Decline In Ecosystem Services Research Articles

Spatio-temporal dynamics of critical ecosystem services in response to agricultural expansion in Rwanda, East Africa

Changing natural landscapes to agricultural land, driven by land demand, have been considered an important driver that limits the ability of landscapes to provide ecosystem services. The decline in ecosystem services in the past are mainly due to anthropogenic farming activities that have been undertaken to satisfy human wellbeing in Africa. Quantifying these declining services over time and space is essential to facilitate sustainable management decisions. In this study, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model was used to quantify and value the ecosystem services in Rwanda from 1990, 2000, and 2010. From the results, while forest cover declined drastically from 61.1% in 1990 and reached 19.9% in 2010, cropland and settlement areas both expanded from 24.7% to 53.4% and from 0.5% to 1.8%, respectively. These variations have resulted in a decrease in total carbon storage from 439.7 Mt to 230.5 Mt in the 20 years, whereas soil export increased from 135 Mt to 712 Mt in 2010. Farmland expansion accelerated the export of nitrogen and phosphorous from 0.9 Mt to 3.1 Mt and 1.0 Mt to 8.4 Mt, respectively. The water yield increased from 2.04 × 109 m3 in 1990 to 2.20 × 109 m3 in 2010. Further tradeoffs analysis reveals that three ecosystem services including water, soil, and nutrient show strong positive correlations with one another, while carbon service appears to have little relationship with the other services. The strategies to manage ecosystem service trade-offs should incorporate farmers’ knowledge and scientific research aimed at increasing agricultural production and resource efficiency in Rwanda. To ensure sustainability, demographic pressures should not be neglected.

城市生态安全格局构建:目标、原则和基本框架

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 城市生态安全格局构建:目标、原则和基本框架 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201802270395 作者: 作者单位: 中国科学院生态环境研究中心,中国科学院生态环境研究中心,中国科学院生态环境研究中心 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家重点研发计划重点专项（2016YFC0503000）；国家自然科学基金项目（41590841） Urban eco-security pattern construction: targets, principles and basic framework Author: Affiliation: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:随着人口增长和经济快速发展，城市化已经成为人类社会发展的必然趋势。快速城市化必将导致生态用地流失、生态系统服务下降和环境健康风险加剧，由此影响到城市生态安全。尽管生态安全的概念已经为社会广泛接受，但对生态安全的内涵和如何构建生态安全格局仍然缺乏统一认识。在分析生态安全内涵、生态安全概念辨析和生态安全格局构建基本原则基础上，结合城市生态系统特点，提出了城市生态安全格局构建的目的、基本原则和基本框架。认为城市生态安全格局构建是一个涉及多尺度的区域性、综合性问题，除了要遵循生态安全格局构建的一般性原则外，还必须考虑以下原则：以人为本原则、流域适应原则、区域协调原则和有限目标原则。同时，需要重点关注宏观与微观尺度之间的关系协调、城市内部与外部之间的关系协调、理想与现实目标之间的权衡、人类生存需求与生态服务需求之间的权衡关系。通过城市生态安全格局构建，需要实现以下目标：控制城市化过程中出现的问题、维持城市地区正常的物质循环与代谢功能、维持城市生态系统健康运行与可持续发展、保证城市人居环境健康和居民的正常生活，以及满足现有城市居民可预见时期内生态服务需求。从景观、城市和区域三个尺度上，分析了城市生态安全格局构建需要面对的实体、解决的问题和实现的目标。 Abstract:With the rapid growth of population and the rapid development of economic in China, urbanization has become an inevitable trend in the development of human society. Inevitably, the rapid urbanization has caused the loss of ecological land, the decline of ecosystem services and the risks of environmental health, thereout, all the facts has been influencing the eco-security of the urban. Although the concept of ecological security has been widely accepted by the society, people still lack of unified understanding of the connotation of ecological security and how to build an ecological security pattern. In this paper, combining the characteristics of urban ecosystem, the objectives, basic principles and framework for the construction of urban ecological security pattern are put forward based on analyzing the connotation of ecological security, distinguishing the concept of ecological security and building the basic principles and objectives of the urban eco-security pattern. The construction of urban ecological security pattern is a multi-scale regional comprehensive problem. In addition to following the basic principle of the construction of the eco-security pattern, the following four aspects should be considered: the people-oriented principle, the watershed adaptation principle, the regional coordination principle and the limited goal principle. At the same time, it is necessary to pay close attention to the coordination between the macro and micro scales, the coordination between the urban areas and the nonmetropolitan areas, the trade-off between the ideal and the realistic goal, and the trade-off between the needs of human existence and the needs of ecological services. The following goals must be achieved by the construction of urban eco-security pattern: a) Solving the problems in the process of urbanization. b) Maintaining the normal material circulation and metabolism in urban areas. c) Maintaining the healthy operation and sustainable development of urban ecosystems. d) Ensuring the urban residential environment health and normal life of residents. e) Meeting the ecological service needs of the urban residents in the foreseeable period. At last, we analyzed the entities, problems and goals in the construction of urban security pattern from the three spatial scales of landscape, city and region. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Novel Technological and Management Options for Accelerating Transformational Changes in Rice and Livestock Systems

Agricultural producers grapple with low farm yields and declining ecosystem services within their landscapes. In several instances, agricultural production systems may be considered largely unsustainable in socioeconomic and ecological (resource conservation and use and impact on nature) terms. Novel technological and management options that can serve as vehicles to promote the provision of multiple benefits, including the improvement of smallholder livelihoods, are needed. We call for a paradigm shift to allow designing and implementing agricultural systems that are not only efficient (serving as a means to promote development based on the concept of creating more goods and services while using fewer resources and creating less waste) but can also be considered synergistic (symbiotic relationship between socio-ecological systems) by simultaneously contributing to major objectives of economic, ecological, and social (equity) improvement of agro-ecosystems. These transformations require strategic approaches that are supported by participatory system-level research, experimentation, and innovation. Using data from several studies, we here provide evidence for technological and management options that could be optimized, promoted, and adopted to enable agricultural systems to be efficient, effective, and, indeed, sustainable. Specifically, we present results from a study conducted in Colombia, which demonstrated that, in rice systems, improved water management practices such as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) reduce methane emissions (~70%). We also show how women can play a key role in AWD adoption. For livestock systems, we present in vitro evidence showing that the use of alternative feed options such as cassava leaves contributes to livestock feed supplementation and could represent a cost-effective approach for reducing enteric methane emissions (22% to 55%). We argue that to design and benefit from sustainable agricultural systems, there is a need for better targeting of interventions that are co-designed, co-evaluated, and co-promoted, with farmers as allies of transformational change (as done in the climate-smart villages), not as recipients of external knowledge. Moreover, for inclusive sustainability that harnesses existing knowledge and influences decision-making processes across scales, there is a need for constant, efficient, effective, and real trans-disciplinary communication and collaboration.

Influence of Pansharpening in Obtaining Accurate Vegetation Maps

ABSTRACTIn recent decades, there has been a decline in ecosystem services. Thus, the development of reliable methodologies to monitor ecosystems is becoming important. In this context, the availability of very high resolution sensors offer practical and cost-effective means for good environmental management. However, improvements in the data received are becoming necessary to obtain higher quality information in order to get reliable thematic maps. One improvement is pansharpening, which enhances the spatial resolution of the multispectral bands by incorporating information from a panchromatic image. The main goal of this work was to assess the influence of pansharpening techniques in obtaining precise vegetation maps. Thus, pixel- and object-based classification techniques were implemented and applied to fused imagery using different pansharpening algorithms. Worldview-2 high resolution imagery was used due to its excellent spatial and spectral characteristics. The Teide National Park, in The Canary Islands (Spain), was chosen as the study area since it is a vulnerable heterogeneous ecosystem. The vegetation classes of interest considered were established by the National Park conservation managers. Weighted Wavelet ‘à trous’ through Fractal Dimension Maps pansharpening algorithm demonstrated a superior performance in the image fusion preprocessing step, while the most appropriate classifier to generate accurate vegetation thematic maps in heterogenic and mixed ecosystems was the Bayes method after the segmentation stage, even though Support Vector Machine achieved the highest overall accuracy.

Water quality and resident perceptions of declining ecosystem services at Shitalakka wetland in Narayanganj city

Abstract Wetland ecosystem services provide social benefits. These services are vulnerable due to human activities. The present research concerns perceptions of declining wetland ecosystem services and their effects on water quality parameters. The percentages of provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services were found to overshadow ecosystem services, such that generation of goods and values in the studied wetlands are in jeopardy. Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), turbidity, conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), heavy metals and salts were measured as indicators of water quality. Many significant correlations were observed and many of these parameters exceeded regulatory limits. Lead (Pb) in wetland 0.09 mg/L far exceeded the safe limit (0.01–0.05 mg/L), while turbidity in wetland 21.12 was too high to sustain fish. Wetland water pH was significantly correlated ( p ≤ 0.01) with Cd. TDS was found to have a significant ( p ≤ 0.01; p ≤ 0.05; p ≤ 0.1) correlation with conductivity, Ca 2+ , BOD, and DO. The conductivity increased ( p ≤ 0.01) with increasing Ca 2+ concentrations. COD was significantly different ( p ≤ 0.1) with Pb, Cd and Cl − . BOD increased with increasing Ca 2+ concentrations ( p ≤ 0.05). Continuous monitoring of water quality indicators (turbidity, EC, pH, DO, TDS, COD, BOD, cations, and anions) is crucial for improving of wetland ecosystem services and sustainability of communities.

Plant Functional Traits: Soil and Ecosystem Services.

Decline of ecosystem services has triggered numerous studies aiming at developing more sustainable agricultural management practices. Some agricultural practices may improve soil properties by expanding plant biodiversity. However, sustainable management of agroecosystems should be performed from a functional plant trait perspective. Advances in functional ecology, especially plant functional trait effects on ecosystem processes and services, provide pivotal knowledge for ecological intensification of agriculture; this approach acknowledges that a crop field is an agroecosystem whose ecological processes influence soil properties. We highlight the links between plant functional traits and soil properties in relation to four major ecosystem processes involved in vital ecosystem services: food production, crop protection, climate change mitigation, and soil and water conservation, aiming towards ecological intensification of sustainable agricultural and soil management.

Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services in an alpine ecosystem grazed by sheep – An experimental approach

Domestic livestock drives ecosystem changes in many of the world's mountain regions, and can be the dominant influence on soil, habitat and wildlife dynamics. Grazing impacts on ecosystem services (ES) vary according to densities of sheep, but an ES framework accounting for these is lacking. We devised an experiment to evaluate synergies and trade-offs of ESs and components of biodiversity affected by sheep density at the alpine landscape scale in southern Norway. We examined the effects of increased (80 per km2), decreased (0 per km2) and maintained sheep densities (25 per km2) on ‘supporting’, ‘regulating’ and ‘provisioning’ services and biodiversity (plants, invertebrates and birds). Overall, ESs and biodiversity were highest at maintained sheep density. Regulating services, including carbon storage and habitat openness, were particularly favoured by maintained densities of sheep. There was no overall decline in ESs from maintained to increased sheep densities, but several services, such as runoff water quality, plant productivity and carbon storage, declined when grazing increased. Our study provides experimental evidence for a positive effect of grazing on ES, but only at maintained low sheep densities. By identifying ES and biodiversity components that are traded-off at decreased and increased grazing, our study also demonstrates some of the negative impacts on ecosystems that can occur in mountain regions if management does not regulate herbivore densities.

People and Fresh Water Ecosystems: Pressures, Responses and Resilience

Freshwater ecosystems are central to the global water cycle, in local generation of freshwater flows, and the healthy functioning and resilience of other ecosystems. Freshwater security depends on healthy ecosystems. Current human threats to freshwater ecosystems include rapid infrastructure development and land-use change, inefficient water use and over-abstraction, and pollutants. These threats, combined with increasing demand for water resources, exacerbate the sustainable development challenge. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may be living in conditions of severe water stress. It is essential to find solutions that provide for the maintenance of freshwater ecosystems while meeting human needs. This paper examines responses to three pressures to freshwater ecosystems: declining ecosystem services, hydropower and urban development. It explores opportunities for improved decision-making and enhanced resilience including: better evaluation of trade-offs and interlinkages; improved monitoring; decision-making that incorporates long-term perspectives and risks; and the leveraging of crises to advance change.

A century-scale, human-induced ecohydrological evolution of wetlands of two large river basins in Australia (Murray) and China (Yangtze)

Abstract. Recently, the provision of food and water resources of two of the world's largest river basins, the Murray and the Yangtze, has been significantly altered through widespread landscape modification. Long-term sedimentary archives, dating back for some centuries from wetlands of these river basins, reveal that rapid, basin-wide development has reduced the resilience of biological communities, resulting in considerable decline in ecosystem services, including water quality. Large-scale human disturbance to river systems, due to river regulation during the mid-20th century, has transformed the hydrology of rivers and wetlands, causing widespread modification of aquatic biological communities. Changes to cladoceran zooplankton (water fleas) were used to assess the historical hydrology and ecology of three Murray and Yangtze river wetlands over the past century. Subfossil assemblages of cladocerans retrieved from sediment cores (94, 45, and 65 cm) of three wetlands: Kings Billabong (Murray), Zhangdu, and Liangzi lakes (Yangtze), showed strong responses to hydrological changes in the river after the mid-20th century. In particular, river regulation caused by construction of dams and weirs together with river channel modifications, has led to significant hydrological alterations. These hydrological disturbances were either (1) a prolonged inundation of wetlands or (2) reduced river flow, both of which caused variability in wetland depth. Inevitably, these phenomena have subsequently transformed the natural wetland habitats, leading to a switch in cladoceran assemblages to species preferring poor water quality, and in some cases to eutrophication. The quantitative and qualitative decline of wetland water conditions is indicative of reduced ecosystem services, and requires effective restoration measures for both river basins which have been impacted by recent socioeconomic development and climate change.

Seasonal succession of pollinator floral resources in four types of grasslands

Pollinators are declining globally, and this decline in ecosystem services threatens the stability of agricultural and natural systems. Pollinators depend on a diversity of floral resources that are primarily found in uncultivated areas of agro‐ecosystems such as grasslands. Seasonal succession (the seasonal changes that occur in community composition and structure) of floral resources is an essential consideration for pollinator conservation within agro‐ecosystems. Different types of grasslands common within agricultural landscapes could be expected to differ in their seasonal succession of floral resources. Here we investigated how different types of grasslands important for pollinator conservation in the tallgrass prairie ecoregion (remnant prairies, reconstructed prairies, conservation grazed cattle pastures, and old fields) differ in their seasonal succession of floral resources by sampling the plant community every two weeks from 3 May through 4 October 2013. We found remnant prairies had greater richness of inflorescences when summed over the growing season, and that remnants were least similar to the other grassland types in terms of composition. Reconstructed prairies had high richness of inflorescences and exhibited the most similarity in composition to remnant prairies only during the middle of the growing season. Conservation grazed cattle pastures had more periods where turnover in composition from one survey to the next was low, indicated by the coefficient of variation in turnover throughout the season. Old fields had the lowest richness of inflorescences and were significantly different from reconstructed and remnant prairies.

Investigating the decline of ecosystem services in a production mangrove forest using Landsat and object-based image analysis

The Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve is widely recognised as a sustainably managed mangrove forest. However, recently evidence of multiple ecosystem services decline has emerged. The primary objective of this study was to apply remote sensing techniques to assess the impact of the silviculture in the mangrove forest reserve on the provision of ecosystem services. It applied an object-based approach to classify multi-temporal Landsat imagery. The classified images enabled the study to characterise and analyse the spatiotemporal changes in the distribution of stand age composition and structure over a 35 year period. Links were established between the classified images and the ecosystem services assessment based on the assumption that the classification results provided a reliable proxy for an indirect analysis on the temporal and spatial distribution of aboveground biomass of the mangrove forest reserve. The relationship between the potential impacts of the observed changes derived from the classified images with the data obtained from the ecosystem services assessment were analysed. The analysis showed that the fluctuation in greenwood yield was affected by varying rates of regeneration, exposure to excessive thinning and delays in harvesting. The production of blood cockles around the mudflats of the mangrove forest reserve was determined to be influenced by both timber extraction and natural coastal erosion. An undetected ecological change in the late eighties and anthropogenic disturbances were possible key factors behind the decline in the population of the Milky Stork and migratory shorebirds. The study highlights the importance of understanding and managing the trade-offs between wood production and ecosystem services in a managed mangrove forest and provides an important reference for the future management of the Matang Forest Reserve and other multiple-use wetland forests.

Trends and stability of inland fishery resources in Japanese lakes: introduction of exotic piscivores as a driver.

Although many studies have focused on marine resources, few studies have considered the resources of inland fisheries. Inland fishery resources are typically either monitored on the basis of catch data alone or are not assessed quantitatively at all, despite their social, economic, and ecological importance. Because freshwater ecosystems have been severely degraded by human activities, evaluating the trends and current status of fishery resources and assessing their drivers are urgent tasks. We compiled long-term data on the annual catch, fishing effort, and fishing power of 23 Japanese lakes, using two sets of government statistics that date back to the 1950s, which were previously neglected because of the large number of missing values. Using Bayesian state-space models, we examined the trajectories of the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of entire communities, considering changes in fishing effort and fishing power, and quantified both changes in the CPUE over the 10-, 20-, and 30-year periods preceding 2008 and the temporal detrended stability of the CPUE over the three periods. We also investigated the relationships among the CPUE changes and stability, anthropogenic drivers, and lake morphometric characteristics. The CPUE declined in 17, 19, and 15 of the 23 lakes over the past 10-, 20-, and 30-year periods, respectively. Our macroecological analyses demonstrate that the functional group richness of exotic piscivores was the most important predictor of changes in the CPUE among the drivers we considered. The stability of the CPUE was positively related to lake area; larger lakes have more stable CPUE. The functional group richness of exotic piscivores also negatively affected the stability of the CPUE. The effect of overfishing was considered to be small because both fishing effort and power declined in almost all of the lakes. Thus, our findings suggest that increasing exotic piscivore species may diminish the resources and their stability, particularly in Japanese lakes where native piscivores are rare. This might lead to a substantial decline in ecosystem services. Our study highlights the importance of assessing inland fishery resources in a comprehensive manner and the need for restoration strategies to mitigate the effects of exotic piscivores.

Impacts of forest cover change on ecosystem services in high Andean mountains

Land conversion affects the delivery of ecosystem goods and services. In this study, we used a 50 years time series of land cover maps to assess the potential impacts of forest cover changes on ecosystem services. A multi-source data integration strategy was followed to reduce inconsistencies in land cover change detection that result from the comparison of historical aerial photographs and satellite images. Our forest cover change analysis highlighted a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation in the early 1990s, consistent with the forest transition theory. When taking the nature of forest cover changes into account, our data show that the areal increase of the forested area was not associated with an improvement in ecological conditions. The overall capacity of the landscape to deliver ecosystem services dropped steadily by 16% over the 50 years’ study period. Conversion of native forests to agricultural land was associated with the strongest decline in ecosystem services. Conversion of natural grasslands into pine plantations mostly led to negative and probably irreversible impacts on the delivery of ecosystem services. Conversion of degraded agricultural lands into pine plantations led to an improvement in ecological conditions. An effective spatial targeting of forestation programs has the potential to maximize the environmental benefits that forest plantations may offer while minimizing their environmental harm.

Perceptions of Energy Crop Production by Lay People and Farmers Using the Ecosystem Services Approach

Abstract Perceptions of energy crop production are assessed in this paper. The Görlitz district (Germany) serves as a case study area for this purpose. Semi-structured interviews with farmers and standardized surveys among lay persons were conducted. Many farmers perceive themselves being responsible for providing many ecosystem services. Farmers prefer a regional scale of energy crop cultivation based on conventional crops. Improved legal frameworks and incentives would safeguard equal competition and ecosystem services. Laypersons think that drinking water, food production, biodiversity and pollination are the most important ecosystem services of agricultural landscapes. Providing biomass for renewable energy production is not considered to be an important ecosystem service. Laypersons believe that biomass production should be restricted to fields that are not needed for food production, and the use of residues or landscape management materials. According to laypersons, more money should be spent to halt the decline of ecosystem services.

Spatially explicit perceptions of ecosystem services and land cover change in forested regions of Borneo

Spatially explicit information on local perceptions of ecosystem services is needed to inform land use planning within rapidly changing landscapes. In this paper we spatially modelled local people's use and perceptions of benefits from forest ecosystem services in Borneo, from interviews of 1837 people in 185 villages. Questions related to provisioning, cultural/spiritual, regulating and supporting ecosystem services derived from forest, and attitudes towards forest conversion. We used boosted regression trees (BRTs) to combine interview data with social and environmental predictors to understand spatial variation of perceptions across Borneo. Our results show that people use a variety of products from intact and highly degraded forests. Perceptions of benefits from forests were strongest: in human-altered forest landscapes for cultural and spiritual benefits; in human-altered and intact forests landscapes for health benefits; intact forest for direct health benefits, such as medicinal plants; and in regions with little forest and extensive plantations, for environmental benefits, such as climatic impacts from deforestation. Forest clearing for small scale agriculture was predicted to be widely supported yet less so for large-scale agriculture. Understanding perceptions of rural communities in dynamic, multi-use landscapes is important where people are often directly affected by the decline in ecosystem services.

Assessing the changes in land use and ecosystem services in Changzhou municipality, Peoples’ Republic of China, 1991–2006

Much of the world is experiencing fast urbanization. Many peri-urban open spaces, such as parks, forest, farmland, and wetlands, have been built over, which has resulted in a steep decline of ecosystem services at the municipal and regional levels. Using remote sensing, geography information system (GIS) technology and economic evaluation method for ecosystem services, the evolution of landscape spatial structure in 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006 of Changzhou City, People's Republic of China, was obtained and the change of ecosystem services resulted from land use change was evaluated. Study results show a continuing expansion of urbanized areas and reduction in ecosystem services. Before 2001, farmland was the main type of land use, accounting for more than 53.3% of the total area within the broadly-drawn municipal boundaries. In 2006, farmland and built-up areas were the main land-use types. The built-up area increased by 122% from 1991 to 2006. From 1991 to 2001, the proportion of ecological land (farmland, forests, grasslands, and water-covered areas) within Changzhou's municipal boundaries decreased 24.1%. Based on the observed changes, the economic value of ecosystem services provided by Changzhou's ecological land decreased by 19.3% from 1991 to 2006 and the annual decrease ratio was approximately 1.3%. Conversion of farmland to other uses was responsible for the largest reduction in the value of ecosystem services, equal to 239.8 million RMB (equivalent to USD 37.8 million). Our research results were already adopted locally by Changzhou Municipal Bureau of Urban Planning and applied for Changzhou Mater Urban Planning. The current study can contribute not only to improvements in the Changzhou environment, but to the study of and improvements to other rapidly-urbanizing cities, as the rapid growth of urban areas is one of the most pronounced environmental trends of recent times.

Quantification and valuation of ecosystem services in diverse production systems for informed decision-making

Abstract The empirical evidence of decline in ecosystem services (ES) over the last century has reinforced the call for ES quantification, monitoring and valuation. Usually, only provisioning ES are marketable and accounted for, whereas regulating, supporting and cultural ES are typically non-marketable and overlooked in connection with land-use or management decisions. The objective of this study was to quantify and value total ES (marketable and non-marketable) of diverse production systems and management intensities in Denmark to provide a basis for decisions based on economic values. The production systems were conventional wheat (Cwheat), a combined food and energy (CFE) production system and beech forest. Marketable (provisioning ES) and non-marketable ES (supporting, regulating and cultural) ES were quantified by dedicated on-site field measurements supplemented by literature data. The value of total ES was highest in CFE (US$ 3142 ha −1 yr −1 ) followed by Cwheat (US$ 2767 ha −1 yr −1 ) and beech forest (US$ 2328 ha −1 yr −1 ). As the production system shifted from Cwheat - CFE–beech, the marketable ES share decreased from 88% to 75% in CFE and 55% in beech whereas the non-marketable ES share increased to 12%, 25% and 45% of total ES in Cwheat, CFE and beech respectively, demonstrating production system and management effects on ES values. Total ES valuation, disintegrated into marketable and non-marketable share is a potential way forward to value ES and ‘tune’ our production systems for enhanced ES provision. Such monetary valuation can be used by policy makers and land managers as a tool to assess ES value and monitor the sustained flow of ES. The application of ES-based valuation for land management can enhance ES provision for maintaining the productive capacity of the land without depending on the external fossil-based fertilizer and chemical input.

Integrating biodiversity and conservation with modern agricultural landscapes

To achieve food security and meet the demands of the ever-growing human populations, farming systems have assumed unsustainable practices to produce more from a finite land area. This has been cause for concern mainly due to the often-irreversible damage done to the otherwise productive agricultural landscapes. Agro-ecology is proclaimed to be deteriorating due to eroding integrity of connected ecological mosaics and vulnerability to climate change. This has contributed to declining species diversity, loss of buffer vegetation, fragmentation of habitats, and loss of natural pollinators or predators, which eventually leads to decline in ecosystem services. Currently, a hierarchy of conservation initiatives is being considered to restore ecological integrity of agricultural landscapes. However, the challenge of identifying a suitable conservation strategy is a daunting task in view of socio-ecological factors that may constrain the choice of available strategies. One way to mitigate this situation and integrate biodiversity with agricultural landscapes is to implement offset mechanisms, which are compensatory and balancing approaches to restore the ecological health and function of an ecosystem. This needs to be tailored to the history of location specific agricultural practices, and the social, ecological and environmental conditions. The offset mechanisms can complement other initiatives through which farmers are insured against landscape-level risks such as droughts, fire and floods. For countries in the developing world with significant biodiversity and extensive agriculture, we should promote a comprehensive model of sustainable agricultural landscapes and ecosystem services, replicable at landscape to regional scales. Arguably, the model can be a potential option to sustain the integrity of biodiversity mosaic in agricultural landscapes.

The Wicked Problem of China's Disappearing Coral Reefs

We examined the development of coral reef science and the policies, institutions, and governance frameworks for management of coral reefs in China in order to highlight the wicked problem of preserving reefs while simultaneously promoting human development and nation building. China and other sovereign states in the region are experiencing unprecedented economic expansion, rapid population growth, mass migration, widespread coastal development, and loss of habitat. We analyzed a large, fragmented literature on the condition of coral reefs in China and the disputed territories of the South China Sea. We found that coral abundance has declined by at least 80% over the past 30 years on coastal fringing reefs along the Chinese mainland and adjoining Hainan Island. On offshore atolls and archipelagos claimed by 6 countries in the South China Sea, coral cover has declined from an average of >60% to around 20% within the past 10-15 years. Climate change has affected these reefs far less than coastal development, pollution, overfishing, and destructive fishing practices. Ironically, these widespread declines in the condition of reefs are unfolding as China's research and reef-management capacity are rapidly expanding. Before the loss of corals becomes irreversible, governance of China's coastal reefs could be improved by increasing public awareness of declining ecosystem services, by providing financial support for training of reef scientists and managers, by improving monitoring of coral reef dynamics and condition to better inform policy development, and by enforcing existing regulations that could protect coral reefs. In the South China Sea, changes in policy and legal frameworks, refinement of governance structures, and cooperation among neighboring countries are urgently needed to develop cooperative management of contested offshore reefs.

Land use pattern, socio-economic development, and assessment of their impacts on ecosystem service value: study on natural wetlands distribution area (NWDA) in Fuzhou city, southeastern China

This paper quantifies the allocation of ecosystem services value (ESV) associated with land use pattern and qualitatively examined impacts of land use changes and socio-economic factors on spatiotemporal variation of ESV in the Natural Wetland Distribution Area (NWDA), Fuzhou city, China. The results showed that total ESV of the study area decreased from 4,332.16 × 10(6) RMB Yuan in 1989 to 3,697.42 × 10(6) RMB Yuan in 2009, mainly due to the remarkable decreases in cropland (decreased by 55.3 %) and wetland (decreased by 74.2 %). Forest, water, and wetland played major roles in providing ecosystem services, accounting for over 90 % of the total ESV. Based on time series Landsat TM/ETM+ imagery, geographic information system, and historical data, analysis of the spatiotemporal variation of ESV from 1989 to 2009 was performed. It indicated that rapid expansion of urban areas along the Minjiang River resulted in significant changes in land use types, leading to a dramatic decline in ecosystem services. Meanwhile, because of land scarcity and unique ecosystem functions, the emergency of wetland and cropland protection in built-up area has become an urgent task of local authorities to the local government. Furthermore, there was still a significant negative correlation between ESV of cropland and wetland and the GDP. The results suggest that future planning of land use pattern should control encroachment of urban areas into cropland and wetland in addition to scientific and rational policies towards minimizing the adverse effects of urbanization.