Climate Regulation Services Research Articles

Assessing the feasibility of carbon payments and Payments for Ecosystem Services to reduce livestock grazing pressure on saltmarshes

Saltmarshes provide important services including flood control, climate regulation, and provisioning services when grazed by livestock for agriculture and conservation purposes. Grazing diminishes aboveground carbon, creating a trade-off between these two services. Furthermore, saltmarshes are threatened by overgrazing. To provide saltmarsh protection and ensure the continuing delivery of ecosystem services, there is a need to incentivise land managers to stock environmentally sensible densities. We therefore investigated the possibility of agri-environmental schemes and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) to compensate for lost livestock revenue under reduced grazing regimes and provide carbon sequestration and other benefits. This is the first study to consider the benefits arising from a potential carbon market to saltmarshes, although similar schemes exist for peatland and woodland. We calculated the net economic benefit (costs of livestock production are removed from revenue) to farmers obtained from a hectare of grazed saltmarsh under low (0.3 Livestock Units per hectare per year), moderate (0.6), high (1.0) and very high (2.0) stocking densities accounting for livestock revenue, carbon benefits, and agri-environmental subsidies. We repeated the procedure considering additional benefits transferred from the literature in terms of provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services provided by protected saltmarshes. The net benefits were assessed for a range of market carbon prices and social costs of carbon, e.g. the opportunity cost of carbon for society. Applying the model to Scottish saltmarshes we find that the current range of market prices could prompt transitions from high to moderate regimes in areas where livestock value is low, however break-even prices for transitions showed high spatial variability due to spatial variability in livestock values. In some areas of the West Highlands, the break-even carbon price is negative, indicating that the current agri-environmental schemes are able to more than compensate for the lost revenue accruing to farmers by a reduced grazing density. However, in other areas, such as the Outer Hebrides, the break-even carbon price is positive. Private PES schemes or increased public subsidies should then be provided to generate net benefits. It is reasonable to infer that a pure carbon market may have limited scope in incentivising consumers to buy carbon services, especially in areas with limited local number of buyers and corporates of small size. Under this circumstance, a premium carbon market offering bundled ecosystem services may help reduce grazing pressure across a larger number of Scottish saltmarshes, thereby providing globally important climate regulation services and at the same time protecting sensitive habitats.

Balancing tradeoffs: Reconciling multiple environmental goals when ecosystem services vary regionally

As the planet’s dominant land use, agriculture often competes with the preservation of natural systems that provide globally and regionally important ecosystem services. How agriculture impacts ecosystem service delivery varies regionally, among services being considered, and across spatial scales. Here, we assess the tradeoffs between four ecosystem services—agricultural production, carbon storage, biophysical climate regulation, and biodiversity—using as a case study the Amazon, an active frontier of agricultural expansion. We find that the highest values for each of the ecosystem services are concentrated in different regions. Agricultural production potential and carbon storage are highest in the north and west, biodiversity greatest in the west, and climate regulation services most vulnerable to disruption in the south and east. Using a simple optimization model, we find that under scenarios of agricultural expansion that optimize total production across ecosystem services, small increases in priority for one ecosystem service can lead to reductions in other services by as much as 140%. Our results highlight the difficulty of managing landscapes for multiple environmental goals; the approach presented here can be adapted to guide value-laden conservation decisions and identify potential solutions that balance priorities.

Impacts of selected Ecological Focus Area options in European farmed landscapes on climate regulation and pollination services: a systematic map protocol

BackgroundThis systematic map protocol responds to an urgent policy need to evaluate key environmental benefits of new compulsory greening measures in the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), with the aim of building a policy better linked to environmental performance. The systematic map will focus on Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), in which larger arable farmers must dedicate 5% of their arable land to ecologically beneficial habitats, landscape features and land uses. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has used a software tool called the ‘EFA calculator’ to inform the European Commission about environmental benefits of EFA implementation. However, there are gaps in the EFA calculator’s coverage of ecosystem services, especially ‘global climate regulation’, and an opportunity to use systematic mapping methods to enhance its capture of evidence, in advance of forthcoming CAP reforms. We describe a method for assembling a database of relevant, peer-reviewed research conducted in all agricultural landscapes in Europe and neighbouring countries with similar biogeography, addressing the primary question: what are the impacts of selected EFA features in agricultural land on two policy-relevant ecosystem service outcomes—global climate regulation and pollination? The method is streamlined to allow results in good time for the current, time-limited opportunity to influence reforms of the CAP greening measures at European and Member State level.MethodsWe will search four bibliographic databases in English, using a predefined and tested search string that focuses on a subset of EFA options and ecosystem service outcomes. The options and outcomes are selected as those with particular policy relevance and traction. Only articles in English will be included. We will screen search results at title, abstract and full text levels, recording the number of studies deemed non-relevant (with reasons at full text). A systematic map database that displays the meta-data (i.e. descriptive summary information about settings and methods) of relevant studies will be produced following full text assessment. The systematic map database will be published as a MS-Excel database. The nature and extent of the evidence base will be discussed, and the applicability of methods to convert the available evidence into EFA calculator scores will be assessed.

Spatial scale dependence of factors driving climate regulation services in the Americas

AbstractAimA key hypothesis in macroecology is that the relative importance of factors driving ecological phenomena changes with spatial scale. However, studies on ecosystem services usually ignore this. Here, we test how the importance of factors related to climate regulation services varies with spatial extent (i.e., area of assessment) and how covariation among factors affects scale dependencies.LocationThe Americas.Time periodPresent.Major taxa studiedPlants.MethodsWe combined a multi‐model inference framework with variance partitioning to quantify the importance of factors that could potentially influence climate regulation services (i.e., albedo, evapotranspiration and primary productivity). We quantified abiotic (climate, soil, heterogeneity in soils/topography), biotic (open vegetation, forest area and biomass, plant functional traits) and anthropogenic (forest fragmentation, managed vegetation, non‐vegetated surfaces) conditions and tested their importance in relation to climate regulation services at spatial extents ranging from 9 × 103 to 1 × 106 km2.ResultsWe found that the importance of abiotic factors in relation to climate regulation services increases with spatial extent. However, we found no evidence for a change from primarily biotically to abiotically driven climate regulation services with increasing spatial extent. All spatial extent dependencies were heavily influenced by covariation between abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors. After accounting for covariation, we found a primacy of abiotic factors as drivers of climate regulation services across spatial extents. Biotic and anthropogenic factors were less important than abiotic factors, and their independent effects were conserved across spatial extents.Main conclusionsOur results show that the relative importance of abiotic factors related to climate regulation services depends on spatial extent. Biotic and anthropogenic factors are less important for climate regulation services than abiotic factors, and this hierarchy is scale invariant. Our findings suggest that spatial extent dependence needs to be quantified and assessed in climate‐change mitigation projects that focus on ecosystem services.

Quantifying Economic Value of Coastal Ecosystem Services: A Review

The complexity of quantifying ecosystem services in monetary terms has long been a challenging issue for economists and ecologists. Many case specific valuation studies have been carried out in various parts of the World. Yet, a coherent review on the valuation of coastal ecosystem services (CES), which systematically describes fundamental concepts, analyzes reported applications, and addresses the issue of climate change (CC) impacts on the monetary value of CES is still lacking. Here, we take a step towards addressing this knowledge gap by pursuing a coherent review that aims to provide policy makers and researchers in multidisciplinary teams with a summary of the state-of-the-art and a guideline on the process of economic valuation of CES and potential changes in these values due to CC impacts. The article highlights the main concepts of CES valuation studies and offers a systematic analysis of the best practices by analyzing two global scale and 30 selected local and regional case studies, in which different CES have been valued. Our analysis shows that coral reefs and mangroves are among the most frequently valued ecosystems, while sea-grass beds are the least considered ones. Currently, tourism and recreation services as well as storm protection are two of the most considered services representing higher estimated value than other CES. In terms of the valuation techniques used, avoided damage, replacement and substitute cost method as well as stated preference method are among the most commonly used valuation techniques. Following the above analysis, we propose a methodological framework that provides step-wise guidance and better insight into the linkages between climate change impacts and the monetary value of CES. This highlights two main types of CC impacts on CES: one being the climate regulation services of coastal ecosystems, and the other being the monetary value of services, which is subject to substantial uncertainty. Finally, a systematic four-step approach is proposed to effectively monetize potential CC driven variations in the value of CES.

Estimating water–food–ecosystem trade-offs for the global negative emission scenario (IPCC-RCP2.6)

Negative emission technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) are regarded as an option to achieve the climatic target of the Paris Agreement. However, our understanding of the realistic sustainable feasibility of the global lands for BECCS remains uncertain. In this study, we assess the impact of BECCS deployment scenarios on the land systems including land use, water resources, and ecosystem services. Specifically, we assess three land-use scenarios to achieve the total amount of 3.3 GtC year−1 (annual negative emission level required for IPCC-RCP 2.6) emission reduction by growing bioenergy crops which requires huge use of global agricultural and forest lands and water. Our study shows that (1) vast conversion of food cropland into rainfed bio-crop cultivation yields a considerable loss of food production that may not be tolerable considering the population increase in the future. (2) When irrigation is applied to bio-crop production, the bioenergy crop productivity is enhanced. This suppresses the necessary area for bio-crop production to half, and saves the land for agricultural productions. However, water consumption is doubled and this may exacerbate global water stress. (3) If conversion of forest land for bioenergy crop cultivation is allowed without protecting the natural forests, large areas of tropical forest could be used for bioenergy crop production. Forest biomass and soil carbon stocks are reduced, implying degradation of the climate regulation and other ecosystem services. These results suggest that without a careful consideration of the land use for bioenergy crop production, a large-scale implementation of BECCS could negatively impact food, water and ecosystem services that are supporting fundamental human sustainability.

Scotland's forgotten carbon: a national assessment of mid-latitude fjord sedimentary carbon stocks

Abstract. Fjords are recognised as hotspots for the burial and long-term storage of carbon (C) and potentially provide a significant climate regulation service over multiple timescales. Understanding the magnitude of marine sedimentary C stores and the processes which govern their development is fundamental to understanding the role of the coastal ocean in the global C cycle. In this study, we use the mid-latitude fjords of Scotland as a natural laboratory to further develop methods to quantify these marine sedimentary C stores on both the individual fjord and national scale. Targeted geophysical and geochemical analysis has allowed the quantification of sedimentary C stocks for a number of mid-latitude fjords and, coupled with upscaling techniques based on fjord classification, has generated the first full national sedimentary C inventory for a fjordic system. The sediments within these mid-latitude fjords hold 640.7 ± 46 Mt of C split between 295.6 ± 52 and 345.1 ± 39 Mt of organic and inorganic C, respectively. When compared, these marine mid-latitude sedimentary C stores are of similar magnitude to their terrestrial equivalents, with the exception of the Scottish peatlands, which hold significantly more C. However, when area-normalised comparisons are made, these mid-latitude fjords are significantly more effective as C stores than their terrestrial counterparts, including Scottish peatlands. The C held within Scotland's coastal marine sediments has been largely overlooked as a significant component of the nation's natural capital; such coastal C stores are likely to be key to understanding and constraining improved global C budgets.

Green spaces are not all the same for the provision of air purification and climate regulation services: The case of urban parks

The growing human population concentrated in urban areas lead to the increase of road traffic and artificial areas, consequently enhancing air pollution and urban heat island effects, among others. These environmental changes affect citizen's health, causing a high number of premature deaths, with considerable social and economic costs. Nature-based solutions are essential to ameliorate those impacts in urban areas. While the mere presence of urban green spaces is pointed as an overarching solution, the relative importance of specific vegetation structure, composition and management to improve the ecosystem services of air purification and climate regulation are overlooked. This avoids the establishment of optimized planning and management procedures for urban green spaces with high spatial resolution and detail. Our aim was to understand the relative contribution of vegetation structure, composition and management for the provision of ecosystem services of air purification and climate regulation in urban green spaces, in particular the case of urban parks. This work was done in a large urban park with different types of vegetation surrounded by urban areas. As indicators of microclimatic effects and of air pollution levels we selected different metrics: lichen diversity and pollutants accumulation in lichens. Among lichen diversity, functional traits related to nutrient and water requirements were used as surrogates of the capacity of vegetation to filter air pollution and to regulate climate, and provide air purification and climate regulation ecosystem services, respectively. This was also obtained with very high spatial resolution which allows detailed spatial planning for optimization of ecosystem services. We found that vegetation type characterized by a more complex structure (trees, shrubs and herbaceous layers) and by the absence of management (pruning, irrigation and fertilization) had a higher capacity to provide the ecosystems services of air purification and climate regulation. By contrast, lawns, which have a less complex structure and are highly managed, were associated to a lower capacity to provide these services. Tree plantations showed an intermediate effect between the other two types of vegetation. Thus, vegetation structure, composition and management are important to optimize green spaces capacity to purify air and regulate climate. Taking this into account green spaces can be managed at high spatial resolutions to optimize these ecosystem services in urban areas and contribute to improve human well-being.

Spatiotemporal assessment and trade-offs of multiple ecosystem services based on land use changes in Zengcheng, China

Driven by rapid urbanization, land use change has become a significant factor influencing ecosystem services (ESs). To support the decision-making process of city planners and policy makers, assessing the spatiotemporal changes associated with multiple ESs is vital. In this study, we developed a general structure to assess the changes of multiple ESs in Zengcheng, China. A new index also was developed to measure the comprehensive ecosystem service (CES). Trade-offs of various ESs were analyzed by using correlation analysis. We then designed four alternate scenarios to explore the optimal land use strategies to increase the CES value and minimize trade-offs among various ESs. Results demonstrated that rapid expansion of built-up land and traffic land resulted in a decrease of CES in Zengcheng from 2003 to 2013. Although the water supply, water purification, and vegetable and fruit production services increased, the climate regulation, soil conservation, biodiversity protection, recreation opportunity and grain production services decreased during the ten-year period. Government should implement land use policies and ecological engineering measures to improve soil conservation in the northern region; recreation opportunity in the central region; and carbon storage, water purification, biodiversity protection and recreation opportunity in the southern region. Among all alternative scenarios, woodland buffer and soil conservation scenarios exhibit the highest CES values, indicating that policies such as the “Ecological corridor construction” project and the “Grain for Green” project should be implemented. However, a caveat is that these policies improve the ESs at the expense of food production due to significant trade-off relationships. To minimize the trade-offs, a more sustainable intensification of agriculture should be adopted to increase food production without decreasing other ESs or occupying additional land. The land use strategies and ecological engineering measures in this study can provide a reliable reference for sustainable development of other urbanized regions in China.

Strong biotic influences on regional patterns of climate regulation services

AbstractClimate regulation services from forests are an important leverage in global‐change mitigation treaties. Like most ecosystem services, climate regulation is the product of various ecological phenomena with unique spatial features. Elucidating which abiotic and biotic factors relate to spatial patterns of climate regulation services advances our understanding of what underlies climate‐mitigation potential and its variation within and across ecosystems. Here we quantify and contrast the statistical relations between climate regulation services (albedo and evapotranspiration, primary productivity, and soil carbon) and abiotic and biotic factors. We focus on 16,955 forest plots in a regional extent across the eastern United States. We find the statistical effects of forest litter and understory carbon on climate regulation services to be as strong as those of temperature‐precipitation interactions. These biotic factors likely influence climate regulation through changes in vegetation and canopy density, radiance scattering, and decomposition rates. We also find a moderate relation between leaf nitrogen traits and primary productivity at this regional scale. The statistical relation between climate regulation and temperature‐precipitation ranges, seasonality, and climatic thresholds highlights a strong feedback with global climate change. Our assessment suggests the expression of strong biotic influences on climate regulation services at a regional, temperate extent. Biotic homogenization and management practices manipulating forest structure and succession will likely strongly impact climate‐mitigation potential. The identity, strength, and direction of primary influences differed for each process involved in climate regulation. Hence, different abiotic and biotic factors are needed to monitor and quantify the full climate‐mitigation potential of temperate forest ecosystems.

The use of meteorological data to assess the cooling service of forests

The climate regulation effects of forests have been extensively studied. Many evaluation methods exist to assess the climate regulation service on regional and global scales. However, the processes driving local scale effects are poorly understood. We established a new method, which combined the cooling effects of forest and cooling costs to assess the value of climate regulation of a local scale forest. The inhabitable value of cooling service of forests for the farming area and built-up area and the payable value only for the built-up area were considered separately. The climate regulation effects of a forest in Fanggan, a mountainous village of East China, were studied. In 2014, the economic value of the cooling effects of the forest was 3727 USD per ha per year. In the inhabitable area, only about 10% of this amount was practically payable in the built-up area for humans. This method provides a new way of incorporating cooling effects into climate regulation services.

Ecosystem Services and Ecological Restoration in the Northern Shaanxi Loess Plateau, China, in Relation to Climate Fluctuation and Investments in Natural Capital

Accurately identifying the spatiotemporal variations and driving factors of ecosystem services (ES) in ecological restoration is important for ecosystem management and the sustainability of nature conservation strategies. As the Green for Grain project proceeds, food provision, water regulation and climate regulation services in the Northern Shaanxi Loess Plateau (NSLP) are changing and have caused broad attention. In this study, the dynamic pattern of the normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) and the main drivers of grain production (GP), water yield (WY) and net primary production (NPP) in the NSLP from 2000–2013 are identified by incorporating multiple data and methods, in order to provide a better understanding of how and why ES change during ecological restoration. WY was simulated by hydrological modeling, and NPP was estimated with the Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach (CASA) model. The results show that vegetation restoration continued from 2000–2013, but fluctuated because of the comprehensive influence of climate and human activity. GP and NPP both exhibited significantly increasing trends, while changes in WY occurred in two stages: decline (2000–2006) and growth (2007–2013). Spatially, significantly increasing trends in NPP and WY were detected in 52.73% and 24.76% of the region, respectively, in areas that correspond with the Green for Grain project and high precipitation growth. Correlation and partial correlation analyses show that there were different dominant factors (i.e., natural vs. anthropogenic) driving ES change in the NSLP from 2000–2013. The change in WY was mainly driven by precipitation, while the improvements in GP and NPP can be attributed to investments in natural capital (i.e., chemical fertilizer, agricultural machinery power and afforestation). We also found that vegetation restoration can produce positive effects on NPP, but negative effects on WY by using response analyses of WY or NPP change to NDVI change, demonstrating that additional research on the role of water in vegetation restoration is needed. Our results provide support for ES management and the sustainable development of ecological restoration in the NSLP.

Natural Variability and Anthropogenic Trends in the Ocean Carbon Sink.

Since preindustrial times, the ocean has removed from the atmosphere 41% of the carbon emitted by human industrial activities. Despite significant uncertainties, the balance of evidence indicates that the globally integrated rate of ocean carbon uptake is increasing in response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation in the equatorial Pacific dominates interannual variability of the globally integrated sink. Modes of climate variability in high latitudes are correlated with variability in regional carbon sinks, but mechanistic understanding is incomplete. Regional sink variability, combined with sparse sampling, means that the growing oceanic sink cannot yet be directly detected from available surface data. Accurate and precise shipboard observations need to be continued and increasingly complemented with autonomous observations. These data, together with a variety of mechanistic and diagnostic models, are needed for better understanding, long-term monitoring, and future projections of this critical climate regulation service.

Urban Green Infrastructure Impacts on Climate Regulation Services in Sydney, Australia

In many parts of the world, urban planning has a renewed focus on addressing the multiple challenges associated with population growth and climate change. Focused on local needs and priorities, these planning processes are raising tensions between more compact and dense urban form to reduce energy use and associated emissions and the provision of urban green infrastructure for ecosystem services and climate adaptation. In this study, we investigated the spatial distribution of green infrastructure at the neighbourhood scale in Sydney, Australia and examined how a mix of landscape types (pavement, bare soil/dry grass, green grass, and tree cover) affect temperature variation in three important locations for urban residents—around the home, in the roads and footpaths where people walk, and in parkland areas. Considering that residential and parkland areas contribute to the majority of green space in Sydney, it is important to understand how changes in landscape mix within these three neighbourhood areas will affect local temperature for urban residents. For residential houses, it was found that the percentage of tree canopy cover around the house had a significant negative relationship (p = 0.002) with surface temperatures of rooftops where greater tree cover led to lower rooftop temperatures. In streetscapes, both the percentage of tree cover (p < 0.0001) and the percentage of green grass (p < 0.0001) within the road segment had a significant negative relationship with the surface temperature of the road pavement. In the parks, the percentage of pavement (p < 0.0001) and the percentage of bare soil/dry grass (p < 0.0001) showed a significantly positive trend with land surface temperatures where greater land cover in the form of pavement and bare soil/dry grass led to higher temperatures. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of promoting or reducing certain landscape covers depending on the land use type in order to maximise the cooling potential of green infrastructure.

Ecosystem services capacity across heterogeneous forest types: understanding the interactions and suggesting pathways for sustaining multiple ecosystem services

As ecosystem services supply from tropical forests is declining due to deforestation and forest degradation, much effort is essential to sustain ecosystem services supply from tropical forested landscapes, because tropical forests provide the largest flow of multiple ecosystem services among the terrestrial ecosystems. In order to sustain multiple ecosystem services, understanding ecosystem services capacity across heterogeneous forest types and identifying certain ecosystem services that could be managed to leverage positive effects across the wider bundle of ecosystem services are required. We sampled three forest types, tropical rainforests, sclerophyll forests, and rehabilitated plantation forests, over an area of 32,000m2 from Wet Tropics bioregion, Australia, aiming to compare supply and evaluate interactions and patterns of eight ecosystem services (global climate regulation, air quality regulation, erosion regulation, nutrient regulation, cyclone protection, habitat provision, energy provision, and timber provision). On average, multiple ecosystem services were highest in the rainforests, lowest in sclerophyll forests, and intermediate in rehabilitated plantation forests. However, a wide variation was apparent among the plots across the three forest types. Global climate regulation service had a synergistic impact on the supply of multiple ecosystem services, while nutrient regulation service was found to have a trade-off impact. Considering multiple ecosystem services, most of the rehabilitated plantation forest plots shared the same ordination space with rainforest plots in the ordination analysis, indicating that rehabilitated plantation forests may supply certain ecosystem services nearly equivalent to rainforests. Two synergy groups and one trade-off group were identified. Apart from conserving rainforests and sclerophyll forests, our findings suggest two additional integrated pathways to sustain the supply of multiple ecosystem services from a heterogeneous tropical forest landscape: (i) rehabilitation of degraded forests aiming to provide global climate regulation and habitat provision ecosystem services and (ii) management intervention to sustain global climate regulation and habitat provision ecosystem services.

Impacts of land use change due to biofuel crops on climate regulation services: Five case studies in Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland

Understanding changes in carbon sequestration due to land conversion is key for elucidating the true potential of biofuel landscapes to provide climate regulation ecosystem services. In this study, we focus on the two most promoted biofuel crops in southern Africa, Jatropha and sugarcane, to analyse the land use change effects and associated carbon impacts of growing biofuel crops in five study sites in Mozambique, Malawi and Swaziland. We found that, considering a 20-year cycle, carbon stocks in aboveground biomass are higher for sugarcane than for Jatropha. However, as soil organic carbon (SOC) is generally the main carbon pool, total carbon stocks (considering biomass and soil) will highly depend on SOC. Our results show that, in our study sites, sugarcane replaced land uses with low carbon stocks (low-density forest and agriculture), and as a result carbon gains occurred due to land use change. In the Jatropha projects, carbon gains are observed in the smallholder scheme as agricultural land was converted to Jatropha, but carbon debts occurred in the Jatropha plantation as high-density forest was cleared to grow this feedstock. Finally we show that, if a plantation of sugarcane or Jatropha is envisioned to be located in the studied regions, more forested land could potentially be converted into sugarcane (30–44% of forest) than into Jatropha (24–32%), without creating carbon debts due to land conversion. To our knowledge, this is the first comparative study of the carbon impacts of land use change of the main biofuel crops in southern Africa.

Sustainable oceans and coasts: Lessons learnt from Eastern and Western Africa

Marine and coastal ecosystems in Africa provide valuable cultural (recreational, spiritual), provisioning (such as food, timber and firewood) and regulatory (such as flood protection and climate regulation) services that are not only at the core of coastal ecosystem functioning, but are also an important basis for the economic livelihoods of over 120 million inhabitants living along the continent's coastal zone. However, these valuable ecosystems are being subjected to a range of human pressures, including overfishing and destructive fishing practices, pollution, including excess nutrients (causing eutrophication), loss and degradation of habitats, physical shoreline changes and disturbance of the hydrological regimes of rivers and estuarine systems, aggravated further by the effects of climate change. The effects of these pressures, often acting in cumulative and synergistic manners, readily affect the overall stability of the coastal ecosystems, threatening their resilience over the short- and long-term. This chapter highlights the challenges faced by the coastal states of Eastern and Western Africa in managing their coastal and marine resources for the sustainable benefits of their populations. Current mechanisms for the governance and management of the coastal and marine environment at national to regional scales are reviewed, and their effectiveness appraised, and recommendations for improved management and scientific support are made.

Measurements and economics of carbon sequestration in temperate tree-based intercropping systems

The paper aims to quantify and monetise carbon sequestration potential of temperate Tree-Based Intercropping (TBI) systems in Canada. The net carbon sequestration potential is estimated to be 2.26 Mg C ha−1y−1 that represents an immobilisation of 8.3 ton CO2 ha−1y−1. In economic terms this amount of sequestered carbon represents $24,383 per hectare of societal benefits over a rotation period of 40 years. This means 137 million dollars per year of climate regulation services could be achieved through establishment of TBI systems on 1.93 million hectares of land areas in the province of Quebec in Canada. Government incentives, however, are needed to interest farmers in adopting practices that reduce farmers' private profits yet benefit society as a whole.

Estimating the Environmental Costs of Africa’s Massive “Development Corridors”

In sub-Saharan Africa, dozens of major "development corridors" have been proposed or are being created to increase agricultural production [1-4], mineral exports [5-7], and economic integration. The corridors involve large-scale expansion of infrastructure such as roads, railroads, pipelines, and port facilities and will open up extensive areas of land to new environmental pressures [1, 4, 8]. We assessed the potential environmental impacts of 33 planned or existing corridors that, if completed, would total over 53,000 km in length and crisscross much of the African continent. We mapped each corridor and estimated human occupancy (using the distribution of persistent night-lights) and environmental values (endangered and endemic vertebrates, plant diversity, critical habitats, carbon storage, and climate-regulation services) inside a 50-km-wide band overlaid onto each corridor. We also assessed the potential for each corridor to facilitate increases in agricultural production. The corridors varied considerably in their environmental values, and many were only sparsely populated. Because of marginal soils or climates, some corridors appear to have only modest agricultural potential. Collectively, the corridors would bisect over 400 existing protected areas and could degrade a further ~1,800 by promoting habitat disruption near or inside the reserves. We conclude that many of the development corridors will promote serious and largely irreversible environmental changes and should proceed only if rigorous mitigation and protection measures can be employed. Some planned corridors with high environmental values and limited agricultural benefits should possibly be cancelled altogether. VIDEO ABSTRACT.

Effects of Harvesting Forest Biomass on Water and Climate Regulation Services: A Synthesis of Long-Term Ecosystem Experiments in Eastern North America

Demand for woody biomass fuels is increasing amidst concerns about global energy security and climate change, but there may be negative implications of increased harvesting for forest ecosystem functions and their benefits to society (ecosystem services). Using new methods for assessing ecosystem services based on long-term experimental research, post-harvest changes in ten potential benefits were assessed for ten first-order northern hardwood forest watersheds at three long-term experimental research sites in northeastern North America. As expected, we observed near-term tradeoffs between biomass provision and greenhouse gas regulation, as well as tradeoffs between intensive harvest and the capacity of the forest to remediate nutrient pollution. In both cases, service provision began to recover along with the regeneration of forest vegetation; in the case of pollution remediation, the service recovered to pre-harvest levels within 10 years. By contrast to these two services, biomass harvesting had relatively nominal and transient impacts on other ecosystem services. Our results are sensitive to empirical definitions of societal demand, including methods for scaling societal demand to ecosystem units, which are often poorly resolved. Reducing uncertainty around these parameters can improve confidence in our results and increase their relevance for decision-making. Our synthesis of long-term experimental studies provides insights on the social-ecological resilience of managed forest ecosystems to multiple drivers of change.