Abstract
Agricultural land use systems have been optimized for producing provisioning ecosystem services (ES) in the past few decades, often at the expense of regulating and cultural services. Research has focused mainly on the supply side of ES and related trade-offs, but the demand side for regulatory services remains largely neglected. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of participatory geographic information system (PGIS) methods for demand assessment in larger rural and agrarian contexts by identifying spatially explicit demand patterns for ES, thereby enlarging the body of participatory approaches to ES-based land use management. Accordingly, we map, assess, and statistically and spatially analyze different demands for five ES by different stakeholder groups in agricultural landscapes in three case studies. The results are presented in a stakeholder workshop and prerequisites for collaborative ES management are discussed. Our results show that poor correlation exists between stakeholder groups and demands for ES; however, arable land constitutes the highest share of the mapped area of demands for the five ES. These results have been validated by both the survey and the stakeholder workshop. Our study concludes that PGIS represents a useful tool to link demand assessments and landscape management systematically, especially for decision support systems.
Highlights
Agricultural systems are genuinely social–ecological systems, with the possibility of producing a wide variety of provisioning ecosystem services (ES) and providing key ecological processes and regulatory services
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of participatory geographic information system (PGIS) methods for demand assessment in larger rural and agrarian contexts by identifying spatially explicit demand patterns for ES, thereby enlarging the body of participatory approaches to ES-based land use management
We discussed the results of the survey with experts from the stakeholder groups in a stakeholder workshop
Summary
Agricultural systems are genuinely social–ecological systems, with the possibility of producing a wide variety of provisioning ecosystem services (ES) and providing key ecological processes and regulatory services. Agricultural areas have been characterized by intensification, mechanization and a reduction in the labor force in the past few decades [3]. While this process has been considered essential for achieving food security, regulating ES have been mainly negatively affected by this process, such as pollination, agrobiodiversity, water cycling and clean air [4]. The services and dis-services generated by these systems affect the stability of local and global ecosystems and, by extension, the people living in these systems [2]
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