Ecosystem Service Beneficiaries Research Articles

Assessment of the Level of Biodiversity Integration in Environmental Impact Assessment Reports in Nigeria

Inclusion of biodiversity into Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) process has been recognised as a means of addressing biodiversity loss. This study evaluated the extent of biodiversity inclusion in Nigeria`s EIA reports. One Hundred (100) sectoral EIA reports from Power, Manufacturing, Agric/Roads, Petroleum, and Infrastructure were assessed using the Biodiversity Inclusion Index obtained from 6 blended criteria and 38 attributes used across the globe for similar research. Results showed: above average assessment of biodiversity in the Project areas, integration of different levels of biodiversity elements, elucidation of short and long-term impacts on biodiversity, description of impact identification methodology/approaches as well as the rationale for using them. There were clear identification of project vulnerable stakeholders / beneficiaries of ecosystem services and allocation of responsibilities for managing impacts. In contrast, maps of the project area did not highlight biodiversity sensitive areas, urban and other industrial establishments, and projects, including distances to coastal area, water bodies and their ecologically sensitivities. There was insufficient identification of biodiversity components likely to be affected by project activities to enable impact prediction; non or poor identification and assessment of species habitats; limited explanation of ecosystem interactions and services rendered by endemic species. The study found gaps on the description of primary, secondary, and cumulative biodiversity impacts at ecosystem, species, and genetic levels as well as in species compositions and functions. Thus, specific measures for biodiversity conservation / restoration plans as well as financial allocation for biodiversity related action plan were poorly provided or non-existent. The results indicated biodiversity inclusion mean score of Power (65.7%), Petroleum (60.5%), Manufacturing (53.7%), Infrastructure (53.1%) and Agric/Road (42.5%)) with overall mean of 55.7%. The results confirmed significant biodiversity inclusion mean difference between Agric/Roads, Power, and Petroleum sectors. Recommendations were made to improve EIA processes in Nigeria by domesticating advancements in biodiversity conservation.

Understanding local beneficiaries of ecosystem services in the Bia-Tano Forest Reserve for sustainable forest governance

Understanding local beneficiaries of ecosystem services in the Bia-Tano Forest Reserve for sustainable forest governance

Property rights play a pivotal role in the distribution of ecosystem services among beneficiaries

ABSTRACT Property rights are fundamental institutions that set the rules for who is allowed to use, manage, and control natural resources. Though the literature on property rights over natural resources is well developed. However, our understanding of the ways by which property rights govern actors’ ability to obtain ecosystem services provided by these natural resources remains under-explored. Using the Adirondack Park, USA, as a case study, we develop a framework that pairs property rights theory with spatial analysis to show who can obtain ecosystem services across this landscape. We look at rights over three ecosystem services: timber, drinking water and recreational fishing. We show that property rights combined with ecosystem service flow affect who can receive ecosystem services, and where, across the landscape. Our results demonstrate that property rights can play a pivotal role in who can obtain ecosystem services across landscapes. However, more work is required to model the supply and flow of ecosystems services, and to connect these to property rights to fully capture the interactions occurring between property rights and ecosystem services, and how they influence who can obtain these services. This paper contributes to the literature by showing how property rights influence who the potential beneficiaries of ecosystem services are under different property rights regimes.

Towards pro-poor and voluntary PES: assessment of willingness to pay and willingness to accept PES contract in central Vietnam

ABSTRACT This study employed Contingent Valuation and Discrete Choice Experiment methods to investigate the potential of a Payment for Ecosystem Service mechanism that incentivizes sustainable land use practices by determining the willingness of ecosystem service beneficiaries to pay for delivery of services via adoption of sustainable land use practices by upland poor, ethnic minority communities, and vice versa, the willingness of communities to adopt such practices upstream of Vu Gia river, central Vietnam. From the users’ side, 64% and 56% of pooled respondents said they are willing to pay a higher rate for water and electricity consumption, respectively, if upstream watershed management is improved. On the providers’ side, WTA was high if the conditionality is relaxed. Our findings suggest a fundamental challenge in designing PES that matches the needs of buyers and providers – a scheme that ensures ecosystem service flows but does not impose stringent rules that limit stakeholders’ participation.

ФОРМУВАННЯ ТА РОЗВИТОК РИНКУ ЕКОСИСТЕМНИХ ПОСЛУГ В УКРАЇНІ

As a result of the analysis of the sources, it was found that for the effective implementation of the market mechanism for the regulation of ecosystem services, it is necessary to intensify the involvement of economic entities and the spread of forms of public-private partnership in the functioning, support and restoration of ecosystems. For the effective functioning of the ecosystem services market in Ukraine, a significant amount of systematization of the existing regulatory framework, elimination of existing economic and legal conflicts in the legislation, growth of investment attractiveness of ecosystem services in Ukraine, institutional transformation and development of the mechanism of taxation of the beneficiaries of ecosystem services must be carried out. Taxation of ecosystem services should be considered an effective part of the financial and economic mechanism for ensuring the concept of sustainable development, as it performs a stimulating function. Competitive policies, regulations and guidelines will facilitate the development and functioning of ecosystem markets by creating drivers, legal frameworks or direct sources of funding to conserve ecosystem services. Favorable conditions can be found at different scales, from watershed to state and national policy. The formation and development of the ecosystem services market depends on the flexibility of the mechanisms of reorientation of state and regional costs for environmental protection in view of the amount of ecosystem services of certain territories. A comprehensive assessment of ecosystem services in the nature management market of Ukraine will provide an opportunity to ensure and more fully assess the potential of ecosystems and contribute to ensuring the process of making correct management decisions by economic entities regarding the functioning and reproduction of ecosystem services. The conducted analysis of the formation and development of the ecosystem services market, their assessment and taxation mechanisms on the territory of Ukraine testify to the possibilities of the formation of these aspects in all branches of the Ukrainian economy. Stimulating the development of the ecosystem services market in Ukraine requires the implementation of a number of institutional and regulatory measures.

Assessing the monetary value of ecosystem services provided by Gaung – Batang Tuaka Peat Hydrological Unit (KHG), Riau Province

Peatland plays a pivotal role in providing natural resource production and environmental services for human welfare. However, many studies have mentioned the impact of dryland cultivation in peatland on the shifting carbon balance in the ecosystem that clearly will alter the interaction of these two ecosystem services. The goal of this study, conducted under the framework of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) was to monetary value the ecosystem services (ES) of provisioning and carbon regulating services of the Gaung-Batang Tuaka Peat Hydrological Unit (KHG). We focused on KHG in response to Regulation No.57/2016, which highlights ecosystem boundary as a new basis for peatland management. Under the SEEA framework, ecosystem services become a benefit when utilized by ecosystem beneficiaries. In this case, provisioning services will be valued only for cultivated land, while carbon services calculated for the entire study area (global beneficiaries). Our study showed that the provisioning services and carbon services are under the trade-off condition, where the monetary value of provisioning services increased at a slower rate (0.50 million USD annually) than the monetary loss of the benefit of carbon services (5.28 million USD annually), greatly exceeded the monetary value of provisioning services. We highlight two main strategies to increase the monetary value of the KHG towards a synergy condition, namely increased value-added by reducing the productivity gap among ES beneficiaries and large-scale adoption of a profitable cultivation system with minimum peat disturbance. The main enablers required include financing access and incentives (e.g., reduce tax) and disincentives to allow for peat-adaptive commodities to compete with dryland commodities in the future market.

The impacts of land use change on flood protection services among multiple beneficiaries

Land use change drives significant declines in ecosystem services globally. However, we currently lack an understanding of how and where different beneficiaries of ecosystem services experience the impacts of land use change. This information is needed to identify possible inequalities in the delivery among beneficiaries, and to design policy interventions to address them. Here, we used a spatially explicit and disaggregated approach to ask how land use change affects the distribution of flood protection among three beneficiary sectors (urban residents, rural communities, and the food sector). Our study focused on the Brigalow Belt Bioregion of Australia – an area affected by widespread deforestation – and assessed the effect of land use change on flood protection between 2002 and 2015. We estimated flood protection per beneficiary sector as the total upstream runoff retention (supply) linked to areas where flood protection is required for sector-specific infrastructure (demand). We calculated changes in flood protection between 2002 and 2015 at the local government area scale and for each beneficiary sector. Using counterfactual scenarios, we identified whether changes in flood protection were driven by forest loss or changes in the extent of infrastructure at risk of flooding. We found net declines in flood protection for all sectors. Urban residents experienced the greatest decline (28%), followed by rural communities (15%), and the food sector (14%). Overall declines in flood protection across the whole region were driven primarily by forest loss. However, for some local government areas and beneficiaries, changes in flood protection were also driven by increases in forest cover or spatial changes in demand. Recognition that beneficiary sectors can be impacted via different drivers of change is fundamental to revealing highly impacted sectors. In turn, this information can be used to develop management strategies to address inequalities in the distribution of ecosystem services among beneficiaries.

Assessing the dynamic variations of ecosystem service value in response to land use change and socio-economic development

This article establishes a dynamic evaluation model of ecosystem service value (ESV) by introducing the spatial heterogeneity coefficient and social development coefficient to assess the spatiotemporal dynamic variations of ESV. Taking Wuhan as a case study, the effects of land use change on the variations of ESV are analyzed, and the impacts of people’s willingness to pay for ecosystem services and socio-economic development on a time-series ESV are also explored. The results showed that: (1) Wuhan has a large-scale land use transfer, the accumulative land transfer area reached 599 km2. (2) The static ESV of Wuhan experienced a process of first rising and then falling, with the total ESV decreasing by 1.24 billion yuan from 2000 to 2015. (3) The dynamic ESV evaluation reversed the overall downward trend of static ESV and significantly increased after adjustment, which were 1.52 times, 1.51 times, 1.62 times and 2.06 times of static ESV for that year, respectively; (4) The ecosystem services of Wuhan bear great downward pressure, but people’s demand for ecosystem services is increasing and their willingness to pay for ecosystem services has been significantly improved. These findings can provide valuable support for decision-makers to identify the providers and beneficiaries of ecosystem services and formulate rational land use management policies.

A multi-objective decision support framework to prioritize tree planting locations in urban areas

With tree planting initiatives being undertaken in different cities, careful thought needs to be put into the placement of trees, the beneficiaries of ecosystem services from these trees, and the potential impacts of alternative tree planting schemes. Using a spatially explicit methodology within biophysical ecosystem service models, this research develops a multi-objective decision support framework to guide future greening initiatives towards prioritizing planting locations that maximize multiple objectives. In a case study application of the framework in the Bronx, NY, the analysis utilizes spatially distributed census block group data and linear programming, a mathematical optimization technique, to identify optimal and equitable planting locations considering increases in tree cover, monetary benefits from avoided runoff, PM2.5 air pollutant removal and heat index reduction as well as tree planting costs and the equality and equity of urban tree ecosystem services. Using different optimization scenarios, the framework identifies optimal planting schemes by minimizing planting costs, maximizing increases in tree cover and ecosystem service benefits, and the equity of canopy cover and ecosystem services, arriving at a wide range of different planting recommendations. We conclude that multi-objective prioritization frameworks can identify optimal locations for greater total benefits from urban greening and that the proposed framework has the potential to inform decision making in different cities.

Ecosystem services from forest and farmland: Present and past access separates beneficiaries in rural Ethiopia

Ecosystem services are essential to human well-being. Different mechanisms modify people’s access to the benefits from ecosystem services, but who benefits from which services, and the underlying factors that shape such variability, often remain unclear. To address this, we surveyed current and past ecosystem service flows from forest and farmland into rural Ethiopian households. After disaggregating beneficiary groups, we explored current and past mechanisms that impeded or facilitated their access. We found five groups of current ecosystem service beneficiaries that received varying degrees of service flows from forest and farmland. Important access barriers were economic problems and shortage of land, particularly for worse-off households, and wildlife damage and labour shortage. Over time, flows from forest and those directly benefiting human well-being (e.g. food, energy) were perceived to have declined, especially for worse-off groups. In contrast, access to emerging market-oriented services with indirect benefits (such as cash crops) increased, but especially so for better-off groups who capitalised on market opportunities and agricultural intensification. Forest cover loss and protection caused decreased access across groups. Identifying group-specific access problems and trajectories, removing economic, land- and labour-related barriers, and addressing environmental challenges, are important to facilitate equitable sharing of the benefits of rural ecosystems.

Community participation in assessment of fisheries related ecosystem services towards the establishment of marine protected area in the Greater Cape Three Points area in Ghana

Effective conservation management combines information obtained from formal scientific research with traditional knowledge derived from communities living within the ecosystem, in an integrated and comprehensive ecosystem assessment. To complement national efforts to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in critical coastal ecosystems to protect nursery areas and spawning grounds in Ghana, two communities in the Greater Cape Three Points area in the Western Region of Ghana were involved in a participatory mapping and assessment exercise as part of an ecosystem-based approach to the establishment of MPAs in the area. The paper presents the processes by which the communities were engaged in identifying and mapping out top five priority ecosystem services (ES) vital for fisheries—an important livelihood source in the area—valuing the prioritized ecosystem services, and identifying and assessing four main anthropogenic pressures threatening the continual provisioning of ecosystem services. The relevance of such community participatory assessment in policy formulation is also discussed in the paper. The paper demonstrates that the livelihoods of rural coastal communities are linked to broader ecosystem functioning. It also shows that when participatory mapping is complemented with perspectives from direct beneficiaries of ES, managers are afforded a holistic insight into the array of issues that feed into a comprehensive management approach which addresses social, economic and ecological concerns.

Integration of local knowledge and data for spatially quantifying ecosystem services in the Hoeksche Waard, the Netherlands

Enhancing consideration of the ecosystem services concept within decision-making calls for integration of local knowledge and data within assessments to capture context-specific spatial and thematic detail. This paper demonstrates how local knowledge and (biophysical, sociocultural, economic) data can be integrated within ecosystem service assessments by use of well-established spatial quantification methods. We hypothesise that ecosystem services can be spatially quantified at high spatial and thematic detail by integration of local knowledge and data within models, contributing to identification of key factors that influence their delivery. We demonstrate this by making use of local knowledge and data to assess ecosystem services in the Hoeksche Waard, a Dutch municipality characterised by historically-rich cultural landscapes and predominant agriculture. Ecosystem services assessed include crop production, air quality regulation, human health, pest control, soil biodiversity, sociocultural values, property value. Quantification methods were selected based on their suitability for modelling ecosystem services given particular resource endowments (i.e., time, data, knowledge). Methods implemented include look-up tables, causal relationships, expert elicitation, primary data extrapolation, and regression models. Maps displaying the distribution of ecosystem services at high spatial resolution (10 × 10 m) enabled identification of factors that influence their delivery, including the distribution and typology of natural elements, ecological pressures that require mitigation, and the distribution of inhabitants that act as ecosystem service beneficiaries. For instance, the distribution and typology of field margins plays a key role in the suppression of pests (aphids) by natural enemies (hoverflies, carabids, coccinellids). Air quality regulation (i.e. particulate matter retention) is highest in the northeast sector of the municipality given higher concentrations of particulate matter that require mitigation due to the area's proximity to the cities of Rotterdam and Dordrecht. Contributions by natural elements to human health and property value are prominent in villages, where most inhabitants and thus built-up property are concentrated.

Vulnerability of Rural Communities to Change in an Ecosystem Service Provision: Surface water supply. A Case Study in the Northern Andes, Colombia

The understanding of how socio-ecological systems respond to environmental change is an essential issue in land use planning processes. Vulnerability analyses in the context of socio-ecological systems are a useful tool to this end. The study of social vulnerability seeks to analyze how the characteristics of beneficiaries of ecosystem services and their relation to the ecosystems, determine their sensitivity and their capacity to adapt to changes in the provision of said services. In this paper, we evaluate the social vulnerability of rural communities in the face of changes in the levels of the provision of surface water in the Riogrande basin, which is located in the Northern Andes in Colombia. Social vulnerability is evaluated based on two components. First, the initial, inherent vulnerability, which depends on parameters such as current level and the change in the level of benefits, types of needs met by the ecosystem service analyzed, and the capacity for substitution. The second component is the final, inherent vulnerability that considers the beneficiary’s adaptive capacity determined by individual and institutional characteristics. The information was collected through semi-structured interviews and site-level surveys, as well as the use of available existing data for the area of study. The results show that beneficiaries of the ecosystem service which was analyzed have a low vulnerability to changes in the levels of water supply given their high substitution capacities and medium-high adaptive capacity.

Preferences for ecosystem services provided by urban forests in South Korea

The existence of tradeoffs and synergies between ecosystem services emphasize the need to understand the preferences of ecosystem service beneficiaries. In this paper, the preferences of ecosystem services provided by different types of urban forests in South Korea are analyzed to provide insights on the improved distribution and supply of ecosystem services. The Delphi technique was utilized to elicit expert opinions on the categorization of ecosystem services provided by urban forests. A choice experiment on 500 Seoul citizens was then conducted to analyze the preferences for 7 types of ecosystem services – food provision, water flow regulation, noise reduction, microclimate regulation & air quality improvement, moderation & prevention of landslides, biodiversity enhancement, recreation, and health services. An AHP analysis was carried out to investigate experts’ ranking of the relative importance of these ecosystem services. The results showed that except for microclimate regulation & air quality improvement, Seoul citizens’ preferences for different types of urban forests did not differ according to the attribute level of each ecosystem service. There were also no significant differences between the preferences for urban natural parks and urban neighborhood parks, possibly indicating that Seoul citizens perceive them to be similar. Secondly, the results indicate a higher preference for urban forests with certain features, such as a higher proportion of fruit trees and deciduous trees, higher leaf area, denser tree canopy cover, wider distances between trees, and higher levels of species richness. The enhancement of biodiversity was considered the most influential service for Seoul citizens in their choice of urban forests. Seoul citizens were willing to pay 12,176 KRW/year and 21,036 KRW/year to enhance the level of biodiversity from “poor” to “average” and from “average” to “rich,” respectively. Finally, preferences and relative importance for almost all ecosystem services were different for citizens and experts. As it is impossible to maximize the provision of all ecosystem services concurrently, policymakers and urban forest managers need to consider citizens’ preferences and opinions when designing and managing urban forests in order to increase user satisfaction and welfare.

Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide Between Ecosystem Service Suppliers and Beneficiaries: Using a Distributed Community Nursery to Support Rural Revegetation.

The provision of ecosystem services from vegetation on private land is constrained by a lack of effective markets to overcome the costs of supply. Urban beneficiaries of ecosystem services from vegetation on private, rural land have limited options for enhancing the supply. This study examines a not-for-profit revegetation programme, the Tree Scheme, in which participants are volunteers who grow seedlings for revegetation on rural land, and rural landholders who use the seedlings in revegetation. We used records of participation and seedlings, along with participant questionnaires to investigate the flow of resources between volunteer growers and rural landholders. The programme produced approximately 22.5 million seedlings between 1994 and 2012; 79% of seedlings were grown in urban locations and 79% of seedlings were ordered for rural plantings. Landholders identified a mixture of objectives for revegetation, with improvement of habitat and biodiversity being most common, followed by objectives with higher private benefits, including planting for windbreaks, erosion control and screening. Volunteer growers reported liking the programme because of the programme's intended environmental benefits, the satisfaction they gained from raising seedlings and other social benefits of participation. The programme demonstrates that a substantial flow of resources between urban ecosystem services beneficiaries and rural producers can be achieved by facilitating voluntary actions. The type and scale of this programme is rare and potentially transferable.

Tourists’ willingness to pay for upstream restoration and conservation measures

Continuous wildlife loss worldwide and in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya in particular motivated this study. Degradation of ecosystem services in the Mara basin is a cause of increasing pressure on the wildlife of the reserve. Wildlife tourists in the downstream area of the basin are beneficiaries of ecosystem services, particularly stream flow and water quality, provided in the upstream water catchment. This study aimed to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of wildlife tourists to cofinance conservation and restoration measures in the upstream of the Mara River Basin. The contingent valuation method was used with a valuation scenario framed in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme. The relationship between WTP and several socio-economic variables was captured by an ordered logistic regression model. The mean WTP was estimated at US$41.6 (KES = 4314.8), with a potential annual revenue of over $US 3.5 million alone from tourists staying inside the reserve. This study contributes to clarifying the feasibility of a PES scheme in the Mara River Basin complementing former studies concerned with the willingness to accept conservation and restoration measures in the upstream of the basin. The study closes an important knowledge gap and paves the way for an institutional solution enabling PES implementation in the basin.

Multiple-Purchaser Payments for Ecosystem Services: An Exploration Using Spatial Simulation Modelling

This paper focuses on the issue of payments for ecosystem services (PES) mechanism design when the activity incentivised through the scheme benefits multiple groups, each of whom might be prepared to contribute to payments made through the scheme. In particular, we examine spatial coordination on the demand side of the market; that is to say, the question of which beneficiary of the PES scheme buys land-management changes on which land parcels. We show through spatial simulation modelling that it is possible for negotiation to lead to Pareto improvements when compared to solutions reached through non-cooperative strategic solutions; however, we also show that this result is not universal and only holds under certain conditions. In particular, the spatial correlation and spatial interdependence of the ecosystem service benefits are key in determining whether negotiation between beneficiaries is optimal and therefore if policy makers and designers of PES schemes should be prioritising bringing together multiple beneficiaries of ecosystem services.

Unpacking ‘Success’: Applying Local Perceptions to Interpret Influences of Water Fund Payments for Ecosystem Services in the Ecuadorian Andes

NGOs, government agencies, and green businesses proclaim water fund arrangements in Latin America as successful payments for ecosystem services (PES) systems. Associated success narratives emphasize that PES allows downstream ecosystem service beneficiaries to incentivize upstream land managers to pursue conservation activities. However, recent scholarship questions their on-the-ground influence. This article assesses the success narrative of Quito, Ecuador’s Fondo para la protección del Agua’s (FONAG) as a model water fund PES arrangement. Using a novel perceived directionality framework, the author compares the FONAG claims about its influence to ethnographic evidence from three participating rural communities. The findings suggest that statements of direct, causal influence on local conservation activities overlook local context and ignores nuance within the interactions between program incentives and in community activity. This study urges future assessments of PES arrangements to recognize complexities in political, economic, and social context.

Contribution of native forests to climate change mitigation – A common approach to carbon accounting that aligns results from environmental-economic accounting with rules for emissions reduction

Comprehensive carbon stock and flow accounts integrated with economic information, under an environmental-economic accounting framework, provide a common approach for an information system to improve policymaking for climate change mitigation, sustainable development and forest management. The information system includes environmental and economic data, linkages between land use activities, their co-benefits, inputs to the economy and benefits for human well-being. Forest management was used as an example of application of the accounting framework because it has the greatest climate change mitigation potential of all land use activities. A case study developing carbon accounts for a forest region in south-eastern Australia demonstrated the mitigation benefits of long-term carbon storage and sequestration in native forests. Using environmental-economic accounts helped identify policy and market instruments required to value ecosystem services of carbon storage and sequestration by applying a potential market price for carbon. We identified benefits of native forest protection as a carbon abatement activity, and compared this value to that of current forest management for timber harvesting that reduces carbon stocks. Both land uses provided similar economic contributions (approximately $12 million yr−1, using a minimal carbon price), but native forest protection has additional co-benefits of improving water yield, tourism, recreation and biodiversity conservation. The accounts determine values of land use activities in physical and monetary metrics, and link these to beneficiaries of ecosystem services, so that maximum benefits for public good are identified. Quantifying ecosystem services of carbon storage (protecting stocks) and sequestration (increasing flows) in a native forest region, by applying a potential market price, broadens the policy options for mitigation activities. Adopting a comprehensive accounting system, and changing some of the definitions and rules under the Paris Agreement and national emissions reduction policies and markets, would allow the mitigation benefit of protecting native forests to be realised.

Predicting impacts of chemicals from organisms to ecosystem service delivery: A case study of endocrine disruptor effects on trout

We demonstrate how mechanistic modeling can be used to predict whether and how biological responses to chemicals at (sub)organismal levels in model species (i.e., what we typically measure) translate into impacts on ecosystem service delivery (i.e., what we care about). We consider a hypothetical case study of two species of trout, brown trout (Salmo trutta; BT) and greenback cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii stomias; GCT). These hypothetical populations live in a high-altitude river system and are exposed to human-derived estrogen (17α‑ethinyl estradiol, EE2), which is the bioactive estrogen in many contraceptives. We use the individual-based model inSTREAM to explore how seasonally varying concentrations of EE2 could influence male spawning and sperm quality. Resulting impacts on trout recruitment and the consequences of such for anglers and for the continued viability of populations of GCT (the state fish of Colorado) are explored. inSTREAM incorporates seasonally varying river flow and temperature, fishing pressure, the influence of EE2 on species-specific demography, and inter-specific competition. The model facilitates quantitative exploration of the relative importance of endocrine disruption and inter-species competition on trout population dynamics. Simulations predicted constant EE2 loading to have more impacts on GCT than BT. However, increasing removal of BT by anglers can enhance the persistence of GCT and offset some of the negative effects of EE2. We demonstrate how models that quantitatively link impacts of chemicals and other stressors on individual survival, growth, and reproduction to consequences for populations and ecosystem service delivery, can be coupled with ecosystem service valuation. The approach facilitates interpretation of toxicity data in an ecological context and gives beneficiaries of ecosystem services a more explicit role in management decisions. Although challenges remain, this type of approach may be particularly helpful for site-specific risk assessments and those in which tradeoffs and synergies among ecosystem services need to be considered.