An ecosystem service trade-off management framework based on key ecosystem services

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ESs) provide a bridge between social systems and ecosystems. Effective management of the trade-offs between ecosystem services is an important scientific problem in the study of social-ecological system management. According to the origin of ESs trade-offs, this study summarizes the management approaches of ES trade-off, and points out the shortcomings of the existing management approaches in terms of “efficiency” and “fairness”. Finally, according to the shortcomings, an ES trade-off management framework is proposed to improve the “efficiency” and “fairness” of ES trade-off management. The research shows that the ES trade-off management framework based on key ecosystem services (KESs) can improve the supply of the KESs, and promote the inevitable loss on the non-key ESs (NKESs) so as to improve the “efficiency” of ES trade-off management. At the same time, the framework constructs compensation scheme of private winners to private losers is constructed to improve the “fairness” of ES trade-off management. The results provide potential solutions for ecosystem service trade-off management.