Understanding community perceptions of the importance of ecosystem services from gazetted forests

Where agriculture expands into tropical and subtropical forests, social–ecological impacts are typically strong. However, where and how frontier development impacts on ecosystem functioning and services is often unclear, including which services trade‐off against agricultural production. This constitutes a major barrier towards planning for more sustainable outcomes in deforestation frontiers. Here we assessed spatiotemporal change in multiple ecosystem services in the Argentine Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. We modelled and mapped five ecosystem functions (i.e. carbon storage in biomass, carbon storage in soil, erosion control, excess rainfall retention by vegetation and soil fertility) which together provide three ecosystem services (i.e. agricultural suitability, climate regulation and flood regulation) for 1985, 2000 and 2013. We then employed this information to identify and map: (a) main trade‐offs between ecosystem services and agricultural production, and (b) bundles of changes in ecosystem services through the use of Self‐Organizing Maps. Our results highlight that land‐use changes since 1985 have led to widespread and drastic declines in ecosystem functions and services across the Argentine Chaco. Mean losses of ecosystem services ranged between 6% and 10% for flood regulation, climate regulation and agricultural suitability. The largest losses occurred in the Dry Chaco subregion between 2000 and 2013. We find two main types of trade‐offs between regulating ecosystem services and agricultural production. Increases in crop and pasture production occurred along with large and moderate losses, respectively, in flood regulation and climate regulation over 20% of the region. Our mapping of bundles identified five common patterns of change in ecosystem services, delineating areas of stable or degrading ecosystem service supply. This provides a powerful template for adaptive spatial planning. Synthesis and applications. Using the Argentinean Chaco as an example, we demonstrate how combining fine‐scale land‐use maps with biophysical models provides deep insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of changes in ecosystem services, and their trade‐offs with agricultural production. The periodic updating of maps of trade‐offs and bundles of change in ecosystem services provides key inputs for the adaptive management of highly dynamic and threatened landscapes, such as those in tropical and subtropical deforestation frontiers.

<p>The ecosystem service (ES) framework can be a useful tool to support sustainable land management and policy-making through mapping and assessment tasks. Quantifying the effect of the spatial precision of input data mobilised for ES assessment and mapping is a relatively new but fundamental issue, particularly with soil data that are often unavailable or available only at very coarse resolutions. However, no studies deal with the impact of the precision of input soil data on soil related-ES assessment and mapping</p><p>This study focus on a French territory of 100 km<sup>2</sup> and it examines the effect of increasing the spatial precision of soil data – at the 1:1,000,000, 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 scales – on the levels and the spatial patterns of four soil-related ES: the provision of biomass, the provision of water, the regulation of global climate and the regulation of water quality. The delivery of these services is finally analyzed according to multiple operational spatial units of aggregation such as municipal administrative boundaries, landforms and finally land-use and cover.</p><p>The precision of input soil data has limited impact on ES levels averaged over the whole 100 km<sup>2 </sup>territory. More precisely, the soil maps at 1: 1,000,000 and 1:250,000 scales provide accurate ES levels for areas larger than 100 and 10 km<sup>2</sup>. However, soil-supported ES are not equally sensitive to scale effects. Increasing the precision of soil data has indeed almost no impact on the water provisioning, slight impacts (around 10 %) on the regulation of water quality but impacts around 20% on the provision of biomass and the regulation of climate.</p><p>The three maps have contrastingly a strong impact on the location of the considered services with scaling effects locally reaching or even exceeding 100%. Switching spatial scales has almost no impacts on ES levels in cultivated lands localized on flat plateau positions. On the contrary, they reach around 50, 70 and 80% for the regulation of water quality, the production of biomass and the regulation of climate respectively in forested and natural lands localized on plateau edges, sloping lands and valley bottom that appear more particularly sensitive to switching scales. Forested and sloping lands indeed concentrate marginal soils showing very specific ES signatures.</p><p>Identifying the optimal representation of soil diversity to obtain a reliable representation of ES spatial distribution is not straightforward. The ES sensitivity to scale effect is indeed highly variable among individual ES, landforms, or land-uses and not directly linked with the soil diversity represented in soil maps.</p><p> </p>

生态系统服务竞争与协同研究进展

Background and objectives: Land use and land cover change (LULCC) directly affects the human living environment and economic society by influencing ecosystem services. This study explores the complex relationship between LULCC and ecosystem services in the Dongting Lake region of China.Methods: The analysis incorporates the transfer matrix analysis of LULCC, ecosystem service value (ESV) accounting, Mann–Kendall mutation test, gray correlation, and path analysis. This study explored the spatial and temporal characteristics of LULCC and ecosystem services and revealed the comprehensive impacts of LULCC on ecosystem services from the perspective of factor interactions.Findings: The findings reveal that open water (OW) area and farmable land are the dominant land use types transferring in and out of the study area, with significant interconversion observed among open water area, wetland (WL), arable land (AL), and forest land (FL). Water conservation, waste disposal, climate regulation, and biodiversity conservation emerge as the most crucial ecosystem services in the study area. The study identifies consistent patterns of abrupt changes in LULCC and ESV across six analyzed time periods. Forest land exhibits the most substantial direct influence on climate regulation, gas exchange, soil formation and protection, conservation of biodiversity, raw materials, and recreation and leisure. Additionally, forest land, wetland, arable land, and open water area contribute significantly to the total ESV, with forest land being the dominant factor influencing the spatial differentiation of ecosystem services in the Dongting Lake region.Conclusion: The research reveals the consistency of ecosystem services and LULCC trends in the Dongting Lake area. LULCC is a complex process influenced by multiple factors, in which the conversion between ecological and non-ecological land use has a significant impact, and the complex coupling and coordination among LULCC drivers together influence ecosystem services. Furthermore, LULCC alters the structure and scale of ecosystems, resulting in alterations in the ESV.

Research that connects the effects of urbanization on biodiversity and ecosystem services is lacking. Ants perform multifarious ecological functions that stabilize ecosystems and contribute to a number of ecosystem services. We studied responses of ant communities to urbanization in the Lake Tahoe basin by sampling sites along a gradient of urban land development. We sampled ant communities, measured vegetation characteristics, quantified human activities, and evaluated ant-community responses by grouping ants into service-providing units (SPUs), defined as a group of organisms and their populations that perform specific ecosystem services, to provide an understanding of urbanization impacts on biodiversity and their delivery of ecosystem services. Species richness and abundance peaked at intermediate levels of urban development, as did the richness of 3 types of ant SPUs (aerators, decomposers, and compilers). With increasing land development aerator and decomposer ants significantly declined in abundance, whereas compiler ants significantly increased in abundance. Competing models demonstrated that precipitation was frequently among the strongest influences on ant community structure; however, urban development and human activities also had a strong, negative influence on ants, appearing in most models with DeltaAIC(c) < 2 for species richness and abundance patterns of SPUs and generalists. Response diversity was observed within SPUs, which suggests that the corresponding ecosystem services were maintained until development reached 30-40%. Our data provide evidence that ecosystem functions, such as water infiltration and soil productivity, may be diminished at sites subject to greater levels of urbanization and that conserving ant communities and the ecosystem services they provide could be an important target in land-use planning and conservation efforts.

PROTOCOL: Incentives for climate mitigation in the land use sector: a mixed-methods systematic review of the effectiveness of payment for environment services (PES) on environmental and socio-economic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

Assessment the relationship between land use and land cover change (LUCC) and ecosystem service function gradually become a hot topic in both ecology and ecological economics fields. Based on remote sensing data of Landsat TM in 2005 and Landsat OLI in 2013, the effects of LUCC on ecosystem services in ecological preservation development districts (EPDD) of Beijing were analyzed from spatial and temporal perspectives. The results showed that: (1) Regional structure of land use and land cover in EPDD was forest land-farmland-orchard land; Forest land was the major land cover type, while farmland and orchard land dominated land use. From 2005 to 2013, changes in land use and land cover accelerated, and land use intensity was enhanced gradually with the land use degree comprehensive index (La)varied from 229.67 to 233.09.The main characteristics of LUCC were farmland, grassland (decreasing) and construction land, forest land, water body, orchard land (increasing). (2) Between 2005 and 2013, ecosystem services value of EPDD showed a rising trend with the increments of 803.27×10 4 USD from 113535.19×10 4 USD to 114338.46×10 4 USD. Ecosystem services value of farmland, grassland, wetland and unused land decreased since 2005, while orchard land, forest land, water body increased. Service function value of food production, climate regulation and soil conservation decreased with climate regulation having the largest reduction; Service function value of raw materials production, gas regulation, hydrological regulation, waste treatment, biodiversity conservation and leisure entertainment increased, while hydrological regulation had the largest increment. Ecological environment and ecosystem service functions became more symphonious after EPDD foundation.

Land cover change scenarios hold far-reaching implications for ecosystem services (ES), highlighting the need for understanding the trade-offs and synergies underlying the provision of multiple ES. The insufficient knowledge of the mechanisms governing the relationships among multiple ES, along with the lack of information on trade-offs among ES under different scenarios, restricts the ability to provide effective information for decision-makers. To fill this gap, we assessed the interplay among six ES: climate regulation, habitat creating and maintaining species diversity, cultivated crops, regulation of the chemical condition of freshwaters by living processes (water quality), water yield, and control of erosion rates, within three river basins in northwest Portugal. We employed the InVEST to map the state of these ES in 2018, along with three projected land cover scenarios for 2050: business-as-usual, farmland return, and afforestation. Our findings indicated the business-as-usual scenario could lead to detrimental impacts on climate regulation, habitat creating and maintaining species diversity, and control of erosion rates. In contrast, the farmland return scenario showed less drastic decreases in habitat-creating and maintaining species diversity and control of erosion rates compared to the business-as-usual scenario. Afforestation emerged as the most favorable scenario, with a 13.6% increase in climate regulation and a 1.3% improvement in habitat-creating and maintaining species diversity. Cluster analysis allowed the identification of six levels of spatial synergies between ES, with regions of high forest cover showing extreme synergy and populated areas exhibiting the lowest levels of synergy, suggesting that a well-planned combination of these practices could yield substantial benefits for future ES provision. These results provide crucial insights for decision-makers to enhance ecosystem management and promote societal well-being. Importantly, our findings underscore the significance of considering multiple ES and their interrelationships in land use planning to achieve sustainable development objectives.

Ecological migration is the process of increasing the population density in the immigration area and transferring the ecological pressure from emigration area to immigration area. This process may result in significant changes in land use and land cover in the area of immigration and have an important effect on ecosystem services. Therefore, scientifically revealing the effects and differentiation mechanisms of ecological migration on ecosystem services is becoming an important issue related to the implementation of the national ecological migration strategy in China. This study employed the Hongsibu District as a typical example of ecological migration. Hongsibu District is located in the central Ningxia steppe and desert steppe areas. Remote sensing data covering five periods from the period before ecological migration in 1995 and after migration in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 was used to measure the value of ecosystem services (ESV). A geographical detector model and the value of ecosystem services model were used to diagnose the dynamic mechanism of the effects of land use change on ecosystem services. The results showed that: 1) The development of large-scale ecological resettlement has caused the area of cultivated land and urbanized land area to increase significantly in the area of immigration, while the grass area decreased significantly. 2) The overall value of the Hongsibu ecosystem services increased in a form of a ‘V’. Among them, during the period of 1995–2005, the overall ESV decreased and had an annual rate of change of −0.67%. During the period of development 2005–2015, the ESV increased steadily, with an annual rate of change of 0.79%. 3) The proportion and total ESV in soil formation and protection, waste treatment, and biodiversity conservation of the Hongsibu District decreased from 57.61% in 1995 to 56.17% in 2015, indicating that the region’s ecological regulation function slightly decreased. 4) The ESV in the Hongsibu District, showed a low distribution pattern of ecosystem services increasing from northeast to southwest, and the capacity of three townships, Hongsibu, Taiyangshan, and Liuquan, to provide ecosystem services gradually declined over time. The ecological service function of Xinzhuangji Township and Dahe Township gradually improved. 5) The sensitivity index of the ESV of each land use type was less than 1, indicating that the environment lacks flexibility in providing a strong ESV index in Hongsibu, which shows that the research results are reliable and believable. 6) During the study period, the decisive force of the change of land use on ecosystem services in Hongsibu District was: grassland (0.9934), climate regulation (0.9413), soil formation and protection (0.9321) and waste treatment (0.9241).

ABSTRACTNon‐native tree (NNT) species have been transported worldwide to create or enhance services that are fundamental for human well‐being, such as timber provision, erosion control or ornamental value; yet NNTs can also produce undesired effects, such as fire proneness or pollen allergenicity. Despite the variety of effects that NNTs have on multiple ecosystem services, a global quantitative assessment of their costs and benefits is still lacking. Such information is critical for decision‐making, management and sustainable exploitation of NNTs. We present here a global assessment of NNT effects on the three main categories of ecosystem services, including regulating (RES), provisioning (PES) and cultural services (CES), and on an ecosystem disservice (EDS), i.e. pollen allergenicity. By searching the scientific literature, country forestry reports, and social media, we compiled a global data set of 1683 case studies from over 125 NNT species, covering 44 countries, all continents but Antarctica, and seven biomes. Using different meta‐analysis techniques, we found that, while NNTs increase most RES (e.g. climate regulation, soil erosion control, fertility and formation), they decrease PES (e.g. NNTs contribute less than native trees to global timber provision). Also, they have different effects on CES (e.g. increase aesthetic values but decrease scientific interest), and no effect on the EDS considered. NNT effects on each ecosystem (dis)service showed a strong context dependency, varying across NNT types, biomes and socio‐economic conditions. For instance, some RES are increased more by NNTs able to fix atmospheric nitrogen, and when the ecosystem is located in low‐latitude biomes; some CES are increased more by NNTs in less‐wealthy countries or in countries with higher gross domestic products. The effects of NNTs on several ecosystem (dis)services exhibited some synergies (e.g. among soil fertility, soil formation and climate regulation or between aesthetic values and pollen allergenicity), but also trade‐offs (e.g. between fire regulation and soil erosion control). Our analyses provide a quantitative understanding of the complex synergies, trade‐offs and context dependencies involved for the effects of NNTs that is essential for attaining a sustained provision of ecosystem services.

Eighty-six EU policy options for reducing imported deforestation

Land use changes can isolate habitat patches, thereby aggravating the fragmentation of these units and altering natural ecological processes. Thus, it is necessary to analyze the responses of ecosystem services to changes in land use over time. Polders, a typical floodplain landscape in the Chaohu Lake Basin, were selected as the study area to evaluate how ecosystem services respond to changes in both land use and patch size over time. Multiple approaches, including remote sensing, geographical information system and correspondence analysis, were used. The results showed that the total ecosystem services were increased from 9.97 × 108 to 1.02 × 109 Yuan for all polders. Based on a correspondence analysis, recreation and culture, water supply and waste treatment are the ecosystem services that depend on water bodies, whereas six other types of ecosystem services (biodiversity protection, climate regulation, food production, raw material, soil formation and protection and gas regulation) depend on soil. Therefore, there are trade-offs between the ecosystem services provided by farmlands and those provided by water bodies, between supporting and provisioning services and cultural services in the polders, and between provisioning services and most regulating services. Furthermore, trade-offs and synergies were detected among regulating services. In this study, the relationships between patch sizes and ecosystem services were significantly changed during the 1985–2007 period, particularly from 2000 to 2007. The area variation of special land use can drive changes in these relationships. Notably, correspondence analysis can be used as a method to analyze synergies and trade-offs among multiple ecosystem services.

舟山海域生态系统服务能值价值评估

Understanding the value of ecosystem services is useful for the decision making and sustainable management of the wetlands. It would be better to integrate ecological, economic and social factors into ecosystem service valuation. The general value of the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve in the southwest China by integrating a social welfare weight, which is determined by a three-level analytic hierarchy process, was calculated. Through analyzing the functions, stakeholders and ecosystem services of the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve, the six main services, including substance production, flood control, gas regulation, climate regulation, recreation, and biodiversity conservation,were selected; and a three-level hierarchical structure model was established. The top(goal) level of the model refers to the total ecosystem services value of the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve, the middle level(stakeholder level) refers to stakeholders at different scales, and the bottom level(service level) refers to individual services provided by the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve. The results indicated that the ecosystem services value of the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve was 320.38×10~8yuan RMB in 2011. If including the social welfare, the value increased to 2258.68×10~8yuan RMB. The value of biodiversity conservation accounted for the largest proportion, which were 53% without the social welfare and 75% with it. And without the social welfare, flood control, gas regulation, climate regulation of the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve accounted for 26%, 11% and 8% of the total value, while the proportion that substance production and recreation values were of the total value were very small. Meanwhile, with the social weight,flood control, gas regulation, climate regulation, recreation of the Zoige Wetland Nature Reserve accounted for 10%,13%, 1% and 1% of the total value, then the weight of substance production value was also the smallest.

In Ethiopia, urban expansion happens at high rates and results in land expropriations often at the cost of agriculture and forests. The process of urban expansion does not include assessment of ecosystem services (ES). This has been causing unintended environmental problems. This study aims to uncover ES of three most important land use types (cropland, agroforestry, and grassland) that are threatened by land expropriation for urban expansion in Bahir Dar City. The study applied a participatory approach using community perception and expert judgments (N = 108). Respondents were asked to locate their perceptions on the use of 35 different ES, and then to evaluate the potential of the land use. Respondents were shown to have the ability to differentiate between ES and land use in terms of their potential to deliver ES. The results show that agroforestry is expected to have a high relevant potential to deliver 31% of all ES, but cropland 20% and grassland 14%. Food, fodder, timber, firewood, fresh water, energy, compost, climate regulation, erosion prevention, and water purification and treatment were identified as the ten most important services. It is not only the provisioning services that are being supplied by the land use types which are expropriated for urbanization, but also regulating, supporting and cultural services. To ensure sustainable urban land development, we suggest the consideration of the use of ES and the potential of the land use to supply ES when making land use decisions, including land expropriation for urban expansion.