Abstract
Natural disasters can cause abrupt disturbances in coastal wetlands, affecting the social perception of ecosystem services (ES). The Tubul-Raqui coastal wetland is one of the most important wetlands in south-central Chile. Rich in biodiversity, these wetlands provide ES to a population of 2238 inhabitants. The recent MW = 8.8 earthquake of 2010 caused a coastal uplift of 1.4 m and substantial morphological, social, and environmental changes. This paper analyzes the social perceptions of the inhabitants of the village of Tubul-Raqui following a large earthquake disturbance with regards to ES provision frequency and their future changes. A statistically representative semi-structured survey was conducted (175 valid surveys) and the data interpreted through factor analysis and statistical tests for independent categorical variables. The perception of cultural and regulating services was significantly greater than that of provisioning services, which were probably the most affected by the earthquake. Residents identified habitat for species, recreation, and hazard regulation as the most important ES. Perception was influenced by the categorical variables of gender, age, and ethnicity; for example, hazard regulation services varied strongly by gender. According to the respondents, the availability of ES will remain stable (50%) or decrease (40%) in the next 50 years, mainly due to anthropogenic drivers; the effect of natural disasters was not mentioned among the main drivers of change.
Highlights
Ecosystem services (ES) are defined as benefits that people obtain directly or indirectly from ecosystems, which are usually classified as provisioning, regulating, or cultural [1,2,3,4]
This paper focuses on the social perception of ecosystem services in a coastal wetland in Chile, which were disturbed by a major earthquake
It was observed that the results were concentrated at the extremes of the scale
Summary
Ecosystem services (ES) are defined as benefits that people obtain directly or indirectly from ecosystems, which are usually classified as provisioning, regulating, or cultural [1,2,3,4]. In this sense, wetlands provide a wide range of ES that contribute to human well-being [5,6,7,8], including algae and fish, ornamental species, natural disaster mitigation, microclimate regulation, aesthetic value, and tourism, among many others [1,9,10]. Some natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, storms) can cause abrupt disturbances in these ecosystems [13,14,15,16], altering their ES provision
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