Abstract
Reversing ecological degradation through restoration activities is a key societal challenge of the upcoming decade. However, lack of evidence on the effectiveness of restoration interventions leads to inconsistent, delayed, or poorly informed statements of success, hindering the wise allocation of resources, representing a missed opportunity to learn from previous experiences. This study contributes to a better understanding of spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services at ecological restoration sites. We developed a method using Landsat satellite images combined with a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) design, and applied this to an arid rural landscape, the Baviaanskloof in South Africa. Since 1990, various restoration projects have been implemented to halt and reverse degradation. We applied the BACI approach at pixel-level comparing the conditions of each intervened pixel (impact) with 20 similar control pixels. By evaluating the conditions before and after the restoration intervention, we assessed the effectiveness of long-term restoration interventions distinguishing their impact from environmental temporal changes. The BACI approach was implemented with Landsat images that cover a 30-year period at a spatial resolution of 30 meter. We evaluated the impact of three interventions (revegetation, livestock exclusion, and the combination of both) on three ecosystem services; forage provision, erosion prevention, and presence of iconic vegetation. We also evaluated whether terrain characteristics could partially explain the variation in impact of interventions. The resulting maps showed spatial patterns of positive and negative effects of interventions on ecosystem services. Intervention effectiveness differed across vegetation conditions, terrain aspect, and soil parent material. Our method allows for spatially explicit quantification of the long-term restoration impact on ecosystem service supply, and for the detailed visualization of impact across an area. This pixel-level analysis is specifically suited for heterogeneous landscapes, where restoration impact not only varies between but also within restoration sites.
Highlights
Rural landscapes depend on and simultaneously supply several ecosystem services, nature’s contribution to people [1, 2]
The presence of iconic species is the only ecosystem service described with a linear regression model that uses two predicting variables (MSAVI and elevation), where elevation contributed by 22% to the model
Regarding the assessed terrain variables to explain the intervention impact, we found that the terrain aspect did not consistently explain the BACI contrast values for the three ecosystem services
Summary
Rural landscapes depend on and simultaneously supply several ecosystem services, nature’s contribution to people [1, 2]. The quality of rural landscapes is deteriorating due to the expansion of croplands and grasslands into native vegetation and unsustainable agricultural practices [3]. Land degradation affects 40% of the agricultural land on earth, reducing the provision of ecosystem services and resulting in adverse environmental, social, and economic consequences [4,5,6]. Given the increased pressure on ecosystems, restoration of degraded lands has become an important element of multiple global initiatives [7]. Several international initiatives have developed strategic targets as part of land sustainability agendas [e.g., 8–13] that are directly or indirectly linked to ecological restoration [14]. Ineffective restoration efforts could inadvertently lead to a major waste of resources, continued deterioration of biodiversity and perceptions of conservation failure [16]
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