Integrating constraint effects among ecosystem services and drivers on seasonal scales into management practices

The authors, with the awareness that climate change affects and changes the landscape, wanted to investigate how these changes are occurring within the metropolitan area of Tehran. Trying to keep a holistic method that embraces different disciplines, reasoning from large scale to small scale, the authors tried to study the main problems related to water scarcity and loss of green spaces. Subsequently they dedicated themselves to the identification of the present and missing ecosystem services, so that they could be used in the best possible way as tools for subsequent design choices. From the analysis obtained, the authors have created a masterplan with the desire to ensure a specific natural capital, the welfare of ecosystem services, and at the same time suggest good water management practices. It becomes essential to add an ecological accounting to the economic accounting, giving dignity to the natural system and the ecosystem services that derive from it.

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Modelling tree growth to determine the sustainability of current off-take from miombo woodland: a case study from rural villages in Malawi

Environmental Conservation ◽

10.1017/s0376892916000485 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 44 (1) ◽

pp. 66-73 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

EMMA L. GREEN ◽

FELIX EIGENBROD ◽

KATE SCHRECKENBERG ◽

SIMON WILLCOCK

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Confidence Interval ◽

Tree Growth ◽

Growth Rates ◽

Vegetation Dynamics ◽

Management Practices ◽

Sustainable Forest Management ◽

Miombo Woodlands ◽

Yield Model ◽

The Impact

SUMMARYMiombo woodlands supply ecosystem services to support livelihoods in southern Africa, however, rapid deforestation has necessitated greater knowledge of tree growth and off-take rates to understand the sustainability of miombo exploitation. We established 48 tree inventory plots within four villages in southern Malawi, interviewed representatives in these same villages about tree management practices and investigated the impact of climate on vegetation dynamics in the region using the ecosystem modelling framework LPJ-GUESS. Combining our data with the forest yield model MYRLIN revealed considerable variation in growth rates across different land uses; forested lands showed the highest growth rates (1639 [95% confidence interval 1594–1684] kg ha–1 year–1), followed by settlement areas (1453 [95% confidence interval 1376–1530] kg ha–1 year–1). Based on the modelled MYRLIN results, we found that 50% of the villages had insufficient growth rates to meet estimated off-take. Furthermore, the results from LPJ-GUESS indicated that sustainable off-take approaches zero in drought years. Local people have recognized the unsustainable use of natural resources and have begun planting activities in order to ensure that ecosystem services derived from miombo woodlands are available for future generations. Future models should incorporate the impacts of human disturbance and climatic variation on vegetation dynamics; such models should be used to support the development and implementation of sustainable forest management.

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Exploring Farmers’ Management Practices and Values of Ecosystem Services in an Agroecosystem Context—A Case Study from the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11236567 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (23) ◽

pp. 6567 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dennis Junior Choruma ◽

Oghenekaro Nelson Odume

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Food Production ◽

Management Practices ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Agricultural Management ◽

Eastern Cape ◽

Provisioning Ecosystem Services

Globally, farmers remain the key ecosystem managers responsible for increasing food production while simultaneously reducing the associated negative environmental impacts. However, research investigating how farmers’ agricultural management practices are influenced by the values they assign to ecosystem services is scarce in South Africa. To address this gap, a survey of farmers’ agricultural management practices and the values they assigned towards ecosystem services was conducted in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Results from the survey show that farmers assign a high value on food provisioning ecosystem services compared to other ecosystem services. Irrigation and fertiliser decisions were mostly based on achieving maximum crop yields or good crop quality. The majority of farmers (86%) indicated a willingness to receive payments for ecosystem services (PES) to manage their farms in a more ecosystems-oriented manner. To encourage farmers to shift from managing ecosystems for single ecosystem services such as food provision to managing ecosystems for multiple ecosystem services, market-oriented plans such as PES may be employed. Effective measures for sustainable intensification of food production will depend on the inclusion of farmers in the development of land management strategies and practices as well as increasing farmers’ awareness and knowledge of the ecosystem services concept.

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Environmental and spatial filtering of ladybird beetle community composition and functional traits in urban landscapes

Journal of Urban Ecology ◽

10.1093/jue/juz014 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Heidi Liere ◽

Monika H Egerer ◽

Stacy M Philpott

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Community Composition ◽

Functional Traits ◽

Management Practices ◽

Community Gardens ◽

Urban Landscapes ◽

Beneficial Insects ◽

Ladybird Beetles ◽

Urban Matrix ◽

Landscape Level

Abstract Urban community gardens provide habitat for biodiversity within urban landscapes. Beneficial insects, those that provide important ecosystem services like pollination and pest control, are among the many inhabitants of these green spaces. Garden management and the composition of the urban matrix in which they are embedded can affect not only the abundance and species richness of beneficial insects but also their community composition and functional traits. During 2014 and 2015 (June to September), we collected ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in 19 community gardens in three counties of the California Central Coast. We examined the effects of garden- and landscape-level characteristics on ladybird community composition and functional traits. Out of the 19 species collected, only 3 were non-native to California (3 were not identified to species). Similarities in ladybird species composition were not driven by geographic distance between gardens, which suggest that beetles in these landscapes are not experiencing dispersal limitation. Instead, three landscape-level environmental variables and seven garden-scale ones correlated with changes in community composition. Even though we perceive cities as highly disturbed low-quality landscapes, our results suggest that highly mobile arthropods such as ladybird beetles, may not perceive the urban matrix as a barrier to movement and that urban gardens can be inhabited by native species with different sizes, diet breadths and diets. Nevertheless, our results also suggest garden specific management practices, such as altering ground cover, can affect the taxonomic and functional composition of ladybird beetles with potential implications to their ecosystem services.

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The Contribution of Ecosystem Services in Developing Effective and Sustainable Management Practices in Marine Protected Areas. The Case Study of “Isola dell’Asinara”

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12031108 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 1108 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Maddalena Floris ◽

Vittorio Gazale ◽

Federica Isola ◽

Francesca Leccis ◽

Salvatore Pinna ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Management Practices ◽

Marine Protected Area ◽

Economic Impacts ◽

Coastal Zone Management ◽

Natura 2000 ◽

Experimental Methodology ◽

Zone Management

Ecosystem Services (ESs) are assuming a constantly increasing importance in management practices due to their key role in ensuring a sustainable future to fauna and flora on Earth. In addition, ES degradation and quality loss jeopardize current human activities. For this reason, it is essential to develop methodologies and practices able to efficiently assess environmental and socio-economic impacts in terms of ES deterioration, especially within protected areas. Norms and regulations have to be able to identify habitat and species categories to be preserved, and to determine the cost of their destruction and decline, according to a holistic vision, which includes social and economic impacts, besides the environmental ones. The paper illustrates the case study of the “Isola dell’Asinara” Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Sardinia, where an experimental methodology was developed with the aim to draw new regulations that integrate conservation measures of Natura 2000 sites included in its territory, provisions determined by the integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) protocol and the Standardized Actions for Effective Management of MPAs (ISEA) project. Subsequently, in order to assess the status of ESs and impacts on ESs located within the MPA territory, an ecosystem-based approach was implemented and applied to the actions defined for the new regulation proposal. Results show that regulations are in this way valuably enriched by environmental aspects of the MPA that would otherwise be overlooked.

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‘Payments for Ecosystem Services’ and Property: The Expansion of Exclusionary Land Management Practices in Costa Rica

Human Geography ◽

10.1177/194277861500800203 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 38-54

Author(s):

Brett Sylvester Matulis

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Management ◽

Social Relations ◽

Environmental Governance ◽

Management Practices ◽

Payments For Ecosystem Services ◽

Private Ownership ◽

Economic Relations ◽

The Social ◽

Ownership Rights

The practice of making “payments for ecosystem services” (PES) is about the formation of new social relations between land managers and the human beneficiaries of functioning ecological systems. More specifically, it is about establishing economic relations that (theoretically) transfer financial resources from “users” of services to “producers” who institute prescribed land management practices. Interpreted as a form of “neoliberal conservation”, this approach to environmental governance can be seen as a driving force in the commodification, marketization, and financialization of nature. Hinging on “clearly defined and enforced” property rights, it can also be seen as a factor in the expansion of individualized private ownership. Troubled by this renewed prospect of privatization, critical scholars have done well to challenge the new enclosures of land and resources. But what about when PES operates in areas where private ownership rights are robust and widespread? Are we to believe that the tendency towards privatization poses no threat because those areas are already “lost” to private ownership? This paper considers how the social relationships that constitute property are shifting under the prescribed management practices of PES. I present evidence from Costa Rica's national PES program to suggest that, even on lands that are ostensibly already privately owned, these new practices are resulting in an expansion of exclusionary management. The objective is to demonstrate some of the reasons why financialized approaches to conservation are a problem in “already neoliberal” economies and to offer some conceptual tools for challenging the uncritical assumption that PES is harmless in areas where private ownership is already well established.

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