Inclusion Of Ecosystem Services Research Articles

Assessing ecosystem service provision under climate change to support conservation and development planning in Myanmar.

Inclusion of ecosystem services (ES) information into national-scale development and climate adaptation planning has yet to become common practice, despite demand from decision makers. Identifying where ES originate and to whom the benefits flow–under current and future climate conditions–is especially critical in rapidly developing countries, where the risk of ES loss is high. Here, using Myanmar as a case study, we assess where and how ecosystems provide key benefits to the country’s people and infrastructure. We model the supply of and demand for sediment retention, dry-season baseflows, flood risk reduction and coastal storm protection from multiple beneficiaries. We find that locations currently providing the greatest amount of services are likely to remain important under the range of climate conditions considered, demonstrating their importance in planning for climate resilience. Overlap between priority areas for ES provision and biodiversity conservation is higher than expected by chance overall, but the areas important for multiple ES are underrepresented in currently designated protected areas and Key Biodiversity Areas. Our results are contributing to development planning in Myanmar, and our approach could be extended to other contexts where there is demand for national-scale natural capital information to shape development plans and policies.

Ecosystem services: A bridging concept of ecology and economics

Nature is bountiful to all living organisms on Earth including human beings. Human, throughout the life, obtained various benefits from ecosystem for the sustenance on planet Earth. Ecosystem service is a linking concept between ecology and econom- ics recently paying attention worldwide. Economic and social development critically depends on the natural capital although at the environmental cost but need bridging of nature components. In the current scenario, due to increasing anthropogenic interferences ecosystem is under great threat. It is time to include ecosystem services agenda in the framework of policy to human and sustainable development.

Ecological and environmental effects of land use change in rapid urbanization: The case of hangzhou, China

Land use changes sharply under rapid urbanization, yet its ecological and environmental effects are often neglected in land use decisions. Using the case of Hangzhou, China, we analyze the ecological and environmental effects of land use changes, including ecosystem services value (ESV) and carbon emissions, based on Landsat TM images from 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2014. We found significant ecological and environmental effects of land use changes under rapid urbanization. The value of ecosystem services in Hangzhou decreased from 546.7 million USD in 1995 to 448.97 million USD in 2014, and the ratio of ESV to GDP decreased from 5.8% to 0.6%. The net carbon emissions associated with land use changes increased from 4.26 million tons in 1995 to 15.10 million tons in 2014, mainly due to the increase of built-up land carbon emissions and the decrease of forest land carbon sink. The ESV is unevenly distributed spatially and low ESV spread from the central to the peripheral area. We use scenario analysis to illustrate that economic growth and environmental protection could be coordinated by bringing ecological and environmental effects into land use decisions.

The conversion of biodiversity-rich land and ecosystem services

Abstract Biologically diverse land provides ecosystem services to the agricultural sector. The paper develops a general equilibrium model with overlapping generation to explain the long-run dynamics of land conversion. Inclusion of ecosystem services in the production process imposes a limit to the growth of agricultural production. The market’s inability to value ecosystem services generated from biodiversity-rich land leads to inefficient use of biodiversity-rich land. In any period, the amount of land developed in the South depends on the relative size of the younger generation compared to the size of maximum available land. The absence of asset market for old-age savings, low land-clearing costs and low discount rates cause loss of biodiversity-rich land. Tools like land development fees or land taxes and market creation through payment for ecosystem services can conserve the biodiversity.

The water footprint of wood for lumber, pulp, paper, fuel and firewood

This paper presents the first estimate of global water use in the forestry sector related to roundwood production for lumber, pulp, paper, fuel and firewood. For the period 1961–2010, we estimate forest evaporation at a high spatial resolution level and attribute total water consumption to various forest products, including ecosystem services. Global water consumption for roundwood production increased by 25% over 50 years to 961×109 m3/y (96% green; 4% blue) in 2001–2010. The water footprint per m3 of wood is significantly smaller in (sub)tropical forests compared to temperate/boreal forests, because (sub)tropical forests host relatively more value next to wood production in the form of other ecosystem services. In terms of economic water productivity and energy yield from bio-ethanol per unit of water, roundwood is rather comparable with major food, feed and energy crops. Recycling of wood products could effectively reduce the water footprint of the forestry sector, thereby leaving more water available for the generation of other ecosystem services. Intensification of wood production can only reduce the water footprint per unit of wood if the additional wood value per ha outweighs the loss of value of other ecosystem services, which is often not the case in (sub)tropical forests. The results of this study contribute to a more complete picture of the human appropriation of water, thus feeding the debate on water for food or feed versus energy and wood.

On inclusion of ecosystem services in the assessment of damage from land degradation

In the assessment of damage arising from land degradation at the Training and Experimental Soil–Ecological Center of Moscow State University, the cost of unfulfilled and underfulfilled ecosystem surfaces of soils should be taken into account. The following soil services were considered for the territory studied: direct provision with resources, protection, maintenance of ecosystem life and cultural services. A relationship between the concepts of ecosystem services and ecological functions of soils is shown. The concept of function is wider in some respect than the concept associated with it. In the definition of ecosystem service, only the manifestation of the soil function, which can have an economic interpretation, is selected. A simulation of ecosystem services proposed in the ecological and economic evaluation of damage arising from land degradation can be a real mechanism of nature conservation and development of systems of sustainable management at various levels of the administrative structure of the country.

Using ecological production functions to link ecological processes to ecosystem services.

Ecological production functions (EPFs) link ecosystems, stressors, and management actions to ecosystem services (ES) production. Although EPFs are acknowledged as being essential to improve environmental management, their use in ecological risk assessment has received relatively little attention. Ecological production functions may be defined as usable expressions (i.e., models) of the processes by which ecosystems produce ES, often including external influences on those processes. We identify key attributes of EPFs and discuss both actual and idealized examples of their use to inform decision making. Whenever possible, EPFs should estimate final, rather than intermediate, ES. Although various types of EPFs have been developed, we suggest that EPFs are more useful for decision making if they quantify ES outcomes, respond to ecosystem condition, respond to stressor levels or management scenarios, reflect ecological complexity, rely on data with broad coverage, have performed well previously, are practical to use, and are open and transparent. In an example using pesticides, we illustrate how EPFs with these attributes could enable the inclusion of ES in ecological risk assessment. The biggest challenges to ES inclusion are limited data sets that are easily adapted for use in modeling EPFs and generally poor understanding of linkages among ecological components and the processes that ultimately deliver the ES. We conclude by advocating for the incorporation into EPFs of added ecological complexity and greater ability to represent the trade-offs among ES. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:52-61. © 2016 SETAC.

Floral biodiversity of allotment gardens and its contribution to urban green infrastructure

Allotment gardens are a key feature of the urban landscape, providing numerous benefits beyond those of food production. These include ecosystem services such as local climate modification, pollination, and providing a pleasant location for socialising. The biodiversity of flora underpins many of these ecosystem services. The aims of this study are to assess the spontaneous vascular flora of urban allotment gardens and derive estimates of the species richness and diversity. In doing so, the specific position of allotment gardens within urban green infrastructure will be revealed and the role of allotment users in shaping local biodiversity determined. 358 species of spontaneous flora were recorded in 11 representative allotment garden estates (total area 150 ha) in Poznan, Poland. Fourteen biodiversity features were taken into account. The investigated areas exhibited high plant species richness, high diversity, low synanthropisation level, and contained valuable geobotanical elements, including plants of key importance for the European Community. For these reasons, allotment gardens should be considered as biodiversity hotspots for native species within urban green infrastructure. Based on an analysis of the spatial and functional organization of 110 individual plots, four types of usage, and corresponding plant diversity have been distinguished. The composition of the flora depends mostly on spatial and functional organization of allotment gardens and, to a much lesser extent, on the habitat conditions, which on individual plots varied very little. The high species richness and diversity in allotment gardens has important consequences for urban planning.

Investigating the inclusion of ecosystem services in biodiversity offsetting

In response to growing international interest regarding the consideration of ecosystem services (ES) in the framework of biodiversity offsetting (BO) and the current lack of guidelines on the subject, we investigated the potential inclusion of ES in BO, highlighting the risks and opportunities. Our argument is premised on the assumption that a practical link already exists between the two and that most of the tools required to make this approach operational are available. But so far, ES are not explicitly taken into account when calculating and designing offsets (whether regulatory or voluntary). One way to integrate ES in BO is to use the Environmental Impact Assessments' framework, here we propose a logical way to integrate ES at each step of the implementation of the mitigation hierarchy and provide details on the links with existing practice. In our proposal, the inclusion of ES is presented as a way to complement current approaches based on the assessment of habitats/species/ecological functions rather than to replace them. We argue that measures proposed to offset biodiversity losses, in addition to respecting ecological performance standards, should equally be chosen to minimize residual losses of ES. The latter require offsetting by different types of complementary measures. Implementing these recommendations as good practice should strengthen the weight of biodiversity, demonstrate consideration of social equity, and result in better acceptance of development projects and the measures proposed to offset them.

Effects of budget constraints on conservation network design for biodiversity and ecosystem services

Limited budgets and budget cuts hamper the development of effective biodiversity conservation networks. Optimizing the spatial configuration of conservation networks given such budget constraints remains challenging. Systematic conservation planning addresses this challenge. Systematic conservation planning can integrate both biodiversity and ecosystem services as conservation targets, and hence address the challenge to operationalize ecosystem services as an anthropocentric argument for conservation. We create two conservation scenarios to expand the current conservation network in the Dutch province of Limburg. One scenario focuses on biodiversity only and the other integrates biodiversity and ecosystem services. We varied conservation budgets in these scenarios and used the software Marxan to assess differences in the resulting network configurations. In addition, we tested the network’s cost-effectiveness by allocating a conservation budget either in one or in multiple steps. We included twenty-nine biodiversity surrogates and five ecosystem services. The inclusion of ecosystem services to expand Limburg’s conservation network only moderately changed prioritized areas, compared to only conserving biodiversity. Network expansion in a single time-step is more efficient in terms of compactness and cost-effectiveness than implementing it in multiple time-steps. Therefore, to cost-effectively plan conservation networks, the full budget should ideally be available before the plans are implemented. We show that including ecosystem services to cost-effectively expand conservation networks can simultaneously encourage biodiversity conservation and stimulate the protection of conservation-compatible ecosystem services.

Environmental impacts of food consumption and nutrition: where are we and what is next?

This article introduces the special issue “LCA of nutrition and food consumption” and 14 papers selected from the Ninth LCA Food Conference in San Francisco in October 2014. The scientific literature in the field of food LCA has increased more than ten times during the last 15 years. Nutrition has a high contribution to the total environmental impacts of consumption. Agricultural production often dominates the impacts, but its importance depends on the type of product, its production mode, transport, and processing. Local or domestic products reduce transports, but this advantage can be lost if the impacts of the raw material production are substantially increased. Diets containing less meat tend to be more environmentally friendly. Several studies concluded that respecting the dietary recommendations for a healthy diet would reduce the overall environmental impacts in the developed countries, although this is not a universal conclusion. Eight papers analyze the environmental impacts of catering and in-house food consumption and impacts on sectoral and national levels; four papers presents tools and methods to better assess the impacts of nutrition and to implement the results in practical decision-making. Finally, two contributions analyze the impacts of food waste and reduction options. (i) Comprehensive assessment. Most studies only analyze climate impacts, although data, methods, and tools are readily available for a more comprehensive analysis. (ii) Assessment of sustainability. The social dimension remains the weakest pillar. (iii) Data availability is still an obstacle, but significant progress has been made in recent years. (iv) Lack of harmonization of methodologies makes comparisons among studies difficult. (v) Land use. Enhanced consideration of land use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services is required in LCA. (vi) Defining the functional unit including nutritional aspects, food security, and health needs further work. (vii) Consumer behavior. Its impacts are still little assessed. (viii) Communication of the environmental impact assessment results to stakeholders including policy-makers and consumers needs additional efforts. (i) Development of holistic approaches for the assessment of sustainable food systems, (ii) assessment of land use related impacts and inclusion of ecosystem services, (iii) exploration of LCA results for policy support and decision-making, (iv) investigation of food consumption patterns in developing and emerging countries, and (v) harmonization of databases.

GlobeLand30 as an alternative fine-scale global land cover map: Challenges, possibilities, and implications for developing countries

Global land cover maps are a vital source for mapping our globe into a set of thematic types. They have been extensively used as a basis layer for a large number of applications including ecosystem services, environmental planning, climate change, hydrological processes and policy making. While regional land cover maps for some areas such as Europe and North America has been greatly developed and very few temporal datasets exist, lack of such data for some regions specifically developing countries is evident. Although it seems global land cover maps such as MODIS could be a solution for mapping these regions, their coarse spatial resolution e.g., 500 m as well as their accuracy are very challenging. Recently, GlobeLand30 a global land cover with a relatively fine resolution at 30 m extracted from Landsat images has been released, which seems to be a potential dataset for mapping areas with limited land cover information such as developing countries. In this study, we look at GlobeLand30 of 2010 for Iran in order to find out the accuracy of this dataset as well as its implications. By having looked at 6 selected study sites around larger cities representing dissimilar eco-regions covering rural and urban areas, we conclude that the overall accuracy of GlobeLand30 with 77.9% was satisfactory for entire Iran. We also define six representative eco-regions dominated by diverse land type mixtures considering the administrative boundaries. The detailed implications of this dataset for developing different applications as well as informing regional policy makers are discussed.

Using assessment of net ecosystem services to promote sustainability of golf course in China

Golf courses have been shown to have a positive impact on local biodiversity, quality of life and the economy. However, the impacts of golf courses on local environment, including ecosystem services and dis-services are not clearly understood. To explore this relationship, we took two golf courses in Beijing (a links course and a parkland course) to develop an assessment framework and present estimates of economic values of net ecosystem services, in aspects of ecosystem goods, carbon fixation, soil retention, flood storage, recreation, water consumption and nonpoint-source pollution. The results showed that the two golf courses have provided remarkable net ecosystem services values (links 51.58×104yuan/ha/yr, parkland 42.60×104yuan/ha/yr, 6.19yuan=1US$ in 2013). Over 95% of this value is generated by three services: recreation, ecosystem goods and flood storage. Our results indicate that the parkland course has better performance in sustainable supply of ecosystem services than the links course. In addition, this study provides useful improvements for golf course design and management concerning positive environmental externalities optimizing, including the scaling of non-playing areas to maximize golf course ecosystem services supply capacity, appropriate grass species selecting and irrigation with recycled water. Moreover, a policy analysis suggests that the development of public golf course in China is a necessary complement to resolve the mismatch between private and public benefits and let more people enjoy the ecosystem services.

Opportunity cost of water allocation to afforestation rather than conservation of natural vegetation in China

Estimation of ecosystem service values is a hot area of research in ecological conservation and economics. However, the costs of these outputs are largely unknown. In this paper, we estimated the opportunity cost of water allocated to afforestation projects through mathematical modeling based on statistical data for all of China to provide support for restoration planning based on a fuller consideration of the true costs. To guide future ecological conservation and environmental policy development, we illustrate a neglected concept (ecosystem service costs) and use this concept to compare the ecological services provided by ecological restoration based on afforestation with those of restoration based on the conservation of natural vegetation using data obtained since 1949 in China. The results showed that afforestation and natural vegetation create annual costs related to use of the available water resources equal to 4800 and 3700 RMBha−1, respectively, representing a water opportunity cost of 1100 RMBha−1 for afforestation. This illustrates the rule that “there is no free lunch” for any service, including ecosystem services. Therefore, to support the development of more effective and sustainable environmental restoration policy, it will be necessary to evaluate the associated opportunity costs.

Mapping Ecological Processes and Ecosystem Services for Prioritizing Restoration Efforts in a Semi-arid Mediterranean River Basin

Semi-arid Mediterranean regions are highly susceptible to desertification processes which can reduce the benefits that people obtain from healthy ecosystems and thus threaten human wellbeing. The European Union Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 recognizes the need to incorporate ecosystem services into land-use management, conservation, and restoration actions. The inclusion of ecosystem services into restoration actions and plans is an emerging area of research, and there are few documented approaches and guidelines on how to undertake such an exercise. This paper responds to this need, and we demonstrate an approach for identifying both key ecosystem services provisioning areas and the spatial relationship between ecological processes and services. A degraded semi-arid Mediterranean river basin in north east Spain was used as a case study area. We show that the quantification and mapping of services are the first step required for both optimizing and targeting of specific local areas for restoration. Additionally, we provide guidelines for restoration planning at a watershed scale; establishing priorities for improving the delivery of ecosystem services at this scale; and prioritizing the sub-watersheds for restoration based on their potential for delivering a combination of key ecosystem services for the entire basin.

Adding ecosystem services to environmental impact analyses: More sequins on a “bloated Elvis” or rockin' idea?

Ecologists and economists have promoted the concept of ecosystem services as a means of assisting environmental decision-making. Currently, several U.S. federal agencies and international institutions are incorporating the ecosystem services approach into their decision-making processes. Since 1999, the concept has been included in guidance documents for environmental impact assessments under the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). More recently, the U.S. Forest Service approved a Planning Rule to include ecosystem services in Forest Plans. However, some people already describe the U.S. Forest Service NEPA process as cumbersome, which might be compounded by adding new layers of analysis. To assess the potential of incorporating ecosystem services into land management decisions, we surveyed over 500 U.S. Forest Service professionals about incorporating ecosystem services in environmental impact analysis processes. Our goal was to determine (a) whether and how the ecosystem services concept is currently used in Forest Service NEPA analyses, (b) staff perceptions about how influential NEPA guidance documents are, and (c) whether respondents think that the ecosystem services concept is useful in NEPA processes (and more broadly in environmental decision-making). Forty-one percent of respondents were unfamiliar with ecosystem services, but a majority of the respondents thought that ecosystem services could be helpful in the NEPA process. Opinions were divided about whether or not ecosystem services would improve communication with stakeholders. One finding with potentially broad implications for executive branch policy-making is that survey results indicate that U.S. Forest Service staff found Environmental Protection Agency and Council on Environmental Quality guidance documents less influential than internal Forest Service directives. At the same time, the guidance documents that include ecosystem services language were the least influential among the guidance documents listed in the survey. Applying the results as a case study to advance ecosystem services scholarship, we suggest clarification of the ecosystem services framework, metrics, and guidance.

Conserving Agrobiodiversity amid Global Change, Migration, and Nontraditional Livelihood Networks: the Dynamic Uses of Cultural Landscape Knowledge

Zimmerer, K. S. 2014. Conserving agrobiodiversity amid global change, migration, and nontraditional livelihood networks: the dynamic uses of cultural landscape knowledge. Ecology and Society 19(2): 1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06316-190201

Boom and bust of a moose population: a call for integrated forest management

There is increasing pressure to manage forests for multiple objectives, including ecosystem services and biodiversity, alongside timber production. However, few forests are currently co-managed for timber and wildlife, despite potential economic and conservation benefits. We present empirical data from a commercial Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) production system in southern Norway in which moose (Alces alces) are an important secondary product. Combining long-term hunting and forestry records, we identified temporal variation in clear-felling over the past five decades, peaking in the 1970s. Herbicide treatment of regenerating stands and a fivefold increase in moose harvest has lead to a reduction in availability of successional forest per moose of >90 % since the 1960s. Field estimates showed that spraying with the herbicide glyphosate reduced forage availability by 60 and 96 % in summer and winter, respectively, 4 years after treatment. It also reduced moose use and habitat selection of young spruce stands compared with unsprayed stands. Together these lines of evidence suggest that forest management led to an increase in moose carrying capacity during the 1970s and a subsequent decline thereafter. This is likely to have contributed to observed reductions in moose population productivity in southern Norway and is counter to sustainable resource management. We therefore call for better integration and long-term planning between forestry and wildlife management to minimise forest damage and the development of large fluctuations in ungulate populations.

The EBM-DPSER Conceptual Model: Integrating Ecosystem Services into the DPSIR Framework

There is a pressing need to integrate biophysical and human dimensions science to better inform holistic ecosystem management supporting the transition from single species or single-sector management to multi-sector ecosystem-based management. Ecosystem-based management should focus upon ecosystem services, since they reflect societal goals, values, desires, and benefits. The inclusion of ecosystem services into holistic management strategies improves management by better capturing the diversity of positive and negative human-natural interactions and making explicit the benefits to society. To facilitate this inclusion, we propose a conceptual model that merges the broadly applied Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR) conceptual model with ecosystem services yielding a Driver, Pressure, State, Ecosystem service, and Response (EBM-DPSER) conceptual model. The impact module in traditional DPSIR models focuses attention upon negative anthropomorphic impacts on the ecosystem; by replacing impacts with ecosystem services the EBM-DPSER model incorporates not only negative, but also positive changes in the ecosystem. Responses occur as a result of changes in ecosystem services and include inter alia management actions directed at proactively altering human population or individual behavior and infrastructure to meet societal goals. The EBM-DPSER conceptual model was applied to the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas marine ecosystem as a case study to illustrate how it can inform management decisions. This case study captures our system-level understanding and results in a more holistic representation of ecosystem and human society interactions, thus improving our ability to identify trade-offs. The EBM-DPSER model should be a useful operational tool for implementing EBM, in that it fully integrates our knowledge of all ecosystem components while focusing management attention upon those aspects of the ecosystem most important to human society and does so within a framework already familiar to resource managers.

Assessment of private economic benefits and positive environmental externalities of tea plantation in China

Tea plantations are rapidly expanding in China and other countries in the tropical and subtropical zones, driven by relatively high private economic benefit. However, the impact of tea plantations on the regional environment, including ecosystem services and disservices are unclear. In this study, we developed an assessment framework for determining the private economic benefits and environmental externalities (the algebraic sum of the regulating services and disservices) of tea plantations in China. Our results showed that tea plantations provided private economic benefits of 5,652yuanha(-1)year(-1) (7.6yuan = 1 USD in 2007) for tea farmers, plus positive environmental externalities of 6,054yuanha(-1)year(-1) for the society. The environmental externalities were calculated as the sum of the value of four regulating services, including carbon sequestration (392yuanha(-1)year(-1)); soil retention (72yuanha(-1)year(-1)); soil fertility protection (3,189yuanha(-1)year(-1)) and water conservation (2,685yuanha(-1)year(-1)), and three disservices, including CO2 emission (-39yuanha(-1)year(-1)), N2O emission (-137yuanha(-1)year(-1)) and nonpoint source pollution (-108yuanha(-1)year(-1)). Before the private optimal level, the positive environmental externalities can be maintained by private economic benefits; if a social optimal level is required, subsidies from government are necessary.