Use of demand for and spatial flow of ecosystem services to identify priority areas.

Willem Verhagen,Atte Moilanen,Astrid J.A Van Teeffelen,Aija S Kukkala,Peter H Verburg

doi:10.1111/cobi.12872

Willem Verhagen, Atte Moilanen + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12872

Copy DOI

Abstract

Policies and research increasingly focus on the protection of ecosystem services (ESs) through priority-area conservation. Priority areas for ESs should be identified based on ES capacity and ES demand and account for the connections between areas of ES capacity and demand (flow) resulting in areas of unique demand-supply connections (flow zones). We tested ways to account for ES demand and flow zones to identify priority areas in the European Union. We mapped the capacity and demand of a global (carbon sequestration), a regional (flood regulation), and 3 local ESs (air quality, pollination, and urban leisure). We used Zonation software to identify priority areas for ESs based on 6 tests: with and without accounting for ES demand and 4 tests that accounted for the effect of ES flow zone. There was only 37.1% overlap between the 25% of priority areas that encompassed the most ESs with and without accounting for ES demand. The level of ESs maintained in the priority areas increased from 23.2% to 57.9% after accounting for ES demand, especially for ESs with a small flow zone. Accounting for flow zone had a small effect on the location of priority areas and level of ESs maintained but resulted in fewer flow zones without ES maintained relative to ignoring flow zones. Accounting for demand and flow zones enhanced representation and distribution of ESs with local to regional flow zones without large trade-offs relative to the global ES. We found that ignoring ES demand led to the identification of priority areas in remote regions where benefits from ES capacity to society were small. Incorporating ESs in conservation planning should therefore always account for ES demand to identify an effective priority network for ESs.

Highlights

Conservation planning increasingly incorporates ecosystem services (ESs) alongside biodiversity (Luck et al 2012; Cimon-Morin et al 2013)
In part this result was expected because we measured ESs maintained as the demanded capacity maintained, but the increase in ES maintained after accounting for demand (EUC 23.2% vs. EUD 57.9%) indicated that priority areas based on ES capacity were in areas with no to low demand
Accounting for demand and flow zone came with a efficiency loss for carbon sequestration (EUD 28.4% vs. FLOWD 28.0%), but the loss was relatively small compared with the gains for other ESs

Summary

Introduction

Conservation planning increasingly incorporates ecosystem services (ESs) alongside biodiversity (Luck et al 2012; Cimon-Morin et al 2013). Because land is scarce and funding is limited it is necessary to identify an efficient and effective network of priority areas for ESs. Spatial conservation prioritization provides the tools to do so (Moilanen et al 2009). Developed for identifying biodiversity priority areas the approach has been used for ES prioritization (Chan et al 2006; Casalegno et al 2014; Cimon-Morin et al 2014; Schroter et al 2014). In setting priority areas for ESs, one needs to account for the capacity of an ecosystem to provide a service and for spatial variation in ES demand (Wolff et al 2015). Studies on ES prioritization need to directly link demand and supply at a location

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion