Abstract
Sustainable food production requires approaches that reconcile agricultural production with the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. While the contribution of agriculture to the provision of individual ecosystem services has received considerable scientific attention, little is known about the extent to which tropical landscapes can meet societal expectations related to food production and environmental sustainability simultaneously. We assessed how the spatial configuration of pedo-morphology and land uses influences the provision of three soil-based ecosystem services in eastern Amazonia: carbon storage (CS), habitat for biodiversity (HB) and agricultural commodity production (CP). We use the Functional Land Management framework to assess the supply and demand of these ecosystem services in a spatially explicit manner to identify areas of (mis)matches and trade-offs in the municipality of Paragominas, Brazil. The supply of ecosystem services was informed by a literature review for the various combinations of pedo-morphological characteristics and land uses in the region. The demand for ecosystem services was mapped based on federal and state policy targets. Mapping the supply and demand of CS indicated that half of the carbon in the region is stored in remnants of undisturbed forest which cover only a third of the municipality. Demand for HB in terms of forested area is met but it does not guarantee safeguarding biodiversity. Roughly a third of the territory shows scarce quality of HB even when compliant with legislation. Concerning CP, we identified areas where both supply and the demand to increase production are relative high due to road access and lower intensification costs. The demand for agricultural production can eventually incentivize the expansion of agriculture on fertile soils, which could compromise environmental targets. Our results suggest that the simultaneous delivery of multiple ecosystem services may require land-use pathways that combine land sparing and sharing approaches. Our analysis can inform integrated land-use planning initiatives where, historically, the supply and demand for CP have been the single dominant driver for the current landscape configuration.
Highlights
With the growing human population in many parts of the world there is a challenge to reconcile food production with the conservation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services
We focus on three soil-related ecosystem services, carbon storage (CS), habitat for biodiversity (HB), and commodity production (CP) due to the tension between nature conservation and agricultural production that originated since the inception of the current landscape six decades ago (Schmink and Wood, 1992)
Areas covered by undisturbed forests were estimated to store 247.8 Mg C ha−1, while the lowest values were modeled for croplands (46.2 Mg C ha−1)
Summary
With the growing human population in many parts of the world there is a challenge to reconcile food production with the conservation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. This requires that the production of higher volumes of food is accompanied by profound changes in the way food is produced, accessed and distributed (Holt-Giménez et al, 2012). Between 2004 and 2012, public and private forest conservation measures triggered a sharp decline of deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon (Nepstad et al, 2014) These have resurged since casting doubts on the longterm effectiveness of control and command measures to protect biodiversity (Fearnside, 2017; Schielein and Börner, 2018). Since land-use change often threatens natural resources and the continued delivery of ecosystem services, there is an urgent need for developing land-use planning that better accounts for the societal demands for ecosystem services, and the biotic and abiotic characteristics of the land to support these ecosystem services (Tittonell, 2014; Schulte et al, 2015)
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