Marine Ecosystem Services Research Articles

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services.

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well‐being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade‐offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade‐offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well‐being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key‐informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.

Marine ecosystem services in the Northern Mozambique Channel: A geospatial and socio-economic analysis for policy support

The Northern Mozambique Channel hosts one of the world’s most outstanding terrestrial and marine biodiversity-rich areas. So far, the region has been only moderately impacted by human activities but rapidly evolving socio-economic pressures call for sustainable management of the region’s ecosystem service flows, which play a key role in supporting coastal livelihoods. In this paper, economic valuation and geospatial analysis are first combined to provide estimates of the economic values of key coastal and marine ecosystem services in the region, which are then aggregated at the administrative level. This enables an assessment of not just absolute country performance with respect to the provision of the ecosystem service in question but relative performance compared to its peers. The investigated services are coastal tourism, coastal recreation, fishing, mariculture, carbon sequestration and coastal protection. Second, we use the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework and multi-criteria analysis to investigate the elicited economic values in the context of policy-relevant indicators of biodiversity, poverty, institutional responses, pressures and drivers of environmental change. The results demonstrate great diversity among provinces and countries in the region. Finally, the study’s contribution to guide decision makers towards a sustainable growth path in the region is discussed, including the prioritization of areas for conservation.

A Benthic Zonation System as a Fundamental Tool for Natural Capital Assessment in a Marine Environment: A Case Study in the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy

Coastal marine areas are characterized by the highest values of ecosystem services and by multiple uses that are often in conflict with each other. Natural capital analysis is claimed to be a valid tool to support space planning. In the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) of the European Union (EU), the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) Scientific and Policy Report 2014 defines the monitoring of specific descriptors and their possible use, based on an ecosystem-services approach. Mediterranean marine ecosystems are characterized by high biodiversity and the presence of relevant benthic biocenosis that can be used as a tool to support coastal planning, conservation, and monitoring programs. In this study, we considered the Mediterranean benthic biocenosis, as classified by Pérès and Picard, as a working tool and propose a basic spatial unit for the assessment of marine ecosystem services. Focusing on a high-resolution local-scale analysis, this work presents an accurate identification of the different biocenoses for the coastal area of Civitavecchia in the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy, and ecosystem services, as well as a benefits assessment, of the Posidonia oceanica meadows.

A preliminary assessment of the indicators for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”

The SDGs are intended to address sustainable development processes in both developed and developing countries, and to facilitate action at all levels and with all actors, including government, civil society, the private sector and the science community. The SDG 14 covers, among other features, economic pressures on the marine environment and takes into account the specificities of coastal communities. This paper reviews the rational for the SDG 14, as well as the framework for the SDG 14 indicators including (i) some basic concepts such as the role of uncertainty, irreversibility and thresholds in the marine context, and the multidimensionality of the indicators; (ii) synergies and trade-offs among the SDG 14 targets, and between SDG 14 and other SDGs targets, and how to track progress on policy coherence at the national level; (iii) synergies between SDG 14 indicators, and Millennium Development Goals’ and Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ targets and indicators; and (iv) the role of big data. Indicators at the global and national scales (France) are also explored. To conclude, there are challenges and opportunities for future research in this area such as the development of indicators building on the frontiers of ocean science, the development of innovative approaches for data collection, the development of common approaches in valuing marine ecosystem services and national accounting, the provision of incentives for best practice and peer-learning, the harmonisation of measurement methodologies and the selection of SDG 14 indicators according to the geographical level of intervention.

The interplay between economics, legislative power and social influence examined through a social-ecological framework for marine ecosystems services

In the last 15 years, conservation has shifted increasingly towards perspectives based on the instrumental value of nature, where what counts is what provides benefits to humans. The ecosystem services framework embraces this vision of nature through monetary valuation of the environment to correct market failures and government distortions that hinder efficient allocation of public goods, including goods and services provided by biodiversity and ecosystems. The popularity of this approach is reflected in different countries legislation; for instance, US, EU and UK have introduced economic criteria for comparing costs and benefits of environmental policies in protecting ecosystem services.From an operational perspective, the ecosystem services framework requires ecologists to estimate how the supply of services is affected by changes in the functionality and/or the extent of ecosystems; and economists to identify how changes in the supply affect the flow of direct and indirect benefits to people. However, this approach may be simplistic when faced with the complexity of social-ecological systems. We investigated this for three different marine services: assimilative capacity of waste, coastal defense and renewable energy. We find that economic valuation could provide efficient and fair allocations in the case of assimilative capacity, but leads to social clashes between outputs generated by cost benefit analysis and citizens' expectation in the case of coastal defense. In the case of renewable energy, controversies can be generated by regulatory mechanisms that are not necessarily aligned with the interests of industry or important social groups. We conclude that there is a need to integrate perspectives arising from utilitarian allocation of resources with those involving legislation and communal values in order to reconcile conflicting interests and better sustain marine social-ecological systems.

Zooplankton monitoring to contribute towards addressing global biodiversity conservation challenges.

Oceanographers have an increasing responsibility to ensure that the outcomes of scientific research are conveyed to the policy-making sphere to achieve conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity. Zooplankton monitoring projects have helped to increase our understanding of the processes by which marine ecosystems respond to climate change and other environmental variations, ranging from regional to global scales, and its scientific value is recognized in the contexts of fisheries, biodiversity and global change studies. Nevertheless, zooplankton data have rarely been used at policy level for conservation and management of marine ecosystems services. One way that this can be pragmatically and effectively achieved is via the development of zooplankton indicators, which could for instance contribute to filling in gaps in the suite of global indicators to track progress against the Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the United Nations Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2010–2020. This article begins by highlighting how under-represented the marine realm is within the current suite of global Aichi Target indicators. We then examine the potential to develop global indicators for relevant Aichi Targets, using existing zooplankton monitoring data, to address global biodiversity conservation challenges.

Ecosystem services provision today and in the past: a comparative study in two Baltic lagoons

The European Biodiversity Strategy asks EU Member States for an assessment, mapping and valuing of Ecosystem Services (ES). While terrestrial ES concept is advanced and different tools are available, they are largely lacking for coastal and marine systems. We develop a stepwise methodological process to assess ES in coastal and marine systems which we name Marine Ecosystem Services Assessment Tool. We applied it to two large Baltic lagoons, the Szczecin and the Curonian Lagoons demonstrating a quantitative and qualitative assessment approach. Firstly, an initial status is defined reflecting, according to the European Water Framework Directive, a past situation when the ecosystems where in a so called good ecological state. In both Baltic lagoons, this refers to a situation around 1960. Secondly, a present state is defined, assessed and compared to the initial status. Increasing anthropogenic impacts in Szczecin Lagoon caused an overall decrease ecological status which may influence the system’s ability to provide services. Assessing ES changes semi-quantitatively via 39 indicators and 22 services, we show a decrease in provisioning and regulating and maintenance and an increase of cultural services’ provision. According to 15 expert valuations, the Curonian Lagoon displays no changes in provisioning but an increase in regulating and maintenance and cultural service provision. We discuss how these results can serve different marine management approaches and support different polices. Through our application we show how the tool can be used to assess ES changes over time and thus provide key information on sustainable use and ES for future generations.

Evaluation of Ecological and Environmental Benefits of Sea Utilization

In recent years, with the rapid development of China’s marine economy, the value of the marine ecological environment has been paid more and more attention. Based on the concept of eco-environmental benefit, this paper analyzes the difference between marine ecological benefit and marine ecosystem service value, and discusses the necessity of evaluating marine ecological benefits from the perspective of comprehensive benefit, and an ecological benefit index is put forward. It is concluded that: ecological benefit of sea utilization is not equal to the value of marine ecosystem service. The concept of ecological benefit is better to be applied to determine the type sea utilization in marine spatial planning. Ecological benefit of sea utilization needs to be evaluated from the perspective of comprehensive benefits. Ecological benefit in different regions can be compared using the ecological benefit index from the perspective of comprehensive benefits.

Addressing cumulative effects, maritime conflicts and ecosystem services threats through MSP-oriented geospatial webtools

To solve conservation and planning challenges in the marine environment, researchers are increasingly developing geospatial tools to address impacts of anthropogenic activities on marine biodiversity. The paper presents a comprehensive set of built-in geospatial webtools to support Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) and environmental management objectives implemented into the Tools4MSP interoperable GeoPlatform. The webtools include cumulative effects assessment (CEA), maritime use conflict (MUC) analysis, MSFD pressure-driven CEA and a CEA-based marine ecosystem service threat analysis (MES-Threat). The tools are tested for the Northern Adriatic (NA) Sea, one of the most industrialized sea areas of Europe using a case study driven modelling strategy. Overall results show that coastal areas within 0–9 nm in the Gulf of Trieste, Grado-Marano and Venice lagoon and Po Delta outlet are subjected to intense cumulative effects and high sea use conflicts mainly from port activities, fishery, coastal and maritime tourism and maritime shipping. Linking MES into CEA provided novel information on locally threatened high MES supporting and provisioning habitats such Cymodocea beds and infralittoral fine sands, threats to cultural MES are most pronounced in coastal areas. Results are discussed for their geospatial relevance for regional planning, resource management and their applicability within MSP and environmental assessment.

The interplay between fish farming and nature based recreation-tourism in Southern Chile: A perception approach

Nature based tourism, ecotourism and other types of recreation are an intangible cultural marine ecosystem services. Due to its geographical conditions, Southern Chile has been worldwide-recognised site by its nature based tourism attraction. Fish farming has had since 1980’s a consistent development in the region with jumps and bumps, but still occupying a dominant role in the region’s economy. Previous reports about perceptions from entrepreneurs of the tourism sector claim that they are living a confrontational reality against aquaculture. The WTP modelling results suggest a general disposition of the tourists to pay some money to avoid further negative environmental impacts on the ecosystem services they enjoy and positively correlated with income. The wealthier is the tourist, the higher is the disposition to pay to avoid. Results from our survey indicate that the majority (67%) of tourists has a negative environmental perception of fish farming activities, while almost half (47%) of the tourists recognise the importance of aquaculture for the economy of coastal communities. Public policies and particularly spatial regional planning should consider the high level of negative interaction showed from this results in order to allow both activities to develop in equity of opportunities.

Designing a framework for marine ecosystem assets accounting

Marine ecosystem assets accounting is a cornerstone of the marine resource assets management; however, it is facing an imperfect accounting system in the current situation. Based on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) Experimental Ecosystem Accounting, this paper initially combines the key concepts, the objectives, the extent, and the tabular structure in measuring the ecosystem assets. Subsequently, with the marine ecosystems as the research object, this paper attempts to design the accounting tables for the marine ecosystems extent, marine ecosystems conditions and the expected service flows of the marine ecosystems in physical terms. Furthermore, the technical issues such as trade-off, pricing and the choice of asset discount rate on expected marine ecosystem services are explored. With the accounting of the expected marine ecosystem services in monetary terms, the calculation of the marine ecosystem assets using the net present value method is possible, and the marine ecosystem assets accounts can be compiled. Finally, this paper proposes the existing challenges and directs the need for further research in designing the framework of marine ecosystem assets accounts.

Linking Marine Ecosystem Services to the North Sea’s Energy Fields in Transnational Marine Spatial Planning

Marine spatial planning temporally and spatially allocates marine resources to different users. The ecosystem approach aims at optimising the social and economic benefits people derive from marine resources while preserving the ecosystem’s health. Marine ecosystem services are defined as the benefits people obtain from marine ecosystems. The aim of this study is to determine which interrelations between marine ecosystem services and the marine energy industry can be identified for use in transnational marine spatial planning exemplified in the North Sea region. As the North Sea is one of the busiest seas worldwide, the risk of impairing the ecosystems through anthropogenic pressures is high. Drawing on a literature-based review, 23 marine ecosystem services provided by the North Sea region were defined and linked to seven offshore energy fields comprising oil and natural gas, wind, tides and currents, waves, salinity gradients, algal biomass, and geothermal heat. The interactions were divided into four categories: dependence, impact, bidirectional, or no interaction. Oil and natural gas, as well as algae biomass, are the fields with the most relations with marine ecosystem services while waves and salinity gradients exhibit the least. Some marine ecosystem services (Conditions for Infrastructure, Regulation of Water Flows, and Cognitive Development) are needed for all fields; Recreation and Tourism, Aesthetic and Cultural Perceptions and Traditions, Cognitive Development, and Sea Scape are impacted by all fields. The results of this research provide an improved basis for an ecosystem approach in transnational marine spatial planning.

Diet composition uncertainty determines impacts on fisheries following an oil spill

Oil spills can disrupt marine and coastal ecosystem services leading to reduced employment opportunities and income. Ecosystem models can be used to estimate the effects of oil pollution; however, uncertainty in model predictions may influence damage assessment. We performed an uncertainty analysis for the Atlantis ecosystem model of the Gulf of Mexico (Atlantis-GOM), under a scenario simulating the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Atlantis-GOM simulates major biophysical processes, including the effects of oil hydrocarbons on fish growth and mortality. We used all available fish stomach content data to inform parameter distribution for the Atlantis-GOM availability matrix, which represents predator total consumption potential and diet preference. We sampled the fish diet composition distribution and analyzed the variability of functional group biomass and catch predicted by Atlantis-GOM simulations to changes in the availability matrix. Resulting biomass and catch were then used to fit statistical emulators of the ecosystem model and predict biomass and catch given the complete diet parameter space. We used simulated and emulated data to assess changes in recovery time to oil spill effects. Uncertainty in diet composition had large effects on model outputs and may, therefore, influence damage assessment of oil exposure on economically important species.

Mapping the global distribution of locally-generated marine ecosystem services: The case of the West and Central Pacific Ocean tuna fisheries

Ecosystem service (ES) maps are instrumental for the assessment and communication of the costs and benefits of human-nature interactions. Yet, despite the increased understanding that we live a globalized tele-coupled world where such interactions extend globally, ES maps are usually place-based and fail to depict the global flows of locally produced ES. We aim to shift the way ES maps are developed by bringing global value chains into ES assessments. We propose and apply a conceptual framework that integrates ES provision principles, with value chain analysis and human well-being assessment methods, while considering the spatial dimension of these components in ES mapping. We apply this framework to the case of seafood provision from purse seine tuna fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The ES maps produced demonstrate the flow of a marine ES to a series of global beneficiaries via different trade and mobility pathways. We identify three types of flows – one to one, closed loop and open loop. We emphasize the need to consider a series of intermediate beneficiaries in ES mapping despite the lack of data. We highlight the need for a shift in ES mapping, to better include global commodity flows, across spatial scales.

Interdisciplinary knowledge exchange across scales in a globally changing marine environment.

The effects of anthropogenic global environmental change on biotic and abiotic processes have been reported in aquatic systems across the world. Complex synergies between concurrent environmental stressors and the resilience of the system to regime shifts, which vary in space and time, determine the capacity for marine systems to maintain structure and function with global environmental change. Consequently, an interdisciplinary approach that facilitates the development of new methods for the exchange of knowledge between scientists across multiple scales is required to effectively understand, quantify and predict climate impacts on marine ecosystem services. We use a literature review to assess the limitations and assumptions of current pathways to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge and the transferability of research findings across spatial and temporal scales and levels of biological organization to advance scientific understanding of global environmental change in marine systems. We found that species-specific regional scale climate change research is most commonly published, and "supporting" is the ecosystem service most commonly referred to in publications. In addition, our paper outlines a trajectory for the future development of integrated climate change science for sustaining marine ecosystem services such as investment in interdisciplinary education and connectivity between disciplines.

Analysis of forty years long changes in coastal land use and land cover of the Yellow Sea: The gains or losses in ecosystem services

The drastic land cover change and its impacts in the Yellow Sea have long been significant issues in terms of coastal vulnerabilities, but holistic data analysis is limited. The present study first reports 40 years long geographical changes of the Yellow Sea coasts including all three neighboring countries of China, North Korea, and South Korea. We delineated tidal flats by analysis of Landsat series satellite imageries (662 scenes) between 1981 and 2016. A total area of the Yellow Sea tidal flats has been considerably reducing for the past 36 years, from ∼10,500 km2 (1980s) to ∼6700 km2 (2010s), say ∼1% annual loss. A majority loss of tidal flats was mainly due to the grand reclamations that conducted in almost entire coast of the Yellow Sea, particularly concentrated in the 1990s-2000s. Coastal reclaimed area during the past four decades reached ∼9700 km2, including ongoing and planned projects, which corresponds to over half the area of precedent natural tidal flats of the Yellow Sea. The potential carbon stocks in the eight representative regions with large scale reclamation indicated significant loss in carbon sink capacity in the South Korea's coast (∼99%), while evidenced a lesser loss from the China's coast (∼31%). It was noteworthy that the progradation of tidal flats after the reclamation in China's coast significantly reduced the loss of carbon sequestration. According to the ecosystem services valuation for the Yellow Sea, a total loss was estimated as ∼8 billion USD yr−1 with relatively high proportional loss (up to 25%) of climate regulating services (viz., carbon sequestration). Overall, huge losses in ecosystem services being provided by the Yellow Sea natural tidal flats need immediate action to prevent or at least alleviate accelerating ecological deteriorations. Finally, future conservative policy direction on coastal wetlands management has been proposed towards enhancement of marine ecosystem services.

Gathering society's opinion of the sustainable management and economic value of the coastal zone

AbstractThis study explores people's perceptions of marine ecosystem services and sustainable coastal zone management. More specifically, it investigates the relationship between respondents' attitudes and motives for placing economic value on the coastal zone, expressing their intention to pay for coastal zone quality improvement. Primary data were obtained from a sample of 468 people living on the coastline of the Pagasitikos Gulf. Respondents' attitude was measured using questions that include issues related to the marine ecosystem. Our empirical findings reveal that ‘people's responsibility’ and respondents' perception of ‘endangered species’ are the main factors explaining their attitude towards the marine environment. In a second stage, we explore the relationship between people's intention to pay for coastal zone quality improvement in the region and ‘people's responsibility’.

The marine ecosystem services values for China based on the emergy analysis method

The purpose of this research is to acquire knowledge and understanding of the value of marine ecosystem services in China's coastal regions. This evaluation involved combining existing research results, based on the theory of ecosystem services and emergy analysis, estimating marine ecosystem services values in 11 coastal provinces and cities for each year from 2005 to 2014, and analyzing the changes in marine ecosystem services values over time and across regions. The results showed that the values had in general increased during the time the study was conducted, and that Hainan, Guangdong, and Shandong accounted for most of the value. Applying the Theil index to analyze the regional differences of China's coastal marine ecosystem services values, we found that these disparities had shrunk; intra-region disparities were the primary cause of this shrinkage, but the developments of marine ecosystem services values of both intra- and inter-regions were unbalanced. Changes in the marine ecosystem services structure in China's coastal regions from 2005 to 2014 were analyzed using the information entropy theory. Over time, the information entropy and equilibrium degree of China's coastal marine ecosystem services structure consistently showed a fluctuating uptrend; across regions, the information entropy of the marine ecosystem services in the 11 coastal provinces and cities had larger discrepancies. Our results reveal emergy analysis is a helpful method for assessing marine ecosystem services, and our database can serve as a basis for more studies the future. Our research has also revealed the problems existing in the development of marine ecosystem services in China, such as the imbalance in the development of marine ecosystem service values between regions and the differences in the degree of development of various services, which is crucial to the future development of the ocean.

Ocean futures: Exploring stakeholders' perceptions of adaptive capacity to changing marine environments in Northern Norway

Globally, the projected increase in sea surface temperature is expected to facilitate large changes in the marine food web, affect coastal communities, marine ecosystem goods and services, global fisheries, tourism, aquaculture and others. This ongoing change takes place on different time scales, and coincides with increasing global demand for seafood, a growing middle class, and expectations of future need for food security from the marine sector. This article contributes to advances in climate change research by exploring, within the context of the results of the viewExposed program for assessing Integrated Vulnerabilities in different municipalities in Norway, to what extent stakeholders in different industries are willing to accept, or expect to be able to adapt to, these new realities. This was investigated through stakeholder driven workshops with stakeholders from maritime industries, commercial fisheries, tourism and aquaculture in Norway using the conceptual modeling tools of systems thinking and Bayesian Belief Networks. Results showed that commercial fishers are worried about quota allocations with changes in fish distribution. The aquaculture industry was worried about allocations of new areas for industry expansion in contested areas in Northern Norway, and the tourism industry was worried about changes in communications (transport) in light of a changing climate. Only the commercial fishers perceived that their adaptive capacity was low in light of these changes, especially the small-scale coastal fishers. This was because they expected the combination between increased power of the aquaculture industry and new species requiring expensive quotas would be too critical.

Citizens’ perspectives on marine protected areas as a governance strategy to effectively preserve marine ecosystem services and biodiversity

Improving and conserving marine ecosystems to maintain and promote their sustainability and to enhance or protect biodiversity and ecosystems’ services and functions is clearly a necessity. The importance of biodiversity in supporting ecosystem services and functioning has been established; thus, the worldwide creation of marine protected areas (MPAs), the goals of which vary with location, design, management, and compliance enforcement has been increasing. This paper explores the opinions regarding the creation of MPAs in Italy, people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for the conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystem services, and maintenance of MPAs. The results indicate that most people would be willing to pay an entrance fee to MPAs, that is, depending of the valuation scenario proposed the mean WTP for a visit ranged from about €5 to €21 per person, and preferred environmental organizations as the most trustworthy organization type to manage the MPAs.