Ecosystem Services最新文献

Protected areas are critical for providing ecosystem services. However, studies on the effect of protected areas on ecosystem service enhancement remain lacking, which restricts efficient protected area management. In this study, a statistical matching approach was used to analyze the role of 637 protected areas in China in enhancing ecosystem services. The drivers that influence the effectiveness of protected areas were also explored. The results show that 94% of the protected areas enhanced at least one type of the selected ecosystem services compared with the controls (unprotected areas), and protected areas in areas with high human activity disturbance or ecological fragility were more effective in enhancing ecosystem services than in other areas. At the national scale, the effectiveness of protected areas for carbon sequestration, soil conservation, and water yield services was mainly influenced by physical geographic variables (e.g., mean annual temperature, annual precipitation), and of habitat quality service also by socio-economic variables (e.g., road network density, distance to the nearest cropland). The main drivers in the various dry and wet climate regions differed from those operating at national scale, reflecting the spatial heterogeneity of natural and socio-economic conditions. Our results provide useful information for application in protected area management.

The System of Environmental-Economic Accounts - Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) has become the world’s leading natural capital accounting system. It provides a valuable decision-making tool for spatial planning and integrated development. SEEA implementation is a current key challenge for European Union (EU) Member States (MS), mainly due to high requirements on budget, technical capacity, and data, varying between countries. Within this frame, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the SEEA framework can be applied to analyse water ecosystems at river basin scale, building exclusively upon the officially registered, standardized national and EU datasets. We test how water resources can be accounted for using SEEA EA, with an additional component assessing water use based on SEEA Water. Within the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), two reporting cycles of river basin management plans have been completed for water ecosystems, providing spatial and temporal datasets. This material together with numerous data available at EU and national levels, water-relevant databases and repositories, resulting from MS reporting obligations, are tested and utilised for water accounting. The Alfeios river basin in Western Peloponnisos Greece serves as the case study area for compiling extent accounts, condition accounts, and supply and use accounts for provisioning water ecosystem services (drinking and irrigation water) for the periods 2009–2015 and 2015–2021 (the two WFD reporting cycles). It is demonstrated that readily available EU datasets can support the initial mapping and compiling of water ecosystem accounts at local scale, as applied in Greece, and therefore potentially also in other EU countries with fragmented data scattered in various administrative services and authorities with overlapping responsibilities on water resources. It is also concluded that future WFD reporting cycles and revisions of the river basin management plans could be better structured to enable a more direct connection of the collected data to ecosystem accounts.

Agricultural landscapes are linked to many functions that benefit human well-being, with a focus on food production. These functions are intrinsically linked with the management choices made by farmers, which are reflected in different farming systems (FS) and their shares in the landscape. However, there is a mismatch between the level where these decisions are taken – farm level – and the landscape level, where many ecosystem processes and interactions take place. The FS approach is one way to bridge the gap between both levels since it enables the joint assessment of multiple management decisions from adjacent farmers using farmlevel data and combining them at the landscape level through clustering techniques. The result is a spatial composition of different FS that enables us to capture landscape gradients and spatially relate them with biodiversity and ecosystem services, thus helping to inform and design policies to affect farming system choice. In Europe, the use of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) database, coupled with the Land Parcel Information System (LPIS), a high-resolution spatially-explicit identification system for agricultural plots, provides a potentially rich source of information on agricultural management (e.g., type of crop, livestock stocking, land use).

In this study, we investigated the spatial associations between ecosystem condition and ecosystem services indicators; and explored relationships between landscape gradients and these indicators using a FS approach based on IACS and LPIS data. Agroforestry systems were shown to be linked to a greater ecosystem condition and ecosystem services delivery. In contrast, LG dominated by very intensive and specialized FS revealed the most pronounced negative effects on ecosystems.

Although the body of scientific evidence supports that mangroves provide storm protection and save lives during cyclones, coastal planners have been prioritizing the adoption of technological alternatives, for example, early warnings, evacuation training, and storm shelters—over mangrove conservation, to manage storm risks. Such policy has the underlying assumption that mangroves and technological alternatives for storm protection are perfect substitutes. This paper studies storm protection by mangroves in India and compares the life-saving efficacy of mangroves and technological alternatives empirically under different evacuation scenarios. Results show that the storm-protection ability of mangroves remains significant and that mangroves have been protecting lives even when these technological alternatives are present in a large number.

The Baltic Sea is a heavily used marine area in Northern Europe delivering valuable services to the inhabitants of its surrounding countries. Understanding how the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems deliver ecosystem services is still limited. However, this information is increasingly needed for ecosystem accounting, marine spatial planning and managing natural resources sustainably. In this study we reviewed ecosystem services provided by marine natural capital, i.e. the elements in the environment that are essential for providing the services. Altogether 48 habitats belonging to 8 habitat groups, and 11 mobile species (i.e. fish and pinnipeds) were assessed using literature and expert knowledge in the Northern Baltic Sea. To our knowledge, this is the first time when all habitats are included in an ecosystem services assessment in the area. The results show that of all possible service linkages, 31–56% were identified for habitats (depending on the habitat group in question) and 28–51% of linkages could not be assessed because of the limited knowledge. For mobile species, 53% of all possible services linkages were recognized and 15% of linkages could not be assessed because of limited knowledge. The results demonstrate the importance of the marine habitats for delivering regulating services, particularly those mitigating harmful effects of human activities such as carbon and nutrient storages, and their importance to services that are yet to be discovered. The results also show that mobile species are particularly important for provisioning and cultural services. The current study supports on-going policies such as the Baltic Sea Action Plan and marine spatial planning by providing knowledge on ecosystem services that can be adopted into decision-making in the areas where the distribution and location of habitats and species are known. It also acts as a starting point for a more in-depth trade-offs analysis of different ecosystem services.

The ecosystem services (ES) concept emerged as a metaphor to demonstrate humanity’s dependence on the natural environment and is increasingly applied to frame human-nature relationships in conservation science, policy and practice. This paper aims to enhance understanding of how the ES concept is applied for ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation in the Irish context, with further applicability to international contexts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders involved in ES research, policy and practice to understand and reflect a variety of perspectives. Three contexts of ecosystem management in Ireland are examined as focal points for the ES framing: natural capital and ES research; Agri-Environment schemes as types of Payments for ES; and collaborative forms of governance for peatland conservation. Specifically, we examine the idea of conceptual innovation as a process where concepts evolve in time and space as they are applied by different societal actors. The contexts examined demonstrate a variety of perceptions and show the scope for agency in how concepts are applied when they meet local realities. The research also demonstrates how alternative concepts and ideas are continuously emerging in societal discourse, and suggests the need to develop ‘networks of concepts’ that can work together to manage the politics, power relations and inequities inherent in the application of any concept. Fostering transparency and reflection on values, language and how knowledge is produced helps make visible power dynamics underlying the ES concept and encourages the development of ES approaches that are effective, inclusive and actionable. Developing concepts from a process perspective has implications for changing the course of a concept as its future unfolds. Following from this, we suggest the need to map an emancipatory future agenda for ES research that centres the voices of those researching, participating and acting ‘from the margins’.

Lakes provide essential Ecosystem Services (ES) that support human well-being. However, due to anthropogenic environmental degradation, lake ecosystem conditions and related ES supply are affected. To assess these impacts and ES supply alterations, mapping and assessing lake ES is key. Spatiotemporal lake ES studies are lacking, especially at the national scale. In this study, we mapped and assessed lake ES nationally in Lithuania. In total, 1032 lakes were considered. The supply of five ES were studied in 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018: 1) fibres and other materials for construction (fibres ES); 2) water for non-drinking purposes (water ES); 3) the maintenance of nursery populations (nursery ES); 4) the maintenance of freshwater chemical conditions (nutrient regulation ES), and 5) direct and indirect cultural outputs (recreation ES). For fibres ES, an increase over time was observed, following an increase in reed areas around the lakes. The results showed that significant differences among periods were identified in all ES except for water ES supply. Generally, the supply of fibres, nutrient, nursery and recreation ES increased between 1990 and 2018. Spatially, the north-eastern, central and easternmost parts of Lithuania showed a high supply of multiple ES (e.g., fibres ES, nutrient ES), while the western parts of the country were seen as essential for nursery ES supply. Except for water ES supply, all ES showed a clustered pattern. The hot–cold spots identified followed the areas of high and low ES supply. Bundle analysis identified three clusters. Recreation ES supply was not associated with fibres, nursery, nutrient, and water ES supply. Fibres, nursery, and nutrient ES supply were not related to water ES supply. The results obtained in this work are critical for better management and help to identify lakes that supply high and low ES.

Social media is increasingly being employed to develop Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) indicators. The image-sharing platform Flickr has been one of the most popular sources of data. Most large-scale studies, however, tend to only use the number of images as a proxy for CES due to the challenges associated with processing large amounts of this data but this does not fully represent the benefit generated by ecosystems in terms of the positive experiences expressed by users in the associated text. To address this gap, we apply several Computer Vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP) models to link CES estimates for Great Britain based on the content of images to sentiment measures using the accompanying text, and compare our results to a national, geo-referenced survey of recreational well-being in England. We find that the aesthetic quality of the landscape and the presence of particular wildlife results in more positive sentiment. However, we also find that different physical settings correlate with this sentiment and that sentiment is sometimes more strongly related to social activities than many natural factors. Still, we find significant associations between these CES measures, sentiment and survey data. Our findings illustrate that integrating sentiment analysis with CES measurement can capture some of the positive benefits associated with CES using social media. The additional detail provided by these novel techniques can help to develop more meaningful CES indicators for recreational land use management.

Urban green and blue spaces play a key role in strengthening human-nature bonds as they offer a variety of opportunities to directly contact nature. They are robust providers of cultural ecosystem services (CES), non-material benefits arising from the interaction between people and nature. Recreation in green and blue spaces beneficially contributes to the well-being of urban dwellers in multiple ways, and the character of these contributions depends both on spaces’ features and visitors’ characteristics. The flow of CES related to the recreational use of urban parks and forests have been widely studied; however, much less attention has been paid to urban riverscapes. This study aimed to fill this gap by assessing benefits associated with the recreational use of urban rivers, and determining drivers that affect these experiences. Using the case of Vistula River in Warsaw, Poland, a citywide PPGIS survey was conducted to map several types of recreation-related benefits. Binomial logistic regression models were built to explain positive contributions to well-being as a function of attributes of visitors, spatiotemporal preferences of visits, and preferred activities. Survey participants highly assessed urban riverscape benefits, with the general tendency of highest scores to be clustered in the city core. Benefits vary in terms of drivers they are affected, with three main insights: (1) intellectual and emotional attachment to the riverscape is built through the long-term process of repetitive visits; (2) the devotion to nature is based on direct experiences, and strongly associated with sports; (3) on-water recreation underpins both emotional attachment to the river and social interactions. The results bring spatially explicit information on people’s attitudes towards the urban river, and underscore the complexity of links between people and the riverscape. The knowledge on spatiotemporal patterns and drivers affecting riverscape-related benefits may support the sustainable planning and management of nature-based recreation in cities.

Ecosystem services (ES) researchers have recognized the important role of urban planning decisions in influencing the quantity and distribution of ES in cities. However, knowledge about ES among planners is still modest, and more research is needed about planners’ experiences with ES. For this qualitative study, interviews and focus groups were conducted with actors with roles in urban planning in three Canadian cities. The aim was to understand participants’ knowledge of ES and how they use it. These early adopters were creative, practical, and politically astute in using ES ideas, rhetoric, and tools to build the case for natural urban ecosystems. ES was used in multiple and intersecting ways for awareness-raising, to justify the protection and restoration of natural ecosystems, to provide direction to plans, and to support and supplement existing planning approaches. The strategic use of ES was notable. As a boundary object, ES helped to bridge perspectives and to integrate policies. The ability of ES to facilitate policy coordination is promising. Further research on the effectiveness of ES to improve urban policy is needed.