Lake and wetland ecosystem services measuring water storage and local climate regulation

Abstract Background Even though wetlands are essential in enhancing water quality and providing recreation and entertainment opportunities in urban areas, their values are overlooked by the decision-makers. Underestimation of the economic value of wetland ecosystem services contributes to their continuing deterioration and inevitable loss. Investigating the changes in ecosystem service values (ESV) can provide crucial information for decision-making. This study, therefore, analyzes the temporal and spatial land-use/land-cover (LULC) change patterns over 35 years (1984–2019) intending to evaluate its impact on wetland ecosystem service values in Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia. Estimation and change analyses of ESVs were conducted by employing ArcGIS using LULC inputs of the year 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014, and 2019 with their corresponding global value coefficients that were developed earlier and our own modified value coefficients for the studied landscape. Results The results showed that wetlands and water bodies of the city and its peripheries had decreased by 75.71% (−1618 ha) within 35 years, while built-up area increased by 216.24% (+2599 ha). Cultivated land had increased slightly from 1984 to 1994 and then gradually declined since 1994. Changes in LULC had resulted in a decline of the total ESV. The total ESV had decreased from USD 29.73 × 106 to USD 20.84 × 106 in 35 years. This indicates the loss of nearly USD 8.9 × 106 ESV from 1984 to 2019. A sensitivity analysis suggested the robustness of ESV estimation in the study area. All individual ecosystem services experienced a negative change. However, a greater reduction in ESV was observed for services such as water regulation, waste treatment, and habitats for maintaining biodiversity. The expansion of built-up area of Bahir Dar City was the major factor that contributed to the loss of ESV provided by wetlands. Conclusions The loss of ESV resulting in LULC changes has a negative implication on local climate, waste management, and the livelihoods of the poor community. Thus, interventions should be made for the restoration and sustainable management of wetlands in the urban and peri-urban areas of Bahir Dar City.

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Assessment of the Selected Regulating Ecosystem Services Using Ecosystem Services Matrix in Two Model Areas: Special Nature Reserve Obedska Bara (Serbia) and Protected Landscape Area Dunajske Luhy (Slovakia)

Land ◽

10.3390/land10121401 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 1401

Author(s):

Ivan Laco

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Cover ◽

Nature Reserve ◽

Landscape Management ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Human Society ◽

Local Climate ◽

Climate Regulation ◽

Quality Regulation

In this paper we are analyzing the potential of land cover features to provide three regulating ecosystem services (ESs), ES Local climate regulation, ES Water quality regulation and ES Biodiversity promotion, in two case study areas: Special nature reserve (SNR) Obedska bara (Serbia) and Protected landscape area (PLA) Dunajske luhy (Slovakia). Regulating ESs are not only important for proper functioning of ecosystems, but they are also crucial for the existence of human society. To assess the potential of land cover features to provide regulating ESs, we used biophysical methods. The maps of land cover potential to provide regulating ES are the result of the analyses. The results indicate that forests are the most important ecosystems that provide ES Local climate regulation and ES Water quality regulation. For ES Biodiversity promotion, the most important ecosystems were natural and seminatural meadows, wetlands, natural and seminatural rivers and water bodies as well as forests. Overall SNR Obedska bara has higher potential to provide all three regulating ESs than PLA Dunajske luhy. These findings point to the importance of natural areas in ensuring the provision of regulating ESs. Properly selected landscape management is the key for maintaining or improving the potential of land cover features to provide regulating ESs. The research can help local authorities in decision making and in creating conservation strategies for selected protected areas.

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Valuing Ecosystem Services at the Urban Level: A Critical Review

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13031129 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 1129

Author(s):

Edoardo Croci ◽

Benedetta Lucchitta ◽

Tommaso Penati

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Contingent Valuation ◽

Case Studies ◽

Economic Valuation ◽

Local Climate ◽

Art And Design ◽

Climate Regulation ◽

Depth Analysis ◽

Regulation Services ◽

Urban Level

This paper critically analyses the methodologies that can be adopted to value ecosystem services (ESs) at the urban level through a literature review. While literature on ES valuation has grown in recent years, its application to urban contexts is still limited. Twenty-five papers, which include 29 different case studies, carry out an economic valuation and have undergone an in-depth analysis. The papers have been selected out of 80 papers detected through keywords. Six different valuation methodologies have been employed in the case studies. The most common ESs valued at the urban level are air quality regulation, local climate regulation, carbon sequestration and storage, and aesthetic appreciation and inspiration for culture, art, and design. The methodologies recur with different frequencies in the valuation of ESs at the urban level. Choice modeling and contingent valuation methodologies are used to value a variety of ESs, including regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Other methodologies are used to value only specific ESs. The replacement cost and damage cost avoided methodologies are used for the assessment of regulation services only; the travel cost method and contingent valuation are used for cultural services only. The results indicate that the considered valuation methodologies show different levels of appropriateness with respect to specific ES categories. Therefore, there is a need to expand the application of valuation methodologies to capture the value of all ESs provided by natural resources, in order to protect and enhance them.

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The Methow Beaver Project: the Challenges of an Ecosystem Services Experiment

Case Studies in the Environment ◽

10.1525/cse.2017.001057 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Philip Brick ◽

Kent Woodruff

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Castor Canadensis ◽

Water Storage ◽

Climate Projections ◽

High Mountain ◽

Natural Resource Policy ◽

Watershed Scale ◽

Positive Role ◽

Climate Conditions

This case explores the Methow Beaver Project (MBP), an ambitious experiment to restore beaver (Castor canadensis) to a high mountain watershed in Washington State, USA. The Pacific Northwest is already experiencing weather regimes consistent with longer term climate projections, which predict longer and drier summers and stronger and wetter winter storms. Ironically, this combination makes imperative more water storage in one of the most heavily dammed regions in the nation. Although the positive role that beaver can play in watershed enhancement has been well known for decades, no project has previously attempted to re-introduce beaver on a watershed scale with a rigorous monitoring protocol designed to document improved water storage and temperature conditions needed for human uses and aquatic species. While the MBP has demonstrated that beaver can be re-introduced on a watershed scale, it has been much more difficult to scientifically demonstrate positive changes in water retention and stream temperature, given hydrologic complexity, unprecedented fire and floods, and the fact that beaver are highly mobile. This case study can help environmental studies students and natural resource policy professionals think about the broader challenges of diffuse, ecosystem services approaches to climate adaptation. Beaver-produced watershed improvements will remain difficult to quantify and verify, and thus will likely remain less attractive to water planners than conventional storage dams. But as climate conditions put additional pressure on such infrastructure, it is worth considering how beaver might be employed to augment watershed storage capacity, even if this capacity is likely to remain at least in part inscrutable.

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Urban water storage capacity inferred from observed evapotranspiration recession

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-2765 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Harro Jongen ◽

Gert-Jan Steeneveld ◽

Jason Beringer ◽

Krzysztof Fortuniak ◽

Jinkyu Hong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Storage Capacity ◽

Water Storage ◽

Urban Water ◽

Natural Forests ◽

Local Climate ◽

Water Storage Capacity ◽

Vegetation Fraction ◽

Local Climate Zones ◽

Order Of Magnitude ◽

Neighborhood Scale

<p>The amount and dynamics of urban water storage play an important role in mitigating urban flooding and heat. Assessment of the capacity of cities to store water remains challenging due to the extreme heterogeneity of the urban surface. Evapotranspiration (ET) recession after rainfall events during the period without precipitation, over which the amount of stored water gradually decreases, can provide insight on the water storage capacity of urban surfaces. Assuming ET is the only outgoing flux, the water storage capacity can be estimated based on the timescale and intercept of its recession. In this paper, we test the proposed approach to estimate the water storage capacity at neighborhood scale with latent heat flux data collected by eddy covariance flux towers in eleven contrasting urban sites with different local climate zones, vegetation cover and characteristics and background climates (Amsterdam, Arnhem, Basel, Berlin, Helsinki, &#321;&#243;d&#378;, Melbourne, Mexico City, Seoul, Singapore, Vancouver). Water storage capacities ranging between 1 and 12 mm were found. These values correspond to e-folding timescales lasting from 2 to 10 days, which translate to half-lives of 1.5 to 7 days. We find ET at the start of a drydown to be positively related to vegetation fraction, and long timescales and large storage capacities to be associated with higher vegetation fractions. According to our results, urban water storage capacity is at least one order of magnitude smaller than the known water storage capacity in natural forests and grassland.</p>

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A Differentiated Spatial Assessment of Urban Ecosystem Services Based on Land Use Data in Halle, Germany

Land ◽

10.3390/land7030101 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 101 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Janis Arnold ◽

Janina Kleemann ◽

Christine Fürst

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Air Pollution ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Ecosystem ◽

Data Set ◽

Urban Ecosystem Services ◽

Climate Regulation ◽

Land Use Types ◽

Cooling Effects

Urban ecosystem services (ES) contribute to the compensation of negative effects caused by cities by means of, for example, reducing air pollution and providing cooling effects during the summer time. In this study, an approach is described that combines the regional biotope and land use data set, hemeroby and the accessibility of open space in order to assess the provision of urban ES. Hemeroby expresses the degree of naturalness of land use types and, therefore, provides a differentiated assessment of urban ES. Assessment of the local capacity to provide urban ES was conducted with a spatially explicit modeling approach in the city of Halle (Saale) in Germany. The following urban ES were assessed: (a) global climate regulation, (b) local climate regulation, (c) air pollution control, (d) water cycle regulation, (e) food production, (f) nature experience and (g) leisure activities. We identified areas with high and low capacity of ES in the urban context. For instance, the central parts of Halle had very low or no capacity to provide ES due to highly compact building styles and soil sealing. In contrast, peri-urban areas had particularly high capacities. The potential provision of regulating services was spatially limited due to the location of land use types that provide these services.

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Evaporation suppression and energy balance of water reservoirs covered with self-assembling floating elements

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-22-4015-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 22 (7) ◽

pp. 4015-4032 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Milad Aminzadeh ◽

Peter Lehmann ◽

Dani Or

Keyword(s):

Energy Balance ◽

Water Storage ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Heat Fluxes ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Radiative Energy ◽

Water Reservoirs ◽

Local Climate ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Evaporation Suppression

Abstract. The growing pressure on natural freshwater resources and the projected climate variability are expected to increase the need for water storage during rainy periods. Evaporative losses present a challenge for the efficiency of water storage in reservoirs, especially in arid regions with chronic water shortages. Among the available methods for suppressing evaporative losses, self-assembling floating elements offer a simple and scalable solution, especially for small reservoirs. The use of floating elements has often been empirically based; we thus seek a framework for systematic consideration of floating element properties, local climate and reservoir conditions to better predict evaporative loss, energy balance and heat fluxes from covered water reservoirs. We linked the energy balance of the water column with energy considerations of the floating elements. Results suggest significant suppression of evaporative losses from covered reservoirs in which incoming radiative energy is partitioned to sensible and long wave fluxes that reduce latent heat flux and thus increase the Bowen ratio over covered water reservoirs. Model findings were consistent with laboratory-scale observations using an uncovered and covered small basin. The study offers a physically based framework for testing design scenarios in terms of evaporation suppression efficiency for various climatic conditions; it hence strengthens the science in the basis of this important water resource conservation strategy.

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Economic Valuation of Wetland Ecosystem Services in Practice

Valuing Ecosystem Services ◽

10.4324/9781849773706-11 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 69-120

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Economic Valuation ◽

Wetland Ecosystem

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Response of Ecosystem Service Values to Environmental Change in the Bohai Sea

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.518-523.1321 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 518-523 ◽

pp. 1321-1324 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

An Ning Suo ◽

Xu Bin Pan ◽

Jian Hua Zhao ◽

Yong Hai Yu

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Ecosystem Service ◽

Bohai Sea ◽

Marine Ecosystem ◽

Laizhou Bay ◽

The Bohai Sea ◽

Ecosystem Services Value ◽

Climate Regulation ◽

Marine Ecosystem Services ◽

O2 Supply

Since 1988, great changes of primary production, pollutants loading, coastline and sea area have happened in the Bohai Sea in China. These environmental changes increased the value of marine ecosystem services value from 529.42 billion RMB in 1988 to 558.83 billion RMB in 2010. The ecosystem services values of recreation, food and materials production, O2 supply, climate regulation and primary productivity were raised. However, other marine ecosystem services value, including biological control, pollutant purification, knowledge broaden and biodiversity protection were lowered. In addition, value of ecosystem services increased in Liaodong Bay and Bohai Bay, but decreased in middle Bohai and Bohai strait, and it no change in Laizhou Bay,.This spatial difference of ecosystem service function value was mainly caused by the change of recreation function, O2 supply function and climate regulation function.

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