Ecosystem Service Supply in the Antarctic Peninsula Region: Evaluating an Expert-Based Assessment Approach and a Novel Seascape Data Model

Felix Müller,Barbara Neumann,Hugh W Ducklow,Jeff S Bowman,Anton Mikoleit

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2019.00157

Abstract

Author(s): Neumann, B; Mikoleit, A; Bowman, JS; Ducklow, HW; Muller, F | Abstract: The Southern Ocean and coastal Antarctica provide a variety of ecosystem services with benefits for humankind that are of regional and global importance. Despite being nearly uninhabited, increasing exploitation of natural resources, a growing human presence, and environmental change threaten the sustained provisioning of these services. Ecosystem service assessments have proven as a suitable tool to understand the relevance of ecosystems for human well-being and guide decision-making, but the fluid and transboundary nature of marine ecosystems poses challenges to analyzing ecosystem services in regions with large marine sections. New methods to objectively assess the supply of ecosystem services for such realms are needed, and this need is exemplified by the Antarctic Peninsula region which encompasses rich marine, coastal, and terrestrial ecosystems but faces growing impacts and needs for taking action. In this study we applied the matrix method, an expert-based approach that employs a tabular matrix of ecosystem services and service providing units (SPUs) to elicit expert knowledge and rate the actual supply of key ecosystems services from the Antarctic Peninsula region. Further, we tested the applicability of this method on conventional definitions of SPUs and on objectively defined physico-chemical seascape units for a subset of the study region. Our results show high variations in the estimated supply of ecosystem services for the Antarctic Peninsula region, both with respect to the applied data models and in terms of the assessed services. While cultural and regulating services received highest supply estimates, provisioning services were regarded less relevant for the study region. Further, experts' supply estimates were much lower for the tested physico-chemical seascape units than for bathymetrically regionalized marine areas. The results suggest that a more explicit elaboration of linkages between ecosystem functions and processes and of the actual supply of ecosystem services is required in order to tap the full potential of such seascape data models in the context of qualitative, expert-based ecosystem service assessments.

Highlights

The world’s ocean, coasts and seas have been recognized as key components of the Earth system and as one of the most important natural resources for humankind and contributor to human well-being and development (Costanza, 1999; Visbeck et al, 2014; United Nations, 2015, p. 53 ff, 2016)
seascape units (SUs) 1 to SU 8 received lower estimates than the conventional service providing units (SPUs) of open ocean, shelf including shelf break, and near shore, despite a spatial overlap between the conventional and the physico-chemically defined SPUs along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). This discrepancy becomes especially obvious for cultural ecosystem services (ES) which were scored with up to 5 for several conventional SPUs, partially across all cultural ES, while SUs were scored with 4 as highest estimates
Provisioning ES generally received the lowest values in comparison to the regulating and cultural ES

Summary

Introduction

The world’s ocean, coasts and seas have been recognized as key components of the Earth system and as one of the most important natural resources for humankind and contributor to human well-being and development (Costanza, 1999; Visbeck et al, 2014; United Nations, 2015, p. 53 ff, 2016). Significant economic activities have encompassed sealing, whaling, fishing, and harvesting of birds including penguins (Constable et al, 2000; Kock, 2007). This exploitation led to an alarming over-utilization of living resources in the region, most notably the severe depletion of baleen whales (Leaper and Miller, 2011). Aiming to protect and conserve Antarctica’s unique environment for humankind, the treaties request inter alia environmental impact assessments for any kind of activity in the region, prohibit discharge from ships to prevent marine pollution, establish specific forms of protected areas such as Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) and Antarctic Specially Managed Areas (ASMAs), and regulate Antarctic fisheries through ecosystem-based management approaches (Constable et al, 2000; Aronson et al, 2011; Constable, 2011; Hughes et al, 2018; Roura et al, 2018)

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