Ecosystem Services and Emergent Vulnerability in Managed Ecosystems: A Geospatial Decision-Support Tool

Abstract Land degradation is a global challenge that affects lives and livelihoods in many communities. Since 1950, about 65% of Africa's cropland, on which millions of people depend, has been affected by land degradation caused by mining, poor farming practices and illegal logging. One-quarter of the land area of Ethiopia is severely degraded. As part of interventions to restore ecosystem services, exclosures have been implemented in Ethiopia since the 1980s. But the lack of tools to support prioritization and more efficient targeting of areas for large-scale exclosure-based interventions remains a challenge. Within that perspective, the overarching objectives of the current study were: (i) to develop a Geographic Information System-based multicriteria decision-support tool that would help in the identification of suitable areas for exclosure initiatives; (ii) to provide spatially explicit information, aggregated by river basin and agroecology, on potential areas for exclosure interventions and (iii) to conduct ex-ante analysis of the potential of exclosure areas for improving ecosystem services in terms of increase in above-ground biomass (AGB) production and carbon storage. The results of this study demonstrated that as much as 10% of Ethiopia's land area is suitable for establishing exclosures. This amounts to 11 million hectares (ha) of land depending on the criteria used to define suitability for exclosure. Of this total, a significant proportion (0.5–0.6 million ha) is currently under agricultural land-use systems. In terms of propriety river basins, we found that the largest amount of suitable area for exclosures falls in the Abay (2.6 million ha) and Tekeze (2.2 million ha) river basins, which are hosts to water infrastructure such as hydropower dams and are threatened by siltation. Ex-ante analysis of ecosystem services indicated that about 418 million tons of carbon can be stored in the AGB through exclosure land use. Ethiopia has voluntarily committed to the Bonn Challenge to restore 15 million ha of degraded land by 2025. The decision-support tool developed by the current study and the information so generated go toward supporting the planning, implementation and monitoring of these kinds of local and regional initiatives.

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A Decision Support Tool for Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Multiple Ecosystem Services

Forests ◽

10.3390/f10050440 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 440 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Irina Cristal ◽

Aitor Ameztegui ◽

Jose Ramon González-Olabarria ◽

Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Decision Support ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Forest Management ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Tree Level ◽

Support Tool ◽

Simulation Engine ◽

User Centric ◽

The Impact

In the climate change era, forest managers are challenged to use innovative tools to encourage a sustained provision of goods and services. Many decision support tools (DSTs), developed to address global changes in forest management practices, reflect the complexity of the scientific knowledge produced, a fact that could make it difficult for practitioners to understand and adopt them. Acknowledging the importance of knowledge transfer to forestry practitioners, this study describes a user-centric decision support software tool, aiming to assess forest management and climate change impacts on multiple ecosystem services (ESs) at a stand level. SORTIE-ND, a spatially explicit tree-level simulator for projecting stand dynamics that is sensitive to climate change, is encapsulated into the decision support tool and used as the simulation engine for stand development. Linking functions are implemented to evaluate ecosystem services and potential risks, and decision support is provided in form of interactive 2D and 3D visualizations. Five main components were identified to delineate the workflow and to shape the decision support tool: the information base, the alternative generator, the forest simulator, the ecosystem services calculator, and the visualization component. In order to improve the interaction design and general user satisfaction, the usability of the system was tested at an early stage of the development. While we have specifically focused on a management-oriented approach through user-centric interface design, the utilization of the product is likely to be of importance in facilitating education in the field of forest management.

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TURNING LOCAL KNOWLEDGE ON AGROFORESTRY INTO AN ONLINE DECISION-SUPPORT TOOL FOR TREE SELECTION IN SMALLHOLDERS’ FARMS

Experimental Agriculture ◽

10.1017/s001447971600017x ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 55 (S1) ◽

pp. 50-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

JUST VAN DER WOLF ◽

LAURENCE JASSOGNE ◽

GIL GRAM ◽

PHILIPPE VAAST

Keyword(s):

Decision Support ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Tree Species ◽

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Agroforestry Systems ◽

Species Selection ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Local Conditions ◽

Support Tool

SUMMARYThis paper presents the main features of a unique decision-support tool developed for selecting tree species in coffee and cocoa agroforestry systems. This tool aims at assisting in the selection of appropriate shade trees taking into account local conditions as well as needs and preferences of smallholder farmers while maximizing ecosystem services from plot to landscape level. This user-friendly and practical tool provides site-specific recommendations on tree species selection via simple graphical displays and is targeted towards extension services and stakeholders directly involved in sustainable agroforestry and adaptation to climate change. The tool is based on a simple protocol to collect local agroforestry knowledge through farmers’ interviews and rankings of tree species with respect to locally perceived key ecosystem services. The data collected are first analysed using the BradleyTerry2 package in R, yielding the ranking scores that are used in the decision-support tool. Originally developed for coffee and cocoa systems of Uganda and Ghana, this tool can be extended to other producing regions of the world as well as to other cropping systems. The tool will be tested to see if repeated assessments show consistent ranking scores, and to see if the use of the tool by extension workers improves their shade tree advice to local farmers.

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Developing an Ecosystem Services Online Decision Support Tool to Assess the Impacts of Climate Change and Urban Growth in the Santa Cruz Watershed; Where We Live, Work, and Play

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su2072044 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 2 (7) ◽

pp. 2044-2069 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Laura Norman ◽

Nita Tallent-Halsell ◽

William Labiosa ◽

Matt Weber ◽

Amy McCoy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Decision Support ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Growth ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Santa Cruz ◽

Support Tool ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

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Integrating ecosystem services into decision support for management of agroecosystems: Viva Grass tool

One Ecosystem ◽

10.3897/oneeco.5.e53504 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Author(s):

Ivo Vinogradovs ◽

Miguel Villoslada ◽

Oļģerts Nikodemus ◽

Anda Ruskule ◽

Kristina Veidemane ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Support ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Planning ◽

Sustainable Management ◽

Spatial Planning ◽

Management Practices ◽

Decision Support Tool ◽

Analysis Tool ◽

Support Tool ◽

Low Input

The area covered by low-input agroecosystems (e.g. semi-natural and permanent grasslands) in Europe has considerably decreased throughout the last century. To support more sustainable management practices and to promote biodiversity and ecosystem service values of such agroecosystems, a decision support tool was developed. The tool aims to enhance the implementation of ecosystem services and address the challenge of their integration into spatial planning. The Viva Grass tool aims to enhance the maintenance of ecosystem services delivered by low-input agroecosystems. It does so by providing spatially-explicit decision support for land-use planning and sustainable management of agroecosystems. The Viva Grass tool is a multi-criteria decision analysis tool for integrated planning. It is designed for farmers, spatial planners and policy-makers to support decisions for management of agroecosystems. The tool has been tested to assess spatial planning in eight case studies across the Baltic States.

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