Set Of Ecosystem Services Research Articles

A Conceptual Approach to Promote the Integration of Ecosystem Services in Strategic Environmental Assessment

There is a growing interest in the potential of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) to mainstream ecosystem services (ES) concerns in decision-making. Experiences in this field have begun to emerge, showing the need for comprehensive guidance. This paper addresses this need by proposing a conceptual approach to integrate ES effectively in SEA. The approach is structured in the following four stages, each comprising specific tasks: establish the ES context; determine and assess priority ES; identify alternatives and assess impacts on ES; follow up on ES. The first stage includes the identification and mapping of ES and beneficiaries for the region affected by the strategic action and the identification of links with other strategic actions. The second stage aims at generating detailed information on a limited set of priority ES, which are considered relevant for shaping and informing the development of the strategic action. This requires determining the priority ES, reviewing existing regulations concerning these services and assessing their baseline conditions and trends. In the third stage, possible alternatives to enhance ES, or at least to minimise negative effects on them, are identified and their impacts assessed. Finally, during the fourth stage, the effects on ES are monitored and managed and the overall quality of the SEA process is tested. The paper concludes by discussing how the stages and their tasks require feedback and interactions and how they can contribute to achieve a better inclusion of concerns about ES (and their beneficiaries) into strategic decisions.

Using ecosystem service bundles to detect trade-offs and synergies across urban–rural complexes

Understanding the relationships among ecosystem services is crucial for ecosystem-based management (EBM). In urbanized areas, improving human well-being increasingly depends on the services provided by human-dominated or artificial ecosystems. However, there is little understanding of the relationships among multiple ecosystem services of human-dominated ecosystems. Based on the methodology of ecosystem service bundles (sets of ecosystem services that repeatedly appear together), we conducted a case study in 22 urban–rural complexes across the Yangtze River Delta, the most developed area of China, to explore the spatial distributions, synergies, and trade-offs of multiple ecosystem services. Results showed that: (1) most of the selected ecosystem services were spatially clumped across the study area, and the distribution of ecosystem services contributes to the formation of scale effect in economy for the provision of services; (2) ecosystem service bundles aggregated spatially at the city cluster scale, implying the aggregate feature of bundles might be scale free; (3) trade-offs occurred mainly between land-dependent services (such as crop production and water supply), while synergies occurred mainly between land-independent services (such as manufactured products and students of higher education), and there were no significant relationships between landdependent and land-independent services; (4) compared with geographic factors, socio-economic factors were the major drivers in the formation of ecosystem service bundles in the heavy urbanized region of the Yangtze River Delta. The study could improve the understanding of the relationships among multiple ecosystem services from local to regional scales.

EVALUATING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF IMPOUNDED RIVERS: AN ECOSYSTEM SERVICES APPROACH

There has been increasing demand in Canterbury, New Zealand for the abstraction of water from rivers. This demand has led to the increased interest in dam projects. But, while river impoundment can result in significant benefits, it also can come at "cost", especially to river ecology. Given these benefits and costs, it is essential that impounded rivers are systematically evaluated for their sustainability. In this paper the ecosystem services approach is applied for the purposes of evaluating the sustainability of the Opihi River located in South Canterbury. Indicators are used to represent the set of ecosystem services provided by the river. Both the criteria of weak and strong sustainability are evaluated in a novel way. Weak and strong sustainability are operationalised through an ecosystem services index and the safe minimum standard concept, respectively. In applying these evaluation methods it is observed that since the construction of the Opuha Dam, the Opihi River has progressed towards weak and strong sustainability.

Ecosystem services in changing landscapes: An introduction

The concept of ecosystem services from landscapes is rapidly gaining momentum as a language to communicate values and benefits to scientists and lay alike. Landscape ecology has an enormous contribution to make to this field, and one could argue, uniquely so. Tools developed or adapted for landscape ecology are being increasingly used to assist with the quantification, modelling, mapping, and valuing of ecosystem services. Several of these tools and methods encased therein are described among the eleven papers presented in this special issue, and their application has the potential to facilitate the management and promotion of services within ecosystems. Papers are associated with each of the four key categories of services that ecosystems provide to humans: supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural. The papers represent work conducted in eleven different countries, especially from South America. Each carries a unique approach to address a particular question pertaining to a particular set of ecosystem services. These studies are designed to inform and improve the economic, environmental and social values of the ecosystem services. This knowledge should help to develop new management alternatives for sustaining and planning ecosystems and the services they provide at different scales in space and time. We believe that these papers will create interest and inform management of some potential methods to evaluate ecosystem services at the landscape level with an integrative approach, offering new tools for management and conservation.

Contributions of cultural services to the ecosystem services agenda

Cultural ecosystem services (ES) are consistently recognized but not yet adequately defined or integrated within the ES framework. A substantial body of models, methods, and data relevant to cultural services has been developed within the social and behavioral sciences before and outside of the ES approach. A selective review of work in landscape aesthetics, cultural heritage, outdoor recreation, and spiritual significance demonstrates opportunities for operationally defining cultural services in terms of socioecological models, consistent with the larger set of ES. Such models explicitly link ecological structures and functions with cultural values and benefits, facilitating communication between scientists and stakeholders and enabling economic, multicriterion, deliberative evaluation and other methods that can clarify tradeoffs and synergies involving cultural ES. Based on this approach, a common representation is offered that frames cultural services, along with all ES, by the relative contribution of relevant ecological structures and functions and by applicable social evaluation approaches. This perspective provides a foundation for merging ecological and social science epistemologies to define and integrate cultural services better within the broader ES framework.