Characterising the rural-urban gradient through the participatory mapping of ecosystem services: insights for landscape planning

Sara Palomo-Campesino,Javier Moreno,José González,Ignacio Palomo

doi:10.3897/oneeco.3.e24487

Abstract

The application of the ecosystem services (ES) framework in landscape planning has become particularly relevant in rural-urban gradients since it allows for the integration of the complex interactions between ES supply and demand. This framework might be a powerful tool to inform landscape planning and decision-making intended to maintain the current and future flow of ES. In this study, we developed a process of participatory mapping of ES in a rural-urban gradient in southern Spain, which comprises the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the Granada valley and the city of Granada. First, we interviewed 21 key stakeholders from different professional sectors and gradient zones. These stakeholders prioritised nine ES in terms of their importance for local human well-being and their vulnerability to current drivers of change. Then, a workshop was organised in which 23 local actors shared their experience and knowledge regarding ES in the studied landscape. Sorted into five groups (composed of stakeholders with different profiles), the participants spatially mapped the most important supply and demand areas for the nine ES previously prioritised. The results show that the city of Granada has a very high demand for ES and a very low supply, while the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the valley of Granada appear to be very important ES supply areas. According to 95% of the stakeholders that attended the workshop, participatory mapping of ES is a very important (69%) or an important (26%) methodology to elicit the views and perceptions of the population, to identify the main conflicts and potential solutions for the territory and to visualise the high dependence of urban areas on the ES provided by adjacent rural areas. Our results also highlight the importance of incorporating the analysis of ES flows to inform landscape planning at the regional scale. Participatory mapping of ES can enhance decision-making regarding the maintenance of human well-being and the sustainability of social-ecological systems.

Highlights

Defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assesssment) 2005,Pascual et al 2017b), the ecosystem services (ES) concept has become widely developed within academic and political arenas over the last two decades (Radford and James 2013), after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the implementation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
The dots were quite uniformly distributed along the territory, but we found that the density was slightly higher in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the Granada valley poplar groves
Our results suggest the need to change landscape planning schemes from their current approach based on administrative boundaries to a more comprehensive approach that considers the landscape as a whole: an integrated system based on social-ecological limits that includes the areas of supply and the beneficiaries of the ES (Fagerholm et al 2013, Palomo et al 2014b)

Summary

Introduction

Defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assesssment) 2005,Pascual et al 2017b), the ecosystem services (ES) concept has become widely developed within academic and political arenas over the last two decades (Radford and James 2013), after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the implementation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The ES framework has demonstrated itself to be useful for analysing the dynamics of rural-urban gradients (Martín-López et al 2012,Yang et al 2015). Humans are increasingly interacting less frequently with nature and the conception that urban areas do not depend on ecosystems is expanding (Soga and Gaston 2016,Gómez-Baggethun and Barton 2013). Since cities are usually important areas that demand ES (Kroll et al 2012), there is a crucial need to make visible the relationship between rural and urban areas in order to make people aware of their own dependence on ecosystems and to ensure the maintenance of ES flows along rural-urban gradients

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion