Remote sensing of ecosystem services: An opportunity for spatially explicit assessment

Xiaojun Yang,Bojie Fu,Yihe Lü,Xiaoming Feng

doi:10.1007/s11769-010-0428-y

Abstract

Ecosystem service is an emerging concept that grows to be a hot research area in ecology. Spatially explicit ecosystem service values are important for ecosystem service management. However, it is difficult to quantify ecosystem services. Remote sensing provides images covering Earth surface, which by nature are spatially explicit. Thus, remote sensing can be useful for quantitative assessment of ecosystem services. This paper reviews spatially explicit ecosystem service studies conducted in ecology and remote sensing in order to find out how remote sensing can be used for ecosystem service assessment. Several important areas considered include land cover, biodiversity, and carbon, water and soil related ecosystem services. We found that remote sensing can be used for ecosystem service assessment in three different ways: direct monitoring, indirect monitoring, and combined use with ecosystem models. Some plant and water related ecosystem services can be directly monitored by remote sensing. Most commonly, remote sensing can provide surrogate information on plant and soil characteristics in an ecosystem. For ecosystem process related ecosystem services, remote sensing can help measure spatially explicit parameters. We conclude that acquiring good in-situ measurements and selecting appropriate remote sensor data in terms of resolution are critical for accurate assessment of ecosystem services.

Highlights

Humans rely upon nature for welfare and survival in essence
Based on the role of remote sensing technique, ecosystem service assessment described in Part 2 can be divided into three categories: direct monitoring, indirect monitoring and in combination with ecosystem models (Fig. 1)
Ecosystem service is a science with issues that can be answered in a spatially explicit way

Summary

Introduction

Humans rely upon nature for welfare and survival in essence. By treating nature as a stock that provides a flow of services, ecosystem service conceptually links ecosystems to human welfare, and are growing to be an important aspect of ecological research (Norgaard, 2009). The concept of ecosystem service was defined by Costanza et al (1997), Daily (1997) and Walter et al (2005). Costanza et al (1997) defined ecosystem services as the representation of goods and services derived from ecosystem functions, while Daily (1997) considered ecosystem services as the conditions and processes of natural ecosystem fulfilling human life. In Walter et al (2005), ecosystem services are broadly defined as benefits people obtained from ecosystems. Despite this latest definition, several scholars considered it as an evolving concept (Carpenter et al, 2006; Sachs and Reid, 2006)

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