From DPSIR the DAPSI(W)R(M) Emerges… a Butterfly – ‘protecting the natural stuff and delivering the human stuff’

Michael Elliott,Timothy G O’Higgins

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-45843-0_4

Michael Elliott, Timothy G O’Higgins

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45843-0_4

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Publication Date: Jan 1, 2020
Citations: 8	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Hull, University College Cork

Abstract

The complexity of interactions and feedbacks between human activities and ecosystems can make the analysis of such social-ecological systems intractable. In order to provide a common means to understand and analyse the links between social and ecological process within these systems, a range of analytical frameworks have been developed and adopted. Following decades of practical experience in implementation, the Driver Pressure State Impact Response (DPSIR) conceptual framework has been adapted and re-developed to become the D(A)PSI(W)R(M). This paper describes in detail the D(A)PSI(W)R(M) and its development from the original DPSIR conceptual frame. Despite its diverse application and demonstrated utility, a number of inherent shortcomings are identified. In particular the DPSIR model family tend to be best suited to individual environmental pressures and human activities and their resulting environmental problems, having a limited focus on the supply and demand of benefits from nature. We present a derived framework, the “Butterfly”, a more holistic approach designed to expand the concept. The “Butterfly” model, moves away from the centralised accounting framework approach while more-fully incorporating the complexity of social and ecological systems, and the supply and demand of ecosystem services, which are central to human-environment interactions.

Highlights

There is only one big idea in environmental management, especially that for aquatic ecosystem, that is ‘how to maintain and protect the natural ecological structure and functioning and the resultant ecosystem services while delivering the societal goods and benefits’ (Elliott 2011)
This evolution of Driver Pressure State Impact Response (DPSIR) is fully detailed by Patrício et al 2016) which indicated anomalies in the way the concept has been used; this culminated in the development of DAPSI(W)R(M) which incorporated 20 years of the evolution of the concept and attempted to resolve the confusion in the use of the forerunners
Taking the valuable lessons learned through the application of the DPSIR/DAPSI (W)R(M) framework, we seek to develop a transferable framework with the aim of developing, a-priori, a more holistic methodological approach to implementing Ecosystem-Based Management

Summary

Introduction

There is only one big idea in environmental management, especially that for aquatic ecosystem, that is ‘how to maintain and protect the natural ecological structure and functioning and the resultant ecosystem services while delivering the societal goods and benefits’ (Elliott 2011). Studies in the Black Sea (Langmead et al 2009; Knudsen et al 2010) employed a modified DPSIR (mDPSIR) approach, while, Cooper (2013) made a variety of changes to develop DPSWR (where W is Welfare) which has been used in a variety of geographic contexts from the Black Sea (O’Higgins et al 2014 to the North East Atlantic (O’Higgins and Gilbert 2014) as well as to explore socioecological scale mismatches in marine sectors (O’Higgins et al 2019) and to explore intertemporal trade-offs in activity and environmental quality (O’Higgins et al 2014) This evolution of DPSIR is fully detailed by Patrício et al 2016) which indicated anomalies in the way the concept has been used; this culminated in the development of DAPSI(W)R(M) which incorporated 20 years of the evolution of the concept and attempted to resolve the confusion in the use of the forerunners (as well as being the more pronounceable “dap- see–worm”) (described in detail in Elliott et al 2017, but used in their previous papers, e.g. for the Baltic Sea by Scharin et al 2016 and the Arctic by Lovecraft and Meek 2019). We present the butterfly not as a replacement to the DPSIR-family (which has been so successfully applied to the existing marine policy) as a socio-ecological accounting framework, but as a potential tool to enable more fully integrated approaches to the development and application of Ecosystem-Based Management

Drivers (D)

Activities (A)

Pressures (P)

State or State Changes (S)

Impact (I) (on Human Welfare)

Response (R) (as Management Measures)

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The Butterfly

Conclusions