National Ecosystem Assessment Research Articles

The challenges and implications of linking wetland science to policy in agricultural landscapes – experience from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment

Wetlands have been the focus of conflicts in societal priorities throughout human history, with competing demands for water and land use delivering a range of ecosystem services but contributing to severe degradation and loss. Conservation of wetlands is a relatively recent priority, and it has seen more recent shifts from protection of remaining wetlands initially as a static biodiversity resource towards a focus on the many, formerly largely undervalued beneficial functions that these ecosystems provide to society.The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) assesses the status, trends, ecosystem services and future prospects of eight broad habitat types, including wetlands. Despite confounding factors such as an inconsistent inventory of wetlands, fragmented policy instruments and conflicts with agricultural land use, the NEA has enabled an initial assessment of the extent and condition of the current wetland resource in the UK and the degree of loss of different wetland types and their broad implications not only for biodiversity, but for the delivery of a wide range of ecosystem services. It has also highlighted some of the ways in which wetland ecosystem services can be beneficially exploited, for example as buffer zones, as a means to protect freshwater resources or in flood risk management, as well as the trade-offs inherent in different land uses. We summarise some of the findings of the NEA in relation to some key challenges of linking wetland science to policy.

Geodiversity and the ecosystem approach: the contribution of geoscience in delivering integrated environmental management

Abstract As reflected in the ecosystem approach, conservation strategies for the natural environment are responding to society's needs and the changing climate. Ecosystem assessments, particularly the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, have reviewed the benefits that society gains from the natural environment, but they under-represent and undervalue the contribution of geodiversity. Geodiversity underpins and delivers many vital ecosystem services, informs their management and is an important element of natural capital. This includes the application of knowledge of physical processes and evidence from Quaternary archives of recent environmental change to help future-proof ecosystems and their services. Key principles include working with natural processes, based on understanding their spatial and temporal dynamics, and adopting where possible soft engineering practices to enable multiple benefits for nature and society. The ecosystem approach and the need for climate change adaptation require more integrated approaches to geodiversity, biodiversity and landscape conservation and management to enable a more sustainable future. Engaging with these issues will also demonstrate the wider relevance today of geodiversity and geoconservation. Contributing successfully in these critical areas requires closer partnership working, both across the geoscience and geoconservation communities, and with other sectors of nature conservation, policy makers, planners and communities, as well as other disciplines. Geoscience has an essential contribution to make in addressing knowledge gaps recognised in ecosystem assessment and in implementing robust solutions to broader environmental, economic and social issues.

Celebrating the golden jubilee of the Journal of Applied Ecology

In our time, as the need to expand the output of foodfor the rapidly rising population of the world becomesmore acutely felt, and as development acceleratesthroughout the world, the scope and tasks of appliedecology cannot but increase. Ours is an age in whichecological thinking and methods have more than everbefore to contribute to the progress of mankind: theJournal of Applied Ecology hopes to play a useful partin the common effort.These aspirations represent the closing statement of thevery first Editorial published in the first issue of Journalof Applied Ecology in 1964 (Bunting & Wynne-Edwards1964), and yet are still highly relevant today. It was withconsiderable vision that the British Ecological Society(BES) launched a new journal that not only spannedplant and animal ecology but addressed issues ofrelevance to human well-being.The Journal of Applied Ecology was founded to publishthe results of original research, particularly of a quantita-tive and experimental kind, on ecological subjects that areof economic or social importance. Fifty years ago, appliedecology was widely viewed as the poor relation of themore glamorous fundamental areas of this young science.Scientific research relating to the conservation of biologi-cal diversity was in its infancy, journals such as Conserva-tion Biology were not even on the horizon, while it wouldbe more than a decade before the integration of agricul-ture and the environment became a recognized area ofresearch with the launch of the journal Agriculture, Eco-system and Environment in the 1970s. The Journal ofApplied Ecology had already celebrated a quarter of acentury of publishing the best applied ecological researchwhen the Ecological Society of America launched Ecologi-cal Applications. Few applied journals can compete withthe Journal of Applied Ecology in terms of its heritage andits contribution to establishing applied ecology as animportant discipline in its own right.To celebrate our golden jubilee, we have launched avirtual issue online (http://www.journalofappliedecology.org/view/0/virtualissues/fiftyyearsvirtualissue.html) that re-views some of the key articles we have published over thelast five decades. Much of the focus of the first decadewas on improving the productivity of agricultural ecosys-tems rather than addressing agriculture’s potential impacton species conservation. Nonetheless, the Journal had aglobal outlook from the start, drawing its examples fromecosystems around the world. Surprisingly, given thelaunch of the journal less than 2 years after the publica-tion of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Carson, Darling &Darling 1962), studies describing the impact of agrochemi-cals on wildlife only appeared towards the end of the1960s. These studies did, however, include early classics inthe field. Work published at this time continues to haveimpact today. For example, Newman’s (1966) article, on amethod for estimating the total length of root in a sam-ple, is still heavily cited more than four decades later, with62 citations listed in Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.co.uk/) from January 2011 to November 2012.These recent citing articles include authors estimating car-bon stocks in Amazonia, understanding the effects ofmycorrhiza for coffee in Puerto Rico, and investigating thepotential for biocontrol of tomato root rot in Denmark.During the 1970s, much of what was published reflectedthe need for basic information about the biology of pestspecies that had large economic effects. This was a periodof rapid agricultural expansion and modernization, exem-plified by the so-called ‘green revolution’, and researcherswere acutely concerned with pests that lowered crop pro-ductivity. By the 1980s, while pests of agriculture werestill an important focus, models of their populationdynamics became increasingly more realistic and includedcrop phenology in assessments of the likely damage fromdefoliating insects. Furthermore, the management of agri-

Valuing Geodiversity in an ‘Ecosystem Services’ Context

The ‘ecosystem services’ approach is being used throughout the world to assess the value that society derives from the natural world. Many of these values have been difficult to describe and/or quantify, and this approach has therefore been adopted in an attempt to assess the qualitative and quantitative value of nature. Both the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) and the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UKNEA 2011) classified these services into Regulating, Supporting, Provisioning and Cultural Services. But both the MA and the NEA only include services that involve ecosystem processes or functional interactions between the biotic and abiotic worlds. Consequently they exclude services that are purely abiotic, and therefore grossly underestimate the value of nature. This paper outlines the goods and services that society derives from the geodiversity of planet Earth. These may be termed ‘abiotic ecosystem services’ or ‘geosystem services’, but a more holistic term for all goods and services derived from the natural world would be ‘natural services’.

The science–policy interface: the role of scientific assessments—UK National Ecosystem Assessment

This paper discusses the science-policy interface, emphasizing the role of evidence and scientific assessments. It then presents the key findings from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), which provided much of the evidence for the Natural Environment White Paper for England as a case study. It also influenced the development of the biodiversity strategy for England. The NEA demonstrates the importance of a multi-disciplinary team of experts to prepare and peer review assessments and the importance of input from funding agencies and relevant stakeholder groups in co-designing and reviewing. Much of the text and all of the figures in the NEA section are taken from the Synthesis Report of the NEA, which I drafted as co-chair of the NEA.().

Valuing Nature

Valuing Nature

National ecosystem assessments supported by scientific and local knowledge

An understanding of the extent of land degradation and recovery is necessary to guide land‐use policy and management, yet currently available land‐quality assessments are widely known to be inadequate. Here, we present the results of the first statistically based application of a new approach to national assessments that integrates scientific and local knowledge. Qualitative observations completed at over 10 000 plots in the United States showed that while soil degradation remains an issue, loss of biotic integrity is more widespread. Quantitative soil and vegetation data collected at the same locations support the assessments and serve as a baseline for monitoring the effectiveness of policy and management initiatives, including responses to climate change. These results provide the information necessary to support strategic decisions by land managers and policy makers.

Putting applied ecology into practice

In 2005, an editorial was published in the Journal thataddressedthechangingemphasisanddirectionofappliedecol-ogy (Freckleton et al. 2005). This editorial proposed that theJournal should increasingly target papers that would havedirect relevance to ecological management and policy whilemaintainingastronglinktobasicecologicalconceptsandthe-ories. These core aspects are still true 5 years later, but withexpanding areas of research and new management challenges;todaymorethanevertheJournalmustreachoutandofferrealinsightandoptionsformanagement.Theaimsofthisnewedi-torialaretooutlinetoauthorsandreviewersthekeyattributesthat form the basis of the papers published in the Journal ofApplied Ecology and to announce new developments in linewith our strategic vision for the journal at the start of a newdecade.TheJournal’scriticalroleininfluencingpolicyisemphasizedby the looming deadline of the Convention on BiologicalDiversity which set the target of significantly reducing bio-diversity loss by 2010.A number of ecologicalaudits assessingbiodiversity loss have taken place, for example, the MilleniumEcosystem Assessment examined the consequences of ecosys-tem change for human well-being and concluded that, world-wide, 60% of ecosystem services had been degraded. Otherassessmentsareinprogress,forexample,theNationalEcosys-temAssessmentwillprovidethefirstanalysisoftheUK’snatu-ral environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society.Thesetargetsandauditsarenotenvironmentalniceties;ratherasstatedbytheUnitedNationsSecretary-GeneralKofiAnnanin 2005 ‘Failure to conserve and use biological diversity in asustainable manner would result in degrading environments,newandmorerampantillnesses,deepeningpovertyandacon-tinuedpatternofinequitableanduntenablegrowth’.Putprac-tically: biodiversity matters, it matters to the rich and to thepoor, to the developed and to the developing world. Appliedecologists are a crucial part of a multi-disciplinary groupengagedinmanaginghumanuseoftheenvironmenttopreventKofi Annan’s vision from materializing. Working proactivelywithenvironmentalmanagers,collaboratingwithcolleaguesinthe social and physical sciences, and holding two-way conver-sations with policy makers and the public are all in the jobdescriptionofthemodernappliedecologist.The Journal of Applied Ecology is one of the most highlyranked international journals in its field, with a reputation forpublishing papers that combine the highest standards of eco-logicalsciencewithdirectrelevancetoenvironmentalmanage-ment. Our remit is extremely large. Thus, we publish researchon animal, microbial and plant taxa across a broad range ofhabitats and ecosystems, and these papers span observational,experimental and theoretical studies. With the dramaticgrowth of applied ecological research in the last decade, theJournalneedstorefineitsscopetoensureweretainourdistinctidentity among ecology journals. To help potential authorsidentifywhethertheirpaperissuitableforthejournal,wehavedescribed below the types of papers we accept for publication.Ouracceptancerateischallenging(14AE5%in2008)andauthorsneed to be confident that their study fits our remit before sub-mission. As examples of good practice, we use papers thatprovedparticularly influentialorthatwereselectedastheEdi-tor’s choice. Editor’s choice is a new initiative begun in 2008and is used as a means of highlighting papers that are, espe-ciallytimely,particularlyhighqualityandmeetourkeycriteriaofecologicalstudieswithmanagementrelevance.