Ecosystem Services最新文献

Ecosystem services (ES) have gained significant attention in recent years from the global environmental initiatives that involve science and policy. Multiple scholars have analyzed how ES are integrated with environmental policies, plans, and strategic assessments. However, there is a lack of information on how countries translate these policies, plans and assessments into concrete environmental management actions that integrate an explicit ES approach. To help fill this gap, we analyze how the Colombian Regional Autonomous Corporations (CARs) have used the ES approach in their environmental management projects implemented between 2004 and 2015. This study aims to analyze the type and diversity of ES managed by the CARs, as well as the synergies, trade-offs, and bundles of ES prioritized by them. We used content analysis of the CARs reports and statistical analysis to explore whether CARs explicitly use the ES concept. Our results showed that provisioning, regulating, and cultural ES were similarly prioritized by the CARs, however, explicit mention of ES was limited. Regulating services showed remarkable potential for synergies, and there was a pattern of trade-offs between cultural and some regulating and provisioning services. We found three bundles of ES: “Restoration and conservation of agrosystems”, “Mosaic of services” and “Farming and fibers” occupying, respectively, 9, 36 and 55% of the total area of Colombia. Our findings show that multiple ES are targeted and affected by environmental management actions.

The contribution of this study has the potential to inform adequately policy decisions to be used in environmental management and planning practices to prioritize areas for maximizing ES provision.

Based on different definitions, deserts may constitute 13% to 33% of the global terrestrial surface. This is larger than the area of tropical forests and all types of wetlands combined. However, desert ecosystems are among the least studied in terms of their ecosystem services (ES), especially those that arise from species and processes unique to deserts. There are numerous research gaps that need to be filled including: (1) ignorance of unique desert ES, as well as deserts’ special effects on ES; (2) limited application of sophisticated approaches for economic valuation of desert ES; and (3) lack of diverse approaches to values and valuation. Moreover, payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes are often used to combat desertification rather than for conserving well-functioning deserts. Valuation of desert ES is crucial to implementation of PES through raising awareness of overlooked deserts, motivating investment, designing payment amounts, and estimating the social benefit-cost ratios of payments. In addition to market-based voluntary PES, common asset trusts (CATs) following Ostrom’s eight core design principles may also contribute to sustainable management of desert ecosystems. Future research should explore unique desert ES, investigate the relationships between desert ES and geosystem services, improve accuracy of economic valuation of desert ES, and integrate diverse perspectives of values. The research results may potentially aid in both combatting desertification and conserving important deserts.

In the face of ecological challenges, sustainable implementation of conservation strategies necessitates a delicate balance between ecosystem services, biodiversity, land ownership, and cost considerations. This study presents a conservation strategy for Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, an area renowned for its unique ecological features. We developed the strategy by evaluating 12 scenarios involving the establishment of protected areas (PAs) and the use of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). The purpose of this evaluation was not to enhance ecosystem services and biodiversity directly but rather to identify strategies that could achieve these goals in a financially feasible way, considering the various cost and land ownership factors. Our findings revealed that conservation prioritization targets are primarily located in the central and eastern regions of Jeju Island, where ecosystem services are concentrated, and levels of biodiversity are high. The expansion of conservation targets from 17% to 30% entailed increased costs, largely due to the increased inclusion of private lands and agricultural areas. The introduction of OECMs provided a means to improve ecological network and representation within conservation networks. We also found that applying penalties to improve the boundary lengths of PAs could lead to more cost-effective conservation strategies. Although expanding conservation targets to 30% led to significant shifts in land ownership patterns and increased conservation costs, the benefits to biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services were substantial. This study provided valuable insights into the determination of conservation planning through the harmonization of biodiversity prot ection, provision of ecosystem services, and consideration of economic costs related to patterns of land use and ownership. The results can aid policymakers and stakeholders in making informed decisions about resource allocation in biodiversity conservation.

Rice represents the main staple food for more than half of the world’s population, playing an essential role in food security and economic growth. One of the major pests affecting this crop is the striped rice stem borer moth (Chilo suppressalis), a widespread species found in Australasia, Asia and southern Europe. Bats are paramount insect consumers and their role as natural pest controllers in agriculture has been increasingly acknowledged, including in rice paddies. In this study we quantify, for the first time in Europe, the economic value of the ecosystem services provided by insectivorous bats as suppressors of a rice pest through exclusion experiments in rice plantations in Spain. Our study design included exclosures that prevented bats from hunting over some experimental areas, combined with molecular analyses of bat guano. By assessing the crop damage levels caused by C. supressalis inside and outside the exclosures, we showed that pest impact almost doubled in the absence of bats (94.5 % of damage increase). We estimated that bats were preventing crop losses of almost 70 kg of rice per hectare on average, which in economic terms would imply savings of 56€/ha. If we extrapolate our results to the national level, these values could reach up to 7.6 tonnes of rice, or more than 6 million euros saved by bats per year in Spain. Our findings highlight the importance of implementing management measures that favour bat populations in agrosystems as part of the Integrated Pest Management strategies to fight harmful insects, thereby increasing yields and land productivity in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

This paper presents the application of the ecosystem service assessment and valuation of three ecosystem services to the local municipalities, which host the protected area. The protected area in this study is a peri-urban Sleza mountain providing perfect opportunities for one-day hiking for families. The case study area represents five municipalities that are part of the Sleza Landscape Park in Poland. Three ecosystem services (crop provision, pollination, and nature-based tourism) were mapped and attributed to the benefiting sectors. The assessment follows the guidelines of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) for recognising the contribution of ecosystem services (ES) to the economy and human well-being. The analysis relates to the years 2014 and 2021 and includes ecosystem extent and flow accounts. Thanks to the local character of our case study, ecosystems and beneficiaries could be precisely located, and the contribution of selected ES to the local economy could be presented in a spatially explicit way. The applicability of ecosystem accounting to spatial planning and local governance is discussed.

The concept of exchange values refers to the theoretical notion of an exchange happening for ecosystem services between an ecosystem asset and an economic agent. The United Nations System of Environmental Economic Accounting recommends using market prices as exchange values whenever possible, or otherwise, exchange value estimates that conceptually come close to market prices. However, in countries with highly regulated access to natural resources, the observable market prices or exchange value estimates for ecosystem services may often be distorted or even negative. When exchange values are used for decision support or as evidence base for policy making, negative values can be misleading.

To address this issue, we present ideas on how to include the institutional resource regime that governs ecosystem services into the computation of exchange values. This analysis can help identify policy interventions that increase or decrease exchange values from free-market levels and can provide guidance on how to correct for distorted value estimates. Further it can help to better understand negative exchange value estimates as well as reasons why society may be willing to accept, and eventually, compensate for them. We argue that the insurance value of ecosystems can be one such reason. To exemplify the application of the extended framework, we present a case study on the monetary valuation of water for hydropower production in Switzerland.

With recent growing interest and potential investment in nature-based solutions (NbS), a local, regional and global level understanding of what kinds of mechanisms or arrangements work effectively to deliver the required biodiversity and climate change outcomes is essential. This paper presents the status and opportunities for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) arrangements in Australia, with a focus on Indigenous peoples in northern Australia. We reviewed 62 studies related to the distribution and extent of the predominant PES schemes globally and nationally in Australia, including different ecosystems (e.g. forest, water, savannas, etc.), spatial scale (e.g. local, regional or global), types of payment methods used for ecosystem services (ES) transactions, types of ES providers and beneficiaries, funders, users, and contract arrangements and related challenges. Globally, 54% of the studies were supported by government investment, 17% by private–public, and only 29% by private investment. 80% of studies focused on forests as the most common ecosystem for PES, with 61% of the PES arrangements implemented at a local scale, 16% at a catchment scale and the rest (23%) at a national scale. In 33% of the studies, a single ES is the focus for the system, i.e. water quality or carbon sequestration; in 37% of studies a bundled approach was followed where typically > 1–2 services are included as a bundle; and in another 7% stacked ES were included. Within Australia, six main schemes were considered to be PES, i.e. Conservation Agreements, Water trading (buyback) in the Murray Darling Basin, Reef Credits, Carbon Farming, the Queensland Land Restoration Fund, and the Indigenous Protected Areas and Caring for Country programmes on Indigenous lands. About 90% these programmes are funded by the Australian Government, focusing on carbon or biodiversity outcomes, with little consideration of Indigenous values. From an Indigenous perspective, a bottom-up PES approach incorporating the social and cultural aspirations of Indigenous people is preferred. Traditional management with low transaction costs, combining both socio-economic and environmental attributes as verifiable measures, can yield conservation as well as positive socio-economic outcomes for Indigenous communities in Australia and elsewhere. Empowering local communities, recognising and supporting their skills and knowledge, ensuring equitable and just distribution of funds, sustainable and reliable co-designed incentives are essential for the success of these fast-emerging opportunities.

Considering ecosystem services (ESs) in conservation planning represents a growing interest in global standards. However, this task has been hindered by the complexity of the ecological and socio-economic attributes of ESs, and questions remain, such as how to incorporate the demand for ESs, and ensure equity among beneficiary groups. To successfully align conservation investments with local needs, we implemented the “serviceshed” concept (the geographical area where ecosystems deliver a service to a group of beneficiaries) in a novel planning approach, setting conservation targets based on ES demand. We expand on how neglecting peoples’ location and socio-economic vulnerability status while quantifying ES demand can lead to inequity issues. We tested our conceptual framework in an urban case study with the ESs of flood and heat island attenuation using a systematic conservation planning methodology that considers population vulnerability. We compared our novel approach to one that does not consider servicesheds while prioritizing sites and tested the impact of three metrics of ES demand on addressing equity issues: i) demand area, ii) number of beneficiaries, and iii) vulnerability-weighted number of beneficiaries. We showed that accounting for the spatial location of the different beneficiaries via servicesheds increased distributional equity by a factor of five. Considering vulnerability while quantifying ES demand also ensured that socio-economic equity was addressed, by factoring in peoples’ reliance on these services. The proposed approach holds significant potential in cultivating an ‘equitable space for conservation’ by aiding practitioners in linking ES supply with local beneficiaries while accounting for their vulnerability.

The last fifteen years have been transformative in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem services finance. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) articulated a pathway to achieve the global vision of “living in harmony with nature” by 2050, with four goals and 23 targets to be met by 2030. Published reports indicate biodiversity finance needs are on the order of seven times current investments. This paper reviews recent public and private sector efforts to address this biodiversity finance gap and suggests priorities to increase progress toward its closure. In this review of biodiversity finance, we first provide a brief historical overview of the biodiversity finance gap, next describe current methodologies designed to identify, quantify, and bridge the gap in the public and private sectors, two sections reviewing current public and private sector efforts to close the gap follow, and a discussion of future directions and trends concludes. From asset management to biodiversity credits to crowdfunding, and from debt for nature swaps to environmental fiscal transfer and green bonds, we highlight efforts in the global south to address their biodiversity finance needs and meet their commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Research on subsidies harmful to nature, more effectively connecting biodiversity outcomes to financial investments, identifying finance mechanisms that generate climate and biodiversity co-benefits, and further innovation in private sector solutions like biodiversity credits and offsets are future priorities and perhaps a research agenda in this sphere. We hope this review generates discussion and a research agenda within the biodiversity finance community to help us fulfil the ambitious goals of the GBF by 2030.

This groundbreaking study sheds new light on the unequal distribution of cultural ecosystem services (CES) within Rome's urban green spaces (UGS). Employing a novel methodology, we assess UGS quality through georeferenced social media data from Twitter, evaluate the green cover of UGS, and assess accessibility to these spaces using network analysis in a GIS environment. This unique methodology allows us to unveil marked disparities in both UGS accessibility and the provision of CES. Unlike traditional approaches, our analysis provides a more nuanced understanding of UGS quality and accessibility. Our findings reveal areas with high UGS accessibility, yet limited CES provision. These insights are crucial for targeted urban planning interventions, advocating for a more equitable distribution of UGS benefits. This research challenges traditional green space planning with a focus on green space availability. Importantly, our study goes further by identifying specific disadvantaged areas, offering valuable insights for promoting equity in urban areas, emphasizing the importance of UGS quality and accessibility. Thereby, this research provides a foundation for a more nuanced, equal, and quality-driven approach to UGS planning.