Common lands, shared futures: The importance of ecosystem services, justice, and sustainability through community land management

Ecosystem services across contrasting forested landscapes in Queensland's Wet Tropics Bioregion: contemporary patterns, processes and likely future trends under a changing climate

Spatial patterns in ecosystem services supply and demand in the Jing-Jin-Ji region, China

CONTEXTMultifunctionality can refer to the capacity of a landscape to provide a wide range of ecosystem services (ES). Maintaining or restoring multifunctionality in agricultural landscapes is considered an efficient solution to achieve sustainable agricultural production because multiple ES provided by a landscape can support both environmental protection and socio-economic benefits. Quantifying the provision of ES provides fundamental information to measure landscape multifunctionality and inform sustainable land management strategies. Although a large number of studies have been carried out to measure landscape multifunctionality and associated ES, comprehensive spatially explicit assessments at the farm scale are limited. OBJECTIVEThis research applies a wide range of spatial models, tools, and methods to spatially quantify the provision of multiple ES as well as the pattern of landscape multifunctionality in farmed landscapes. METHODSTo quantify the provision of multiple ES provided by the landscape, the bio-physical models provided by InVEST (e.g., Nutrient Delivery Ratio and Sediment Delivery Ratio models) and land use land cover-based assessments using spatial analysis tools in ArcGIS were employed. The Analytic Hierarchy Process was applied to calculate the landscape multifunctionality index which is an integration of multiple ES supply. Hot spot analysis using Getis Ord Gi* statistics was utilised to examine the spatial distribution of multiple ecosystem services. A hill country farm in New Zealand is chosen as a case study because it is a good example of a diverse landscape that is facing significant environmental issues due to intensive agricultural production. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSOur study reveals that the provision of ES and the pattern of landscape multifunctionality is highly variable across the farm. Both positive and negative relationships among ES are found and the interactions between them are mainly reflected in three ES bundles: the agricultural land, the indigenous forest and wetlands, and the mixed land uses. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that the quality of landscape is significantly dependent on the landscape management goals and preferences of the farmer so involving them into the process of ES and landscape multifunctionality assessment at a farm scale is essential step to obtain more comprehensive results. SIGNIFICANCEResults from this study enable important questions to be answered regarding the spatial variation of ES provision and how land use and land management goals relate to the value and quality of landscape multifunctionality. This can provide valuable information to design future multifunctional landscapes and inform decision making in relation to sustainable land use management.

Framework for systematic indicator selection to assess effects of land management on ecosystem services

Ecosystems supply goods and services to humans and are the basis for sustainable development of human society. The study of the supply of ecosystem services and the demand and consumption of ecosystem services by human society, and the analysis of the supply and demand characteristics and flow relationships of ecosystem service flows are of great significance for the management of regional ecosystems and the development of ecological compensation. Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt as an example, this paper calculates the supply and demand indices of ecosystem services in 2015 and 2020, and determines the ecosystem spatial flow paths and flow volumes from the ecosystem supply area to the demand area based on various methods and models such as the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model and distance decay model. The results indicate that 1). In 2015 and 2020, the supply and demand of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Economic Zone show an increasing trend numerically, and there is spatial heterogeneity in the spatial distribution. In terms of ecosystem service supply per unit area, the midstream region is higher than the upstream and downstream regions. In terms of the demand for ecosystem services per unit area, the downstream is higher than the midstream and upstream. 2). From the supply-demand balance of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, the midstream region is mainly the area of surplus supply of ecosystem services, and the downstream region is mainly the area of deficit supply. From 2015 to 2020, the number of areas with balanced supply and demand of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Economic Belt decreases and the number of areas with unbalanced supply and demand increases, which is related to the changes in the level of economic development and land use patterns. 3). The flow of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Economic Belt shows an increasing trend, from 726.59 billion yuan in 2015 to 1,450.54 billion yuan in 2020, with Jiangxi Province being the main ecosystem service supply area and Zhejiang Province being the main ecosystem service demand area in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Semi-natural habitats (SNHs) in agricultural landscapes represent important refugia for biodiversity including organisms providing ecosystem services. Their spill-over into agricultural fields may lead to the provision of regulating ecosystem services such as biological pest control ultimately affecting agricultural yield. Still, it remains largely unexplored, how different habitat types and their distributions in the surrounding landscape shape this provision of ecosystem services within arable fields. Hence, in this thesis I investigated the effect of SNHs on biodiversity-driven ecosystem services and disservices affecting wheat production with an emphasis on the role and interplay of habitat type, distance to the habitat and landscape complexity. I established transects from the field border into the wheat field, starting either from a field-to-field border, a hedgerow, or a kettle hole, and assessed beneficial and detrimental organisms and their ecosystem functions as well as wheat yield at several in-field distances. Using this study design, I conducted three studies where I aimed to relate the impacts of SNHs at the field and at the landscape scale on ecosystem service providers to crop production. In the first study, I observed yield losses close to SNHs for all transect types. Woody habitats, such as hedgerows, reduced yields stronger than kettle holes, most likely due to shading from the tall vegetation structure. In order to find the biotic drivers of these yield losses close to SNHs, I measured pest infestation by selected wheat pests as potential ecosystem disservices to crop production in the second study. Besides relating their damage rates to wheat yield of experimental plots, I studied the effect of SNHs on these pest rates at the field and at the landscape scale. Only weed cover could be associated to yield losses, having their strongest impact on wheat yield close to the SNH. While fungal seed infection rates did not respond to SNHs, fungal leaf infection and herbivory rates of cereal leaf beetle larvae were positively influenced by kettle holes. The latter even increased at kettle holes with increasing landscape complexity suggesting a release of natural enemies at isolated habitats within the field interior. In the third study, I found that also ecosystem service providers benefit from the presence of kettle holes. The distance to a SNH decreased species richness of ecosystem service providers, whereby the spatial range depended on species mobility, i.e. arable weeds diminished rapidly while carabids were less affected by the distance to a SNH. Contrarily, weed seed predation increased with distance suggesting that a higher food availability at field borders might have diluted the predation on experimental seeds. Intriguingly, responses to landscape complexity were rather mixed: While weed species richness was generally elevated with increasing landscape complexity, carabids followed a hump-shaped curve with highest species numbers and activity-density in simple landscapes. The latter might give a hint that carabids profit from a minimum endowment of SNHs, while a further increase impedes their mobility. Weed seed predation was affected differently by landscape complexity depending on weed species displayed. However, in habitat-rich landscapes seed predation of the different weed species converged to similar rates, emphasising that landscape complexity can stabilize the provision of ecosystem services. Lastly, I could relate a higher weed seed predation to an increase in wheat yield even though seed predation did not diminish weed cover. The exact mechanisms of the provision of weed control to crop production remain to be investigated in future studies. In conclusion, I found habitat-specific responses of ecosystem (dis)service providers and their functions emphasizing the need to evaluate the effect of different habitat types on the provision of ecosystem services not only at the field scale, but also at the landscape scale. My findings confirm that besides identifying species richness of ecosystem (dis)service providers the assessment of their functions is indispensable to relate the actual delivery of ecosystem (dis)services to crop production.

Research that connects the effects of urbanization on biodiversity and ecosystem services is lacking. Ants perform multifarious ecological functions that stabilize ecosystems and contribute to a number of ecosystem services. We studied responses of ant communities to urbanization in the Lake Tahoe basin by sampling sites along a gradient of urban land development. We sampled ant communities, measured vegetation characteristics, quantified human activities, and evaluated ant-community responses by grouping ants into service-providing units (SPUs), defined as a group of organisms and their populations that perform specific ecosystem services, to provide an understanding of urbanization impacts on biodiversity and their delivery of ecosystem services. Species richness and abundance peaked at intermediate levels of urban development, as did the richness of 3 types of ant SPUs (aerators, decomposers, and compilers). With increasing land development aerator and decomposer ants significantly declined in abundance, whereas compiler ants significantly increased in abundance. Competing models demonstrated that precipitation was frequently among the strongest influences on ant community structure; however, urban development and human activities also had a strong, negative influence on ants, appearing in most models with DeltaAIC(c) < 2 for species richness and abundance patterns of SPUs and generalists. Response diversity was observed within SPUs, which suggests that the corresponding ecosystem services were maintained until development reached 30-40%. Our data provide evidence that ecosystem functions, such as water infiltration and soil productivity, may be diminished at sites subject to greater levels of urbanization and that conserving ant communities and the ecosystem services they provide could be an important target in land-use planning and conservation efforts.

Adapting ecosystem restoration for sustainable development in a changing world

With the acceleration of urbanization, the ecological environment has gradually deteriorated, the supply and demand relationship of ecosystem services has gradually become unbalanced, and human well-being has been seriously threatened. In particular, coal-using cities are facing the dual pressure of the ecological environment and resource depletion due to the concentration of population and resources, and environmental contradictions. Thus, exploring the relationship between the supply and demand of ecosystem services and their evolution help promote scientific ecological management. By using multi-source data from Huainan City in 2010 and 2020 and the ecosystem service supply and demand matrix and ArcGIS quantitative measurement of the supply, the demand and supply of ecosystem services in Huainan City were investigated. The result implies the following. (1) During 2010‒2020, the supply of ecosystem services in Huainan has decreased year by year. In terms of spatial distribution, the ecosystem service supply in Huainan City was high in the south and low in the north, and there is a significant regional differentiation, (2) Between 2010 and 2020, the demand for ecosystem services in Huainan City increased year by year, and its spatial distribution was similar to the distribution of ecosystem service supply. (3) Due to the decline in the supply of ecosystem services between 2010 and 2020, the demand for ecosystem services has increased, which leads to changes in the matching degree of supply and demand of ecosystem services in Huainan City.

Chillo, V., Amoroso, M. M., Rezzano. C. A. 2018. Silvopastoral use intensity modifies the provision of ecosystem services through changes in diversity in forests of NW Patagonia, Argentina. Ecosistemas 27(3):75-86. Doi.: 10.7818/ECOS.1486 Silvopastoral use intensity modifies the provision of ecosystem services through changes in diversity in forests of NW Patagonia, Argentina. Changes in land use affect biodiversity, but our knowledge about the impact of diversity on ecosystem services (ES) is scarce. In Argentinean north-west Patagonia, mixed forests of cordilleran cypress ( Austrocedus chilensis ) and coihue ( Nothofagus dombeyi ) with extensive silvopastoral use are characterized by a spatial segregation of sites with high and low use intensity. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of silvopastoral use intensity (SUI) on the functional diversity of understory vegetation and on different ES, using generalized linear models. Also, we evaluated the relationship between multiple ES under different SUI in order to identify changes in synergies and trade-offs, using pairwise correlations between ES. We found that higher functional diversity values are found in communities under higher SUI, mainly due to a change of the community towards rapid resource acquisition strategy. ES such as soil fertility, forage production and erosion prevention were mainly related to changes in biodiversity, while cultural heritage was mainly relate to SUI. We identify synergies between most ES. Only forage production showed trade-offs with soil fertility and erosion prevention. With increasing SUI, this relationship changed the intensity but not the direction. Higher SUI promotes increases in biodiversity but notin the provision of multiple ES. An increase in the provision of provisioning ES is achieved at the expense of regulating and supporting ES. An heterogeneous distribution of areas of higher SUI within the landscape could allow the maintenance of diversity and the provision of multiple ES.

Chillo, V., Amoroso, M. M., Rezzano. C. A. 2018. Silvopastoral use intensity modifies the provision of ecosystem services through changes in diversity in forests of NW Patagonia, Argentina. Ecosistemas 27(3):75-86. Doi.: 10.7818/ECOS.1486 Silvopastoral use intensity modifies the provision of ecosystem services through changes in diversity in forests of NW Patagonia, Argentina. Changes in land use affect biodiversity, but our knowledge about the impact of diversity on ecosystem services (ES) is scarce. In Argentinean north-west Patagonia, mixed forests of cordilleran cypress (Austrocedus chilensis) and coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi) with extensive silvopastoral use are characterized by a spatial segregation of sites with high and low use intensity. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of silvopastoral use intensity (SUI) on the functional diversity of understory vegetation and on different ES, using generalized linear models. Also, we evaluated the relationship between multiple ES under different SUI in order to identify changes in synergies and trade-offs, using pairwise correlations between ES. We found that higher functional diversity values are found in communities under higher SUI, mainly due to a change of the community towards rapid resource acquisition strategy. ES such as soil fertility, forage production and erosion prevention were mainly related to changes in biodiversity, while cultural heritage was mainly relate to SUI. We identify synergies between most ES. Only forage production showed trade-offs with soil fertility and erosion prevention. With increasing SUI, this relationship changed the intensity but not the direction. Higher SUI promotes increases in biodiversity but notin the provision of multiple ES. An increase in the provision of provisioning ES is achieved at the expense of regulating and supporting ES. An heterogeneous distribution of areas of higher SUI within the landscape could allow the maintenance of diversity and the provision of multiple ES.

Effects of shade, altitude and management on multiple ecosystem services in coffee agroecosystems

Mastering the regional spatial differences of ecosystem service supply and ecosystem service demand is of great significance to scientifically planning the development and utilization of national land and maintaining healthy development of ecosystems. Based on the relationship analysis of ecosystem service supply and ecosystem service demand, this study explored the regional ecosystem service supply by ecosystem service value based on grid data and constructed an ecosystem service demand evaluation model that integrated the construction land ecosystem service demand equivalent for static aspects and the point of interest (POI) kernel density estimation for dynamic aspects on the basis of land use and POI data. In the end, it put forward a region division method for ecosystem service supply and ecosystem service demand and conducted an empirical analysis of Haidian District, Beijing. The following results were concluded: (1) the ecosystem service value of different grids in Haidian District was between RMB (Chinese monetary unit, Yuan) 0 and RMB 2.4787 million. In terms of spatial distribution, the ecosystem service supply took on an obvious trend of gradual decrease from the northwest to the southeast, with major ecosystem service supply coming from the northwest. (2) The construction land ecosystem service demand equivalent of Haidian District was characterized by a multicenter cluster: the high equivalent area was in the southeast, while the equivalent of the northwest was relatively low. POI kernel density estimation demonstrated cluster distribution, with a high kernel density estimation in the southeast, a lower kernel density estimation in the central part, and the lowest kernel density estimation in the northwest. The ecosystem service demand index also showed cluster distribution: high index in the southeast, low index in the northwest, and prominent sudden changes from the central part to the south. (3) The bivariate local spatial autocorrelation cluster diagram method was used to divide five types of ecosystem service supply and ecosystem service demand, namely non-significant correlation region, high ecosystem service supply and high ecosystem service demand region, high ecosystem service supply and low ecosystem service demand region, low ecosystem service supply and high ecosystem service demand region, low ecosystem service supply and low ecosystem service demand region. Grids with the highest ratio belonged to the non-significant correlation region; the distribution of low ecosystem service supply and high ecosystem service demand region had the greatest concentration, mainly in the southeast; the grids of high ecosystem service supply and low ecosystem service demand region were mainly present in the northwest and in a continuous way; the grids of low ecosystem service supply and low ecosystem service demand region, and high ecosystem service supply and high ecosystem service demand region were extremely few, with sporadic distribution in the central part. The research results could provide a basis for the adjustment and fine management of regional land use structure.

As global consumption increases, there is a growing emphasis on the production of food and the use of other resources necessary for life. Consequently, many ecosystems are stressed because their ability to produce market goods is favoured over other critical functions and services that ecosystems provide such as energy transfer, water regulation, nutrient filtering, and carbon sequestration. Capturing these benefits using ecosystem services thinking offers decision makers a methodology for considering the multiple benefits that ecosystems provide. However, gaps in our understanding of how we can make the ecosystem services concept operational remain. Recognising the relationship between natural capital stocks and the provision of ecosystem processes and services is a crucial step in operationalising ecosystem services thinking. I advance this concept by identifying that attributes of natural capital are not uniform in their amenability to change. Hence, the central tenet of this thesis is that management actions targeted at manageable attributes of natural capital stocks is effective for influencing provision of ecosystem services and benefits. I test how management practices influence natural capital stocks that contribute to the provision of required ecosystem services, using a ‘provider group’ approach. Provider groups are sets of species which exhibit attributes which contribute to ecosystem services and benefits. The traditionally farmed grassland system in the Southeastern Carpathians, Romania, is a good example of a multifunctional landscape providing provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services and thus a useful case study to test this approach. I assigned grassland plant species to provider groups (quality fodder, medical and aromatic compounds, honey, pollen, nitrogen fixation, and conservation concern) based on their characteristics and tested the impact of management practices (abandonment of hay meadows, grazing, and mowing) on species diversity and abundance within each group. Over three quarters (77%) of the 210 unique species sampled during this study contributed to at least one provider group and over a third (36%) contributed to more than one group. I found that different management practices favour certain provider groups over others, and thus supply of certain ecosystem services over others. A more nuanced understanding of the influence of management practices on natural capital stocks can better inform agricultural and conservation policies targeted at sustaining multifunctional landscapes. Incorporation of social data, particularly that describing human behaviour and decision making, is critical to embed the ecosystem services concept into natural resource management policy and practice. Riparian management is a common policy option for mitigating the externalities of land use. A riparian management programme has been running in Taranaki Region, New Zealand for over 20 years providing a useful case study to elicit farmers perceptions and experiences of the pros and cons of planting riparian margins. I found the views of dairy farmers farming the Taranaki ring plain to be varied. Farmers with planted margins reported experiencing many on and off-farm benefits from multi-tier riparian plantings including production, environmental, and social values. This group of farmers identified 32 aspects of riparian vegetation across nine categories, 65% of which were positive aspects and 35% of which were negative aspects. Farmers who had fenced but not planted their riparian margins also believe benefits for water quality, animal safety, and farm management can be achieved from fenced grass strip riparian margins but were less convinced about additional benefits from planting. This group of farmers identified 15 aspects of riparian vegetation across four categories, all of which (100%) were negative aspects. Recognising that farmer’s perceptions and/or experiences vary can help inform how best to structure and deliver policies for sustaining provision of multiple ecosystem services and benefits. Biodiversity offsetting represents a critical application of the ecosystem services concept as trading biodiversity also inherently trades the associated ecosystem service values. Further, trading biodiversity in an offset exchange embodies the manipulation of natural capital stocks, in both the removal of species and habitats and in their replacement or enhancement elsewhere. Currencies used to evaluate offset proposals can either aggregate (combine measures of biodiversity attributes into a composite unit) or disaggregate (individually account for each measured biodiversity attribute of interest). I developed a disaggregated accounting model that balances like-for-like biodiversity trades using a suite of area by condition currencies to individually calculate the net present biodiversity value (NPBV) by which to evaluate no net loss for each biodiversity attribute inputted into the model. The model improves on more aggregated models by enabling increased transparency of biodiversity offsetting proposals, and thus improved decision making processes. This thesis provides an increased understanding of the relationship between management actions and ecosystem services and associated benefits at local scales, and a collection of tools and methods to support decision making targeted at sustaining multifunctional landscapes. Overall, this research illustrates that a natural capital focussed ecosystem services approach provides an opportunity to shift land management towards practices that sustain rather than deplete the natural capacity of ecosystems.

Land management implications for ecosystem services in a South African rangeland