collection of capabilities, assets, and activities that are necessary for an individual to sustain their existence. Green livelihoods (GL) allow for lower carbon emissions and pollution, increased energy and resource efficiency, and the prevention of biodiversity and ecosystem service (ES) loss. Therefore, GL can become one of the nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate change mitigation and adaptation and thus help to achieving national and international climate change goals. This work aims to give a broad overview of livelihoods, their linkages with ecosystem services, the impact of climate change on livelihoods, and the need for GL in the present scenario. The chapter also covers the criteria for an activity to be qualified as GL and its major types in the natural resources sector (Forestry and Agriculture). In this chapter, major GL-related initiatives at the national level (India) have been covered. A success story of two villages in Maharashtra is also included to show how Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR)-coordinated GL initiatives can transform the lives of the local communities. The close interrelations between ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and GL can be beneficial for policymakers to develop suitable and sustainable mitigation and climate change adaptation strategies.
... With regard to research on the territorial space utilization, one research perspective is to divide territorial space according to these different land-use types and examine the impact of a single land-use structure on regional economic development or ecological protection [10]. However, they ignore the competition within the territorial space system and the synergy between various types of space, and there is also little literature that focus on urban-rural space in the research framework of competition and trade-offs [1]. ...
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Optimizing the pattern of territorial space utilization is one of the key tasks to achieve the sustainable development goals. With the accelerating rate of global urbanization, the understanding of territorial space utilization efficiency, role and potential is a prerequisite for alleviating contradictions in urban and rural space distribution. The city cluster is the main form of organization for urban development in future, so the study attempted to explore the urban and rural space utilization efficiency (URSUE) in Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration (CCEC) from coupling coordination degree (CCD) perspective. Considering the gradual increase in the trend of remote interactions between URSUE, we further introduced the Local and Tele-coupling coordination (LTCCD) model that takes into account interactive development relationship between different systems. The results of the study show that: In CCEC, the more economically developed cities indicated that urban spatial utilization efficiency lags behind rural spatial utilization efficiency; The LTCCD in the geographic center region will indicate a higher level but the LTCCD in the economic core cities is higher compared with their CCD level, especially in Chengdu City. This suggests that the LTCCD model is better able to take into account regional development correlations and spatial spillovers effect. This study attempts to explore several key issues of urban-rural spatial allocation in the process of urbanization development and to provide guidance for the territorial space utilization planning in urban agglomerations.
... Yet the lake serves as an intensively used recreational region of high national and international interest (Medarić et al. 2021) which makes Lake Balaton an ecologically highly vulnerable area. Although some small-scale studies evaluated LULC changes in part of its catchment or in a single occasion (Jordan et al., 2005;Szilassi et al., 2006;Van Dessel et al., 2008;Furgała-Selezniow et al.2022) and the effect of such changes on some ecosystem services (Kertész et al., 2019;Gyenizse et al., 2020), no detailed evaluation of long-term changes in LULC has been conducted neither for the whole catchment nor for the shoreline zone of the lake (Madarász and Papp, 2013). For our research, we developed a novel methodology that is suitable for the comparative analysis of the growth of artificial surfaces (i.e., urban land expansion) and for the spatial analysis of land transformation. ...
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Understanding changes in land use and land cover (LULC) is a prerequisite for the sustainable management of ecosystems, with implications for regulatory policy. In this study, we use a hierarchical approach to quantify long-term changes in LULC in the catchment of the largest Central-European shallow lake (Lake Balaton, Hungary). We evaluate changes over three centuries at the catchment and different spatial levels of the shoreline. Within this framework, we develop a methodology suitable for analysing land use transformations in the shoreline zone, typically affected by LULC changes stemming from mass tourism. Our findings indicate that LULC transformations at the catchment level were relatively minor compared to those observed along the shoreline, where urbanization driven by mass tourism emerged as a drivers of LULC changes. The dynamics of urbanization closely mirrored socio-political shifts and exhibited a strong dependence on distance from the shore. Temporal trajectories of LULC changes revealed that the most significant alterations occurred within the 0-500 m and 500-1000 m shoreline distance zones during the socialist era when the lake served as a focal point for tourism in Central and Eastern Europe. While the process of mass tourism-induced urbanization has declined significantly since the collapse of the socialist regime, the sprawl of urban (built up) areas into rural territories persist. Given the unregulated nature of urbanization at the forefront, we emphasize the importance for policy makers and local stakeholders to control further transformations of semi-natural and natural areas into built up areas along the shoreline. Achieving sustainable LULC management in lakes affected by mass tourism, such as Lake Balaton, necessitates robust legislative and administrative efforts in spatial planning and regulation. This endeavour should be pursued as a shared interest among residents and tourists alike.
... The change in landscape pattern not only represents the process of material circulation and energy flow between human systems and natural ecosystems, but also has a remarkable impact on the structure, composition, and function of natural ecosystems, resulting in changes in ecosystem services (Kertész et al., 2019;Liu et al., 2020;Zhao et al., 2023). Previous extensive studies have examined that the close correlation between landscape pattern changes and ecosystem, economic, social, and ecological values from the perspectives of countries, watersheds, provinces, cities Bian et al., 2023;Chen et al., 2023c;Zhao et al., 2023). ...
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Urban agglomeration is the highest stage of urban development, which reasonable planning will be conducive to the rapid and healthy development of the regional economy. However, in recent years, unreasonable urban agglomeration planning has changed landscape patterns and brought huge challenges to ecosystem services. Moreover, there is currently a lack of understanding of the relationship between landscape patterns and ecosystem services, especially in the process of urban agglomeration construction. In this study, we attempt to reveal the impact of landscape patterns on ecosystem services value (ESV) based on many years of remote sensing data in the Central Plains Urban Agglomeration (CPUA). The results show that landscape patterns have significant spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, and there are significant differences between different landscape patterns in the CPUA. Moreover, most of landscape patterns show significant east-west differences. Total ESV has decreased from USD 838.53 million in 2000 to USD 792.32 million in 2018. From a spatial perspective, the areas with high ESV are mostly distributed in the western mountainous and southern hilly areas, but low ESV area are mainly concentrated in the central and northern plains. In addition, the results of model analysis reveal that there is a remarkable positive correlation between ESV and patch density, interspersion juxtaposition index, cohesion index, and splitting index, but a remarkable negative correlation between ESV and total edge. These results provide critical guidance and suggestions for the improvement of future urban agglomeration construction.
... Land offers man a series of ecological services (Hardelin and Lankoski, 2018), which range from shelter, food provisioning to provisioning of natural resources for socio-economic development. In providing the ecological services, the land is sometimes overexploited, such that with time, its capacity to continue to meet the ever-increasing needs of man and the environment, both in quantity and quality, is degraded (Kertész et al., 2019). Land degradation describes the decline in biological or ecological productivity of land, which may arise as a result of human activities and/or natural factors (Eswaran, 2001). ...
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Mining activities can lead to significant land degradation, posing environmental and socio-economic challenges in affected regions. This study aimed to assess mining-induced land degradation in the Ile-Ife region of Osun State, Nigeria, utilizing a comprehensive set of indicators, including slope, soil characteristics, land use/cover, soil organic carbon content, land surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and community perceptions obtained through a questionnaire survey. Remote sensing data and geographic information systems (GIS) techniques were employed to analyze land use/cover, NDVI, slope and land surface temperature variations over time, while the soil grid was analyzed to generate the soil types, quantify soil organic carbon content and other relevant soil properties. The weighted overlay analysis was used to integrate the components using the analytical hierarchical process to produce the land degradation map. The findings reveal that 89.9% of the study area has experienced significant degradation, 2.09% has low-moderate and 8.02% has very high degradation, all of which are related to mining activities, extremely steep slopes, and loose soil particles. The survey revealed widespread concerns about environmental pollution, loss of agricultural productivity, and adverse health effects associated with mining activities. In conclusion, the findings of this study emphasize the urgency of addressing mining-induced land degradation in Ile-Ife, Osun State. The integration of multi-indicator approaches, including remote sensing, GIS, and community perceptions, offers valuable insights for designing sustainable land management strategies and mitigating the adverse effects of mining on the environment and local communities.
... ha in 2020. Changes in LULC will alter the pattern of ecosystem services [21]. An increase in the built-up area causes a reduction in carbon storage [6] and deteriorating water quality [22]. ...
Article
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Many researchers claim that human influence on local climate change is unavoidable. Global climate change can cause catastrophic damage (disturbing human health, ecosystems, and socio-economic aspects). Characteristics of areas that affect rainfall, such as topography, slope, and land use and cover (LULC). This study aimed to specify the relationship between LULC changes and the local climate context in Aceh Besar District. LULC changes are analyzed with a transformation matrix. The method used to determine the occurrence of climate change is the Mann-Kendall Test, which looks at whether there is a trend in a data series based on the relative rankings of the data spanning 1992-2020. The Mann-Kendall test analysis results show that climate variables that change significantly on rainy days are weather temperature, humidity, and wind speeds. The statistical test results show that there has been a change in the local climate, as indicated by the variables of The Sen’s Slope Estimator test results in an increase in temperature of 0.002°C every year, and humidity increases by 0.01%. When viewed from LULC, one of the influences is changing (2000-2020) from forest, cropland, and bareland to built-up areas.
... Land use change has a profound impact on ecosystem health and authenticity, as well as their ability to offer environmental services [1], [2]. Land use changes are linked to worldwide phenomena such as global the effects of climate change, population explosion and degradation of land [3]. Antropogenic activities are factors cause land use changes at partial and temporal scales [4]. ...
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The purpose of this research is to review and analyze the relationship between land use and water quality. The research method used is remote sensing image interpretation method, survey method, and spatial based descriptive analysis. The results of land use research included settlements, forests, rice fields, water bodies and shrubs in 1992, 2002, 2012 and 2022, in 1992 settlements 3.82%, 2002 2.87%, 2012 6.9% and in 2022 settlements 8.83%. in 1992 forest 53.59%, in 2002 43.78%, in 2012 49.76% and in 2022 forest 49.17%. in 1992 paddy fields 14.59%, in 2002 21.29%, in 2012 10.96% and in 2022 paddy fields 11.21%. in 1992 water bodies 22.25%, in 2002 22.97%, in 2012 22.38% and in 2022 water bodies 22.19%. Shrubs were 5.75% in 1992, 9.09% in 2002, 10% in 2012, and 8.6% in 2022. The water analysis findings suggest that class 1 water with a score of -15 corresponds to class C water, which is significantly contaminated. Class II with a score of -15 is classified as moderately contaminated, while Class III with a score of -10 is classified as somewhat polluted. Class IV, with a score of -10, is included in Class B, along with the Slightly contaminated category.
... However, within this process, the extensive combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal [4] and petroleum, has resulted in a substantial release of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the atmosphere [5]. Simultaneously, population growth [6] and urban expansion [7] have diminished the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to absorb CO 2 from the atmosphere. In response to global climate change, the international community has undertaken substantial efforts, exemplified by conventions and agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Copenhagen Accord [8]. ...
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Research on the spatiotemporal changes in land use/cover (LUC) and carbon storage (CS) in the region of the Taihang Mountains in various developmental scenarios can provide significant guidance for optimizing the structure of LUC and formulating ecologically friendly economic development policies. We employed the PLUS and InVEST models to study change in LUC and CS in the Taihang Mountains from 1990 to 2020. Based on these results, we established three distinct development scenarios: a business-as-usual development scenario, a cropland protection scenario, and an ecological conservation scenario. Based on these three developmental scenarios, we simulated the spatiotemporal changes in LUC and CS in the Taihang Mountains in 2035. The results indicate that: (1) from 1990 to 2020, the CS in the Taihang Mountains increased from 1575.91 Tg to 1598.57 Tg, with a growth rate of approximately 1.44%. The primary source of this growth is attributed to the expansion of forests. (2) In the business-as-usual development scenario, the growth rate of CS in the Taihang Mountains was approximately 0.45%, indicating a slowdown in the trend. This suggests that economic development has the consequences of aggravating human–land conflicts, leading to a deceleration in the growth of CS. (3) In the cropland protection scenario, the increase in the CS in the Taihang Mountains was similar to the CS increase in the business-as-usual development scenario. However, the expansion of cropland dominated by impermeable surfaces, which indicates economic development, was considerably constrained in this scenario. (4) In the ecological conservation scenario, the increase in carbon storage in the Taihang Mountains was 1.16%, which is the fastest among all three scenarios. At the same time, there was a certain degree of development of impermeable surfaces, achieving a balance between economic development and ecological conservation.
... In addition, agricultural production performance has a major contribution to macroeconomic purposes, such as employment, poverty reduction, human resource expansion, and food security (Sheng & Song, 2018;Zhang et al., 2019). Population expansion, urbanization, industrialization, and soil erosion have all recently contributed to a major decline in agricultural areas (Kertész et al., 2019;Lasanta et al., 2019;Nassar et al., 2017). Furthermore, climatic conditions affect land use and agricultural land conversion (ALC) . ...
Article
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This study aimed at investigating the harm from ecosystem services (ESs) according to agricultural land conversion (ALC) by using meta-analysis. The results of meta-regression showed that spatiotemporal effects had significant influences on some ES losses, and the maximum spatial impacts were relevant to Asia and Europe. Moreover, the results of ALC rate coefficients in meta-regression indicated that three large losses of ES were related to soil erosion (0.314), air pollution (0.202), and climate change (0.161). Therefore, the ALC should be done at a suitable conversion rate to reduce ES losses. Accordingly, administrators are suggested to consider careful research planning for the ALC in the process of economic development. Other strategies highlighted the importance of ALC–ES interactions for human well-being, such as measuring the pricing of goods and services based on land resources, continuously monitoring illegal ALC, and imposing taxes on unplanned ALC.
... Agriculture affects soil structure and fertility, geochemical and hydrological cycles, soil salinization, and pollution of underground and surface water (Милинчић, Туцовић & Мандић, 2013). Agricultural activity is affected by numerous physical-geographical factors, phenomena, and processes: soil erosion (Abdelsamie et al., 2023;Bogunovic, Telak & Pereira, 2020;Krstić & Paunović, 2022), climate changes (Michler et al., 2019), soil quality (Zhichkin, Nosov & Zhichkina, 2021) and soil degradation (Kertész, Nagy & Balázs, 2019). ...
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The paper analyzed the agrarian potential at the level of settlements in the municipality of Varvarin. This work aims to identify the most significant factors that affect agrarian potential. The following methods were applied: the method of successive dividers for determining the direction of agricultural land use, the weighting method for obtaining a reference value for calculating the agricultural potential, and the correlation coefficient for the analysis of cause-and-effect relationships between the value of the agricultural potential by settlements and used parameters. The paper provides an overview of the key problems in agriculture at the local, regional, national, continental, and global levels, including programs implemented by certain developed countries to revitalize agriculture.
... Agriculture affects soil structure and fertility, geochemical and hydrological cycles, soil salinization, and pollution of underground and surface water (Милинчић, Туцовић & Мандић, 2013). Agricultural activity is affected by numerous physical-geographical factors, phenomena, and processes: soil erosion (Abdelsamie et al., 2023;Bogunovic, Telak & Pereira, 2020;Krstić & Paunović, 2022), climate changes (Michler et al., 2019), soil quality (Zhichkin, Nosov & Zhichkina, 2021) and soil degradation (Kertész, Nagy & Balázs, 2019). ...
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71st issue of Collection of Papers of Faculty of Geography
... Therefore, they deserve special attention in all countries' richness management. However, many ecosystem services are being increasingly endangered by anthropogenic activities mainly due to land use change (Bryan et al. 2018;Fu et al. 2016;Hu et al. 2018;Kertész et al. 2019;Lahiji et al. 2020;Yang et al. 2018). This change leads to undesirable impacts on the livelihood, health, economy of people, and ecosystems. ...
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Carbon sequestration and storage is considered one of the world's most recognized and vital ecosystem services, as it reduces atmospheric CO2, accelerating climate change. It refers to the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to capture and store carbon within one of the 4 carbon pools. Although the diversity of land uses at the Beht watershed level, the spatial distribution and quantification of carbon storage are never studied. Thus, the objective of the current study aims to model and evaluate the link between the different types of land use/land cover changes (LULC) and the carbon sequestration service in the Beht watershed over 20 years, and estimate the economic value of the carbon sequestered in the remaining stock. For the processing of spatial data, we applied the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST 3.7.0) carbon storage and sequestration modeling software. The results show that built-up areas, agriculture, and forests increased by 136, 86, and 0.34% respectively, whereas rangeland and water bodies decreased by 18 and 81%, respectively. This change of LULC had the greatest effect on carbon storage passing from 10.7610⁶tC to 13.15 10⁶tC between 2000 and 2020, which is more important in forests contributing by 141.4tC per ha. Based on the social cost of carbone, we estimated the economic value of carbon sequestration service between 17,548,000 and 35,096,000 /year,or104and208/year, or 104 and 208 /ha/year. The results confirm the importance of using other management strategies such as REED + , or payment for ES that will lead environmental policies to adopt sustainable LULCs that support livelihoods and management choices.
... Agriculture also impacts CC through incentivizing different land use and cover changes (LUCC) including deforestation (Baude et al., 2019;Beillouin et al., 2022;Kertész et al., 2019;Shrestha et al., 2022). Empirical evidence asserted that LUCC alters the land surface energy fluxes (Anita et al., 2010); however, the severity of the effect varies based on LUCC characteristics. ...
Article
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Excessive concentration of greenhouse gases in atmosphere emitted from human activities has been considerably changing the world’s climate, especially in the last 50 years. Agriculture, as humans’ food production system, has undoubtedly interrelated with climate change (CC). During current decades, the impacts of CC on agriculture have been properly investigated; however, the impacts of agriculture on CC have received lower attention. This may be due to the scarcity of long-term spatiotemporal climatic and agricultural data to analyze coupling trends and interactions. Benefiting from a comprehensive database and using structural equation modeling, this study seeks to investigate the contribution of agriculture to CC in Iran for more than half a century. For this, two indicators were developed to evaluate structural characteristics of agricultural expansion (AEI) and CC at the province level. Then, the effect of AEI on CC was investigated using the structural equation modeling technique. The results showed that AEI has not had a positive contribution to raising the long-term average surface temperature. Precisely, the provinces with a higher level of surface temperature have had a lower AEI, indicating that other sectors outweigh agriculture in exacerbating long-term CC in the country. Nevertheless, Iran still needs to improve and sustain its agricultural practices and technologies. The main conclusion of this study is that if the government and policymakers aspire to manage CC, they should have a more holistic and systematic view. In other words, not only do they need to consider all drivers of CC, but they also have to pay close attention to the network of relationships among the drivers.
... Ecosystem services benefit humans and other living organisms either directly or indirectly (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005;Deng et al., 2013;Duru et al., 2015). Intensification of agricultural production exposes soils to change and affects their structure, function, and capacity to provide ecosystem services, which affects the productive and environmental sustainability of the agroecosystem (de Vries et al., 2013;Fu et al., 2016;Kertész, 2017;Kertész et al., 2019). ...
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Increasing cultivation on acid soils of Colombia’s Eastern High Plains in the Orinoquia region require crop management strategies that balance commercial and environmental interests. Previous research showed the effects of land preparation and management on certain aspects of ecosystem services of these acid soils. This research aimed to comprehensively evaluate the impact of use and soil management in a native savanna Oxisol converted to five production systems gaining traction among local farmers: Annual crops rotation–sugarcane (ACR-S); Annual crops rotation-maize-soybean (ACR-MS); Sugarcane monocrop (SM); Rubber associated with Desmodium ovalifollium (R-Do) as a cover crop; Pasture Brachiaria decumbens - Annual crops rotation (PBd-ACR) and native savanna (NS) as a control. The experimental design consisted of conditioning the soil with two doses of dolomitic lime and incorporating three tillage methods over 5 years. A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) constructed indicators of ecosystem services (ES), such as fertility, water regulation, macroinvertebrate diversity, climate control related to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and carbon stock. The indicator values were adjusted between 0.10 and 1.0. Physicochemical variables with the greatest statistical weight were identified for components 1 and 2 each year. The fertility indicator of the native savanna for year one had a low range with a value of 0.11 compared to the other systems (p ≤ 0.05). During the years two, three, and four, soil fertility increased in the PBd-ACR (0.51) production system compared to the other systems. PBd-ACR generally improved water supply, although with lower indicator values than ACR-MS and R-Do. PBd-ACR show high biodiversity for edaphic macroinvertebrates compared to other systems. Field measurements detected methane emissions only in the SM system. Oxisols changed with the introduction of crops. The positive and negative tradeoffs of production systems and their agronomic practices should be considered in agricultural development of these acid soils.
... Ecosystem service refers to the advantages or benefits obtained by humans from nature (Costanza et al., 2014;Kertész, Nagy, & Balázs, 2019;Malinga, Gordon, Jewitt, & Lindborg, 2015). Meanwhile, disaster prevention ecosystem services are one component of ecosystem services that can provide information on the resilience of land to disaster hazards. ...
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Kendari City has multiple disasters hazard, especially floods and landslides. Consequently, the city requires systematic preventive efforts to minimize the potential disaster risk. This study aims to create a spatial model to determine the resilience of the land against floods and landslides with an ecosystem services approach. We used Sentinel-2 and DEMNAS (National Digital Elevation Model of Indonesia) as our primary data collection tools. Sentinel-2 was used to compile land use maps, and DEMNAS was the basis for compiling landform maps. The integration of the two was carried out by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The results showed that 8,259.98 acres (30.01 percent) of land in Kendari had low resilience to disasters. Those areas are located in a residential area on the TWH (Rocky hill over mixed sedimentary rocks) and KHY (Coalescent estuarine/riverine plain) landforms. The dominant disaster hazard in the area is inundation flooding that occurs almost every year in Kendari. Poor soil infiltration capacity is one factor affecting the area become vulnerable to flooding.
... The presence of forests, for example, can improve water quality through root filtration and sequestration of pollutants (Fernandes et al., 2014). Correspondingly, land-use changes like the expansion of urban areas and monocrop agricultural systems are associated with declining water quality due to the increased flow of greywater, sediments, and agrochemicals (Comte et al., 2012;Kertész et al., 2019;Liberoff et al., 2019). ...
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The hydrological network in the Lachuá Ecoregion (EL), Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, hosts high levels of biodiversity and supplies water to 44 Mayan communities. Despite this critical fact, this network has been threatened by scarcely monitored industrial activities including the rapidly expanding oil palm monoculture (Elaeis guineensis Jacq). Regardless of Lachua’s freshwaters importance, there is little information on how this monoculture impacts them. We compared water-quality properties from streams in oil palm plantations (P), paddock and milpa systems (M), and primary forests (F) in EL. During 2015-2016, 13 rivers were sampled (5 times) for water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), conductivity, hardness, chemical and biochemical oxygen demand (COD and BOD), and concentration of silica, nitrates, phosphates, and ammonia. Several parameters showed significant differences. P were 2.7ºC and 1.8ºC warmer than M and F and carried 1.4mg/L more nitrates than F. F carried 10.8mg/L and 11.8mg/L more silica than M and P. M showed intermediate temperatures and silica concentrations, as well as 14.8µS/cm and 8.9µS/cm lower conductivities than P and F. Additionally, COD in M was 9.9mg/L and 4.6mg/L lower than P and F. We believe higher temperatures and lower silica in P are due to the loss of riparian forest and their role in buffering temperatures and recycling silicon. In addition, the existence of secondary forest (guamil) in M might explain the intermediate temperatures and silica concentrations. Our results highlight the contributions of forests to waterways and suggest potential water-quality depletion from the oil palm expansion in EL.
... Land use change is considered to be one of the most important factors affecting global environmental change [58][59][60]. With rapid population growth, urbanization and climate change, the services of global ecosystems are continuously degraded, which further affects ecosystem services to humans [61,62]. Therefore, quantitative assessment of the impact of land use change on ecosystem service value is of great significance in guiding the sustainable development of the global ecological environment [63,64]. ...
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Land use change plays a crucial role in global environmental change. Understanding the mode and land use change procedure is conducive to improving the quality of the global eco-environment and promoting the harmonized development of human–land relationships. Large river basins play an important role in areal socioeconomic development. The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is an important ecological protective screen, economic zone, and major grain producing area in China, which faces challenges with respect to ecological degradation and water and sediment management. Simulating the alterations in ecosystem service value (ESV) owing to land use change in the YRB under multiple scenarios is of great importance to guaranteeing the ecological security of the basin and improve the regional ESV. According to the land use data of 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2018, the alterations in the land use and ESV in the YRB over the past 30 years were calculated and analyzed on the basis of six land use types: cultivated land, forestland, grassland, water area, built-up land, and unused land. The patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model was used to simulate the land use change in the study area under three scenarios (natural development, cultivated land protection, and ecological protection in 2026); estimate the ESV under each scenario; and conduct a comparative analysis. We found that the land use area in the YRB changed significantly during the study period. The ESV of the YRB has slowly increased by ~USD 15 billion over the past 30 years. The ESV obtained under the ecological protection scenario is the highest. The simulation of the YRB’s future land use change, and comparison and analysis of the ESV under different scenarios, provide guidance and a scientific basis for promoting ecological conservation and high-quality development of river basins worldwide.
... Although the benefit transfer method has been widely used in the ESVs evaluation, many researchers ignore the spatial continuity of ESV S and only assign a specific ESV to each land use type (Zhou et al. 2021). In fact, under the influence of vegetation status, climate conditions, water parameters, and other environment status parameters, the quality statuses of the regional ecological environment have spatial heterogeneity (Kertész et al. 2019), and as an important indicator, ESV is often used to reflect the quality status of the regional ecological environment and measure the well-being benefits which provided by ecosystems to meet human's survival and development. Therefore, the ESVs of the same land use types, which are distributed in different spatial locations can be quite different and change with time; these limited and discrete ESV S cannot provide a precise evaluation of ESV S (Zhou et al. 2021). ...
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The aim of this study was to provide a new method for dynamic and continuous assessment of ecosystem service value (ESV) and reveal the impact of land use change on ESV in Dasi River Basin within Jinan’s startup area from replacing old growth drivers with new ones. Based on four remote sensing images from 2002 to 2020, four ecological indicators were extracted, and the ecological environmental quality index (EEQI) was obtained through the approach of principal component analysis (PCA). Then, the traditional ESV evaluation method was modified by using the EEQI, grain yield, the biomass factor of cropland ecosystem, and the consumer price index (CPI). Finally, the impact of land use change on ESV was further analyzed based on the improved evaluation model. The result showed that (1) during 2002–2020, the area of forestland, grassland, and built-up land showed an increasing trend. The area of cropland and bare land showed a decreasing trend, and the water body area showed a slightly decreasing trend. (2) The total ESVS overall increased by 2.1759 × 107 yuan; the increased ESVS from air quality regulation, maintain biodiversity, and climate regulation were the main reasons for the increased of total ESVS, with contribution rates of 53.18%, 12.46%, and 11.29% respectively. (3) The sensitivity of ecosystem services to land use change showed a decreasing trend, and the order of elasticity index of different land use types was cropland > water body > forestland > grassland > bare land. The conversion of cropland and bare land to forestland was the main type of ESVs increase, with contribution rates of 18.35% and 10.13%, respectively. The cropland reclamation and built-up land expansion were the most significant land use changes that lead to the decline of ESVS, with contribution rates of 20.14% and 19.03% respectively. (4) The ESV showed a significant positive auto-correlation in terms of spatial distribution. The area of high–high region was mainly distributed in water body, forestland, and its surrounding areas. The area of low–low region was mainly distributed in built-up land and wasteland areas where human disturbance is relatively serious. The high–low and low–high regions were affected by landscape transition process and randomly distributed around the low–low and high–high regions, respectively. This study cannot only put forward a new method for the dynamic continuous evaluation of ESV, but also provide a reference for the rational allocation of land resources in the startup area to realize the balanced development of regional environment and economy.
... Tarimo et al., (2013) found 1042 ha of forests in Tanzania were converted into agricultural land between 1978 and 2006 or further altered into peri-urban uses. Kertesz et al., (2019) found that the forest area in Hungary increased between 1990 to 2012 due to an ongoing decrease of cultivated land which decreased the risk of erosion. They nonetheless concluded that in the long term, this LUC would improve ecosystem services. ...
... Les modalités d'utilisation des terres d'une région donnée sont adaptées aux besoins des sociétés humaines depuis leur apparition (Kertész A. et al., 2019). Jusqu'à récemment, les montagnes marocaines étaient restées loin des transformations et du développement qu'avait connu le reste du pays. ...
Conference Paper
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L’objectif de la présente étude est de déterminer l’influence de la lithologie, comme variable géo-écologique, sur la répartition des principales espèces arborées et arbustives du Moyen Atlas Central, ainsi que sur les caractéristiques dendrométriques des arbres. La superposition de la carte de végétation et la carte géologique a permis de déterminer la répartition des espèces en fonction de la nature lithologique des terrains. Cette relation est testée par la comparaison des caractéristiques de deux peuplements de cèdre de l’Atlas qui se développent sur deux facies lithologiques différents. Les facteurs testés sont la densité, la croissance radiale des arbres, la surface terrière et la croissance en volume. Afin de mieux comprendre cet impact, une étude de caractérisation des sols des deux sites a été effectuée, et les potentiels de séquestration du carbone et de minéralisation de l’azote ont été déterminés. Les résultats obtenus montrent que la répartition spatiale de la végétation ainsi que sa dynamique de croissance sont largement influencées par le facteur lithologique.
... Easy access to main market, transportation facilities, province capital, jobs, economic hub, availability of education, and health facilities are some of the drivers which are responsible for the population influx towards Peshawar district. Kertész et al. (2019) stated that land degradation is the major driving forces due to land use changes. Many unplanned LULCC like deforestation and alternation of vegetation cover resulted into degradation of land, which leading to adverse changes at global level. ...
Article
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Urbanization is the main force of the global environmental as well as land use land cover changes (LULC). Urbanization is caused by prompt increase in population growth, migration, and urge for employment. In this study, Geographic Information System (GIS) was applied for the analysis and representation of spatio-temporal changes in LULC in Peshawar district and these results were linked with environmental aspects and Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework approaches. For LULC classification, the Landsat freely available satellite imageries were used. The analysis revealed that the vegetation cover has increased from 37.8% of the total area to 71.3% during 1990–2020 and this change in vegetation is attributed to the government initiatives of Billion Tree Tsunami afforestation project after 2014 which has substantially decreased the barren land (from 66% in 1990 to 19% in 2020) in southeastern part of Peshawar district. Although, there was reduction in the vegetation cover in the past but due to extensive plantation between 2014 and 2020 resulted rapid increase in vegetation cover in the study area. The results of the present study detected a remarkable increase in built-up area which has increased almost 224.6% from 1990 to 2020. The study area population has increased from 2.12 million during 1998 to 4.26 million in 2017. The DPSIR results revealed that drivers and pressure have adverse effects on the carrying capacity of natural resources which have resulted deterioration of ecosystem. The resulted reduced capacity leading towards land degradation, loss of agricultural land, decline the groundwater level and resulted in pluvial flooding in Peshawar district. Government and environmental protection agency should implement the land use bylaws to reduce the rapid and unplanned urban growth and its negative impacts on natural environment.
... The southern coast is a sandy beach. More than 200 natural and artificial ponds are located in the southern sub-catchment area surrounded by livestock farms and agricultural lands toward the south [27][28][29]. The geographical location of the studied area in Hungary. ...
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We face many challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, ecological deterioration, economic crises, endangered species, environmental pollution, global climate change, shrinking cities, sustained poverty, and increasing wealth inequality. All of these pose a threat to our socioeconomic prosperity and sustainability. However, ecologists, environmental researchers, geographers, social scientists, and urban planners do not have a commonly applicable framework to examine the interactions between socioeconomic activities and environmental changes and to search for the right solutions to address these challenges. There is an urgent need to develop a total socioenvironmental system (TSES) framework to fill this missing gap. This chapter will lay out a theoretical foundation to support an empirical formulation of TSES.
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Urban infrastructure is a challenge for municipal managers in Brazil, given the rapid urbanization that has occurred in the country and the population growth in these locations. The inclusion of green characteristics in the urban space has contributed to the human needs of residents in this space, areas that allow the filtering of pollutants in the air and water, greater absorption of rainwater, noise reduction, scenic beauty, among other characteristics that are related to ecosystem services. In this context, the objective of the study is to identify the opportunity cost for the existence of urban green areas. This was done using the methodological resources available in environmental economics, which employs the opportunity cost based on the assessment of the net benefit of conservation. Primary and secondary data were used, the sources being literature and satellite images. Considering the analysis period from 2018 to 2020. The results indicate that the opportunity cost is greater than the amounts that can be collected through the commercialization of ecosystem services, implying that the landowners of the Urban Ecological Corridor projected in the municipality of Dourados - Mato Grosso do Sul, should be financially supported to maintain these services in green areas, given their importance to people's quality of life.
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SWOT analyses are frequently employed in land use planning, the literature proposes improved versions for reducing decision-making arbitrariness, however some drawbacks remain. The purpose of this paper is to design the methodological steps of participatory land use planning through a three-fold SWOT, yielding a strategy that is both feasible and in line with the residents’ vision. First, residents are interviewed with open-ended questions permitting them to freely express their ideas. Institutional players are involved next, through a modified Nominal Group Technique. Prioritization of factors is reached through an automatic algorithm that synthesizes the opinions of residents and institutional players, while avoiding the compensation between low scores for some criteria and high scores for others, so that the community’s view is not overpowered. The prioritization is also based on the interconnection between factors, to ensure feasibility of the strategy indicated. The results of our illustrative application show that this method can lead to community-based entrepreneurial land use. Unexpectedly, in the small area considered, institutional players place greater consideration on the development perspective of local businesses, compared to residents, who display a greater environmental consciousness and commitment to biodiversity conservation.
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Sajátos hidrológiai helyzetéből adódóan Magyarország egyszerre néz szembe a víztöbblet és vízhiány okozta kockázatokkal, amelyeket közvetlen és közvetett emberi hatások mellett tovább súlyosbít az éghajlatváltozás. A kockázatok enyhítése csak tájszintű tervezés segítségével lehetséges, amelyet nagyban megkönnyítene az egyes tájhasználati szcenáriók természeti tőkéjének összehasonlítása. Egy tavaly (2011-ben) lezárult hazai K+F projekt (WateRisk) egyik célkitűzése éppen ez volt. A három éves projekt során kifejlesztett döntéstámogató rendszer egyik kulcseleme a környezet-gazdaságtani almodul. Ez többek között lehetővé teszi, hogy megbecsüljük a mezőgazdasági termelés mint ellátó szolgáltatás hasznát. Jelen cikk célja utóbbi számítás elvi alapjainak bemutatása.
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The concept of ecosystem services has become an important tool for modelling interactions between ecosystems and their external environment in terms of global bio-climatic changes. The provision of ecosystem services depends on biophysical conditions and changes over space and time due to human induced land cover and land use. Ecosystem services linked to natural capital can be divided into three services categories (provisioning, regulating and cultural), and ecosystem functions (structures and processes relevant for ecosystem self-organisation, biodiversity, soil macro-organisms, micro-organisms) must be added. Traditionally, agroecosystems have been considered primarily as sources of provisioning services, but more recently their contributions to other types of ecosystem services have been recognized. Agroecosystems can provide a range of other regulating and cultural services to human communities, in addition to provisioning services and services in support of provisioning. Six agricultural study areas, each of them with two different land use categories (arable land and permanent grasslands) located in various natural conditions of Slovakia, were evaluated. For the analysis of the agroecosystem services seven study sites were selected on the basis of the following criteria: 1) polluted area (inorganic contamination); 2) non polluted area (without the inorganic contamination); 3) area threatened by erosion; 4) abandoned land; 5) low productive land; 6) productive land. For each locality two study sites were selected: arable land with annual plant and permanent grassland. The greatest differences can be seen in the relation to land use and diversity of soil types. The agroecosystem services potential value of arable land and grassland sites located in different soil-ecological regions of Slovakia differ in all categories of services. The most significant differences are in provisioning and regulating services. Our results confirm significant negative correlation only between provisioning and cultural agroecosystem services.
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The development and application of the concept of ecosystem services (ES) is characterized by a rapid growth and broading of activities on all levels from global to local scales. Among the crucial theoretical-methodological fundamentals, the problem of assessment frameworks is addressed. Transboundary ES assessments are still rare, hence a regional study from the Ore Mountains (Germany/Czech Republic) is briefly presented. As a rather new trend, both the concepts of ES and landscape are combined to define landscape services as the contribution of landscapes and landscape elements to human well-being. There are a lot of chances of the ES concept but also critical voices make themselves heard. The debates refer to elementary issues such as definitions, classification and measurement, the complexity of ecosystems, or the appropriateness of frameworks and valuation tools. Besides, there is still a lack of established ways of integrating ES into policies and decision-making processes. More fundamental is the criticism that the concept would favour a pure anthropocentric focus, prioritize markets, and promote commodification of nature. Non-market governance structures would be threatened, the multi-layered relationships between man and nature might be reduced to economic issues, and conflicts with some biodiversity conservation objectives may occur.
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The availability of global coverage digital surface models (like ASTER GDEM or SRTM) and the variation of fused models based on these (like EU-DEM) still has a great impact on scientific researches, as it provides a fairly good base dataset with a low production time and expenses. However, validation reports of the initial digital surface models (DSMs) convinced different characteristics and errors, so it is necessary to examine these prior to use. It is more important in the case of the EU-DEM product, because it has been published without a formal validation. The presented research goes further than just identifying the errors, it attempts to moderate or correct the height differences. For this reason altering the false values of the land cover and filtering the occurring noise was implemented. The correction of the model was verified with statistical and visual methods. Using the novel method of geomorphons for landform classification over the low mountainous and piedmont region of the Eastern Mecsek Mountains generated representative results about the possible application of the EU-DEM for geomorphological studies in areas with similar topography.
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The availability of global coverage digital surface models (like ASTER GDEM or SRTM) and the variation of fused models based on these (like EU-DEM) still has a great impact on scientific researches, as they provides a fairly good base dataset with a low production time and expenses. However, validation reports of the initial DSMs convinced different characteristics and errors, thus it is essential to examine these height datasets prior to application. A verifying process for EU-DEM is more important, because it has been published without a formal validation. Although the base of the EU-DEM was a corrected ASTER GDEM dataset, the visual assessment and the error statistics suggest more similarity to the SRTM DSM. This study goes further than just identifying the errors, it attempts to moderate or correct the height differences. For this reason altering the false values of the land cover and filtering the occurring noise was implemented. The geomorphometric analyses carried out as part of the verification methods propose each improved model as potential base for geomorphological studies, if they meet the certain eff ective resolution requirements.
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•Discusses novel science that focuses on providing standardized valuations of multiple ecosystem services in a framework that reveals tradeoffs among services, as well as opportunities for possible new sources of funding for conservation. This science is connected to open-access online tools for mapping and valuing ecosystem services (InVEST). •Incorporates policy analysis and provides guidance on policy implementation •Boxed case studies authored by conservation or political leaders from the field enliven the book and give it broader appeal •Common chapter templates and rigorous editing provide a coherent and integrated work In 2005, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) provided the first global assessment of the world's ecosystems and ecosystem services. It concluded that recent trends in ecosystem change threatened human wellbeing due to declining ecosystem services. This bleak prophecy has galvanized conservation organizations, ecologists, and economists to work toward rigorous valuations of ecosystem services at a spatial scale and with a resolution that can inform public policy. The editors have assembled the world's leading scientists in the fields of conservation, policy analysis, and resource economics to provide the most intensive and best technical analyses of ecosystem services to date. A key idea that guides the science is that the modelling and valuation approaches being developed should use data that are readily available around the world. In addition, the book documents a toolbox of ecosystem service mapping, modeling, and valuation models that both The Nature Conservancy and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are beginning to apply around the world as they transform conservation from a biodiversity only to a people and ecosystem services agenda. The book addresses land, freshwater, and marine systems at a variety of spatial scales and includes discussion of how to treat both climate change and cultural values when examining tradeoffs among ecosystem services.
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Assuming the huge progress achieved in public participatory geographic information system (PPGIS) techniques and its current research gaps, this study aims to explore differences in the perception of spatial distribution of ecosystem services supply and demand between different stakeholders through collaborative mapping. The stakeholders selected included high influence stakeholder (with a high degree of interest on the ecosystem services' state and with an important influence into the environmental decision making process) and low influence stakeholders (with a high degree of interest on the ecosystem services' state and with a low influence in environmental management). Workshops took place in June 2013 in two regions of Andalusia; overall 29 participants were involved. Water provision, food from agriculture, livestock, erosion control, climate regulation, water purification, nature tourism, recreational hunting and tranquility were collaboratively mapped. Agriculture land-use and the protected area surface were also assessed in order to find patterns in ecosystem services supply, meanwhile the role of urban areas was assessed for ecosystem services demand. The results show that low and high influence stakeholders have different perceptions of the spatial distribution of ecosystem services and the scale of their demand. We call for the recognition of these knowledge differences (experiential and technical) and their inclusion in decision making processes regarding landscape planning.
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Although a number of comprehensive reviews have examined global ecosystem services (ES), few have focused on studies that assess urban ecosystem services (UES). Given that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, understanding the dualism of the provision of and need for UES is of critical importance. Which UES are the focus of research, and what types of urban land use are examined? Are models or decision support systems used to assess the provision of UES? Are trade-offs considered? Do studies of UES engage stakeholders? To address these questions, we analyzed 217 papers derived from an ISI Web of Knowledge search using a set of standardized criteria. The results indicate that most UES studies have been undertaken in Europe, North America, and China, at city scale. Assessment methods involve bio-physical models, Geographical Information Systems, and valuation, but few study findings have been implemented as land use policy. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0504-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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This paper presents the characteristics of tourism development at Lake Balaton, Hungary, with special emphasis on the physical environment, and discusses how the residents' and the tourists' perceptions of the physical impacts of tourism development affect the sustainability of tourism in the region. The methodology used to gather information on tourism's physical impacts included structured interviews with residents and tourists, unstructured interviews with the representatives of the tourist industry, a Delphi survey and a Tourism Impact Matrix. The research shows that due to the characteristics of tourism development in the region, only a certain form of mass tourism can be sustained, though in a better managed way. Both residents and tourists perceived both positive and negative impacts of tourism development – economic benefits being considered as the most significant impacts of tourism by residents. Even though local people could also identify unfavourable impacts of tourism, the support for the expansion of the tourism industry was strong. Thus regional organisations have to deal with managing the impacts of tourism and changing the local population's short-term approach at the same time.
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Landscapes differ in their capacities to provide ecosystem goods and services, which are the benefits humans obtain from nature. Structures and functions of ecosystems needed to sustain the provision of ecosystem services are alte-red by various human activities. In this paper, a concept for the assessment of multiple ecosystem services is propo-sed as a basis for discussion and further development of a respective evaluation instrument. Using quantitative and qualitative assessment data in combination with land cover and land use information originated from remote sensing and GIS, impacts of human activities can be evaluated. The results reveal typical patterns of different ecosystems' capacities to provide ecosystem services. The proposed approach thus delivers useful integrative information for environmental management and landscape planning, aiming at a sustainable use of services provided by nature. The research concept and methodological framework presented here for discussion have initially been applied in different case studies and shall be developed further to provide a useful tool for the quantification and spatial modelling of multiple ecosystem services in different landscapes. An exemplary application of the approach dealing with food provision in the Halle-Leipzig region in Germany is presented. It shows typical patterns of ecosystem service distri-bution around urban areas. As the approach is new and still rather general, there is great potential for improvement, especially with regard to a data-based quantification of the numerous hypotheses, which were formulated as base for the assessment. Moreover, the integration of more detailed landscape information on different scales will be needed in future in order to take the heterogeneous distribution of landscape properties and values into account. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to foster critical discussions on the methodological development presented here.
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Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) is perhaps the most fundamental of decision support operations in geographical information systems (GIS). This paper reviews two main MCE approaches employed in GIS, namely Boolean and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC), and discusses issues and problems associated with both. To resolve the conceptual differences between the two approaches, this paper proposes the application of fuzzy measures, a concept that is broader but that includes fuzzy set membership, and argues that the standardized factors of MCE belong to a general class of fuzzy measures and the more specific instance of fuzzy set membership. This perspective provides a strong theoretical basis for the standardization of factors and their subsequent aggregation. In this context, a new aggregation operator that accommodates and extends the Boolean and WLC approaches is discussed: the Ordered Weighted Average. A case study of industrial allocation in Nakuru, Kenya is employed to illustrate the different approaches.
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As the global human population grows and its consumption patterns change, additional land will be needed for living space and agricultural production. A critical question facing global society is how to meet growing human demands for living space, food, fuel, and other materials while sustaining ecosystem services and biodiversity [1]. We spatially allocate two scenarios of 2000 to 2015 global areal change in urban land and cropland at the grid cell-level and measure the impact of this change on the provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity. The models and techniques used to spatially allocate land-use/land-cover (LULC) change and evaluate its impact on ecosystems are relatively simple and transparent [2]. The difference in the magnitude and pattern of cropland expansion across the two scenarios engenders different tradeoffs among crop production, provision of species habitat, and other important ecosystem services such as biomass carbon storage. For example, in one scenario, 5.2 grams of carbon stored in biomass is released for every additional calorie of crop produced across the globe; under the other scenario this tradeoff rate is 13.7. By comparing scenarios and their impacts we can begin to identify the global pattern of cropland and irrigation development that is significant enough to meet future food needs but has less of an impact on ecosystem service and habitat provision. Urban area and croplands will expand in the future to meet human needs for living space, livelihoods, and food. In order to jointly provide desired levels of urban land, food production, and ecosystem service and species habitat provision the global society will have to become much more strategic in its allocation of intensively managed land uses. Here we illustrate a method for quickly and transparently evaluating the performance of potential global futures.
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Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water, and shelter to more than six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet's resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.
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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.
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A környezetpolitika egyik elsődleges célja az emberi tevékenység negatív környezeti hatásainak minimalizálása. Tanulmányom célja a makroszintű tervezéshez való hozzájárulás a környezeti hatások elemzésének az ökoszisztéma-szolgáltatások elméletére alapozott módszertani keretével. Röviden elemzem a környezetpolitikai döntéseket megnehezítő tényezőket, majd felvázolom az elemzés módszerét, amelynek gyakorlati alkalmazását is bemutatom a megújuló energiaforrásokra alapozott technológiák káros környezeti hatásainak alapján történő összehasonlítás révén. A tanulmány legfontosabb eredménye maga a környezeti vizsgálatot támogató módszer, amely – korlátait figyelembe véve – alkalmazható fejlesztési tervek és programok megelőző (ex ante) értékelésére, valamint különböző regionális vagy országos szintű, környezeti hatással rendelkező vagy környezetvédelmi célú szabályozások (törvények, rendeletek, határozatok) előzetes hatásvizsgálatára. Az esettanulmány során kapott eredmények is fontos információval szolgálnak az ökoszisztáma-szolgáltatások értékével és a megújuló energiaforrások környezeti hatásaival kapcsolatban. Magyarországon az ökoszisztémaszolgáltatások értéke 2011-ben 1640,18x10^10 HUF volt, ami a 2010-es GDP (2674x10^10 HUF) 61,3%-a. A megújuló energiaforrásokhoz köthető negatív környezeti hatások tekintetében a legelőnyösebbek a szél- és a napenergia (10,2, ill. 11,8%), közepesen környezetterhelő a geotermikus energia hasznosítása (22,6%), a legjelentősebb mértékű káros környezeti hatás pedig a biomassza és a vízenergia-hasznosítás esetén (63,5, ill. 54,7%) figyelhető meg.
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Land degradation leads to very severe damages on the Earth. Global climate change and land use change are always present in the media and in scientific publications, though much less attention is paid to the degradation of the Earth surface. Land degradation is an interrelated process; other processes like global climate change, land use change and even population growth are strongly linked to it.
Article
The land use and land cover pattern of landscapes are key elements of basic landscape structure; accordingly, this pattern has an important role in landscape management, nature conservation and preservation. In Hungary, the naturalness of the vegetation was surveyed between 2003 and 2006, and the vegetation-based Natural Capital Index (NCI) was calculated for almost the entire area of the country. This field-based database gave us the unique opportunity to analyse the statistical connection between the naturalness of the vegetation and the landscape (land cover) pattern on a regional scale. In our study, we analysed the efficiency of the regional-level CORINE Land Cover (CLC) database for the estimation of the naturalness of the vegetation. This connection was analysed at the country scale using every (2272) Flora Mapping Unit (FMU), or 5.5 × 6.5 km quadrate, of Hungary. We calculated the shape-, edge- and size-related landscape indices for all FMUs on a landscape level (including all CLC patches) and a class level (the land cover polygons were classified according to their land cover characteristics and their level of hemeroby). We determined the Spearman’s correlations to reveal the statistical connections between the landscape metric parameters and the NCI values. All of the investigated area-weighted landscape indices: Main Patch Size, (MPS), Main Fractal Dimension Index, (MFDI), Total Edge (TE), Main Shape Index (MSI) and Number of Shape Characteristic Points (NSCP) on the landscape level showed a significant statistical connection with the NCI, but the sign of its correlation with the NCI contrasted with the findings from previous studies on a larger scale. Our study shows that scale has a strong impact on the sign of the correlation between the naturalness of the vegetation and the landscape structure. On a class level, particularly the shape-related landscape indices of the “Forest and semi-natural areas” showed statistically significant correlations with the NCI. The correlation strongly depended on the method of classification of the CLC polygons. Furthermore, the spatial pattern of the land-cover-type-based CLC polygon categories showed higher correlation values with the NCI than CLC polygon classes, which were categorized according to their hemeroby state. These results show that although the sign of the spatial pattern change in the main land cover classes is scale-dependent, they can be used to estimate the increase or decrease in the naturalness of the vegetation better than the spatial changes of the hemeroby-level-based landscape pattern. We can predict the change in the naturalness of vegetation based on the spatial changes in the land cover pattern.
Chapter
Among the land use categories the forests have a special and very important role in nature and environmental protection. The forest decreases the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, filters polluted air, isolates noise, mitigates temperature changes, diminishes soil temperature by 2-4 degrees ensuring even temperature conditions, lowers wind velocity, increases air humidity and has many more favourable effects on nature and society. The forests play an important role in the water regime of a given area. The large canopy surface slows down the velocity of the rain, most of the rain water remains in the forest and surface water will be converted to subsurface water. Forests protect the soil from drying out, they provide a special microclimate and have a positive climatic influence on the climate of the nearby areas. The above mentioned favourable effects of the forest are only a few out of a long series hereafter we will concentrate on the soil protecting effects.
Article
Article
Decreasing population density is a current trend in the European Union, and causes a lower environmental impact on the landscape. However, besides the desirable effect on the regeneration processes of semi-natural forest ecosystems, the lack of traditional management techniques can also lead to detrimental ecological processes. In this study we investigated the land use pattern changes in a micro-region (in North-Eastern Hungary) between 1952 and 2005, based on vectorised land use data from archive aerial photos. We also evaluated the methodology of comparisons using GIS methods, fuzzy sets and landscape metrics. We found that both GIS methods and statistical analysis of landscape metrics resulted in more or less the same findings. Differences were not as relevant as was expected considering the general tendencies of the past 60 years in Hungary. The change in the annual rate of forest recovery was 0.12%; settlements extended their area by an annual rate of 3.04%, while grasslands and arable lands had a net loss in their area within the studied period (0.60% and 0.89%, respectively). The kappa index showed a smaller similarity (~60%) between these dates but the fuzzy kappa and the aggregation index, taking into account both spatial and thematic errors, gave a more reliable result (~70–80% similarity). Landscape metrics on patch and class level ensured the possibility of a detailed analysis. We arrived at a similar outcome but were able to verify all the calculations through statistical tests. With this approach we were able to reveal significant (p < 0.05) changes; however, effect sizes did not show large magnitudes. Comparing the methods of revealing landscape change, the approach of landscape metrics was the most effective approach, as it was independent of spatial errors and ensuring a multiple way of interpretation.
Article
The relationship of soil erosion to the world food economy is addressed in this study. Specific factors analyzed are: patterns of soil degradation; the influence of soil erosion on food production; the offsite environmental consequences of erosion; erosion control measures for protecting agricultural land resources; the economic factors that cause and control erosion; and policies needed for soil and water conservation if soil erosion is to be controlled for a sustainable agricultural system. -from Authors
Article
According to the United Nations (UN) Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, there has been a dramatic decline in global biodiversity. The UN has made a global appeal for all countries to mitigate their impact on the environment. Marine environmental protection is one of the most critical and urgent issues in the world and many countries have commenced establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) by implementing ecosystem-based management (EBM) concepts. MPA planning has been considered one of the simplest and most effective methods to protect marine environments. Taiwan has recently developed policies that have focused on its marine environment, and there are plans to increase the size of Taiwan׳s MPAs to 20% of its total ocean territory by 2020, thereby achieving a sustainable ocean. To achieve this goal, the government must address specific difficulties associated with the location of MPAs and relevant zoning strategies. This study establishes MPA protection principles and a zoning framework for MPAs in Taiwan by using Gueishan Island in Yilan County as a case study site to examine specific zoning strategies. The protection of 3 objectives (hydrothermal vents, cetacean, and fisheries resources) is discussed in this paper. Multi-criteria spatial analysis and a geographic information system are applied to identify the most crucial area to protect. To understand the stakeholders׳ opinions and concerns regarding the proposed zoning framework, this research conducted in-depth interviews with experts and stakeholders. MPAs zoning strategies are formulated at the conclusion of this study that could assist in protecting critical marine resources and avoiding conflicts among various usages of the marine area.
Article
Lake Balaton is the largest shallow-water lake in Central Europe. The main objective of the research on its Quaternary lacustrine sediments was to reconstruct the evolution of Lake Balaton from its formation until today. One of the key parameters in answering this question is to retrace lakelevel changes. There is a lot of evidence, such as sedimentological, mineralogical, geochemical, archaeological, etc. to reveal these changes. Each type is of different reliability depending upon the sensitivity of the lake to level change and to preservation of the traces of those changes as a result of geologic, climatologic or human factors. The average thickness of Quaternary sediments accumulated in Lake Balaton is 5 m. From the lake bottom toward the surface lacustrine sediments are constituted by clastic deposits, peat and calcareous mud with upward-increasing carbonate content (calcite, dolomite, Mg-calcite, protodolomite and aragonite). Towards the end of Pleistocene, approximately 15,000-17,000 years BP, several shallow ponds with clean and cold water formed in the site of the present Lake Balaton. Inundation followed progressively from west to east. A warming climate and increasing precipitation brought about the rise of the water level. Moreover, abrasion progressively destroyed the dams separating the ponds and a uniform lake was formed. Later, as a function of changing climate the water level of the lake varied approximately between 103.0 and 108.0 m aASI. (above Adriatic Sea level). The average rate of total lacustrine sediment accumulation is 0.38 mm/year.
Article
A monitoring system has been developed to characterize the bottom sediments of Lake Balaton. Samples were collected inside of the lake, from the top layers to 60 cm in depth. The samples were dried at room temperature and then sieved through 2-mm and 63-mum sieves. The total concentration of elements was measured by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) with an RSD of <5% from solutions. The determination of the mineralogical phase composition of sediments was carried out by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The main constituents of samples were quartz, calcite, mica, dolomite, chlorite, feldspar, smectite, kaolinite, pyrite and some amorphous materials. Ten elements were investigated, and Ni, Cr and Zn were chosen to be discussed in details. Results were compared with Hungarian soils, geochemical background values, sediment quality values (SQVs) and sediment background values (SBVs). Records showed that the average concentration of elements was usually less than that of SQVs and other background values for soils. However, some high concentrations at different sampling sites and depths surpassed the geochemical background values. Based on the results, it can be confirmed that the quality of the sediment inside Lake Balaton is satisfactory.
Article
Soil erosion is one of the most serious threats to world food production. During the past 40 years, nearly one-third of the world's cropland has been lost to erosion, and this loss is intensifying. Cropland is already in short supply worldwide. This shortage contributes to the fact that more than 2000 million humans are malnourished. More than 99 per cent of all world food comes from the land and less than one per cent from the oceans and other aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, major efforts are needed to conserve soil and protect the environment. Abstract & Keywords → p. 239
Article
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.
Article
Global biodiversity change is one of the most pressing environmental is-sues of our time. Here, we review current scientific knowledge on global biodiversity change and identify the main knowledge gaps. We discuss two components of biodiversity change—biodiversity alterations and biodiversity loss—across four dimensions of biodiversity: species extinc-tions, species abundances, species distributions, and genetic diversity. We briefly review the impacts that modern humans and their ancestors have had on biodiversity and discuss the recent declines and alterations in biodiversity. We analyze the direct pressures on biodiversity change: habitat change, overexploitation, exotic species, pollution, and climate change. We discuss the underlying causes, such as demographic growth and resource use, and review existing scenario projections. We identify successes and impending opportunities in biodiversity policy and man-agement, and highlight gaps in biodiversity monitoring and models. Finally, we discuss how the ecosystem services framework can be used to identify undesirable biodiversity change and allocate conservation efforts.
Article
Ecosystem service assessments (ESA) hold the promise of supporting the quantification and valuation of human appropriation of nature and its goods and services. The concept has taken flight with the number of studies published on the topic increasing rapidly. This development, and the variation of diverging approaches, support innovative ideas and may lead to complementary insights from various perspectives. However, at the same time this slows scientific synthesis through increasing uncertainty with respect to the appropriate methodologies to be used to support solving environmental management problems. We analyzed ESA and the underlying concepts based on the variety of available publications and reviews, which revealed a number of different methods, uncertain reliability and robustness. In order to facilitate comparison, evaluation and synthesis of ecosystem service assessments we propose a blueprint for reporting studies in a structured way. By exemplifying this with worked examples, we argue that the use of such a blueprint will (i) assist in achieving improved communication and collaboration in trans-disciplinary teams; (ii) reveal methodological aspects, important for the interpretation of results; (iii) support robustness and reliability of assessments; (iv) aid in structuring assessment studies and mon-itoring programs; (v) provide a base for comparing and synthesizing results of different studies (e.g. in meta-analysis), and thus (vi) provide a base for further implementation of ESA.