scholarly journals Integrating ecosystem services into policymaking – A case study on the use of boundary organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 101286
Author(s):  
Erica Honeck ◽  
Louise Gallagher ◽  
Bertrand von Arx ◽  
Anthony Lehmann ◽  
Nicolas Wyler ◽  
...  
Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 267
Author(s):  
Lydia Olander ◽  
Katie Warnell ◽  
Travis Warziniack ◽  
Zoe Ghali ◽  
Chris Miller ◽  
...  

A shared understanding of the benefits and tradeoffs to people from alternative land management strategies is critical to successful decision-making for managing public lands and fostering shared stewardship. This study describes an approach for identifying and monitoring the types of resource benefits and tradeoffs considered in National Forest planning in the United States under the 2012 Planning Rule and demonstrates the use of tools for conceptualizing the production of ecosystem services and benefits from alternative land management strategies. Efforts to apply these tools through workshops and engagement exercises provide opportunities to explore and highlight measures, indicators, and data sources for characterizing benefits and tradeoffs in collaborative environments involving interdisciplinary planning teams. Conceptual modeling tools are applied to a case study examining the social and economic benefits of recreation on the Ashley National Forest. The case study illustrates how these types of tools facilitate dialog for planning teams to discuss alternatives and key ecosystem service outcomes, create easy to interpret visuals that map details in plans, and provide a basis for selecting ecosystem service (socio-economic) metrics. These metrics can be used to enhance environmental impact analysis, and help satisfy the goals of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the 2012 Planning Rule, and shared stewardship initiatives. The systematic consideration of ecosystem services outcomes and metrics supported by this approach enhanced dialog between members of the Forest planning team, allowed for a more transparent process in identification of key linkages and outcomes, and identified impacts and outcomes that may not have been apparent to the sociologist who is lacking the resource specific expertise of these participants. As a result, the use of the Ecosystem Service Conceptual Model (ESCM) process may result in reduced time for internal reviews and greater comprehension of anticipated outcomes and impacts of proposed management in the plan revision Environmental Impact Statement amongst the planning team.


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-L. Gourdine ◽  
A. Fourcot ◽  
C. Lefloch ◽  
M. Naves ◽  
G. Alexandre

AbstractThe present study aims to assess (1) the ecosystem services (ES) provided by LFS and (2) the differential ES between local (Creole) and exotic breeds from pig, cattle and goat. The ES are defined as the benefits that humans derive from LFS. They were summarized in 12 ES indicators that cover services related to provisioning, ecological and socio-cultural aspects and territorial vitality. A total of 106 LFS units that covers the five agroecological zones of Guadeloupe were analysed. Functional typologies of LFS per species were created from surveys. The effect of breed on the ES indicators was tested. Results showed that the 40 pig LFS units were separated into 3 clusters that were differentiated in ES according to provisioning ES (cluster 1), cultural use and sale to the neighborhood (cluster 2) and pork self-consumption (cluster 3). The typology of the 57 farms with cattle distinguished 4 clusters with differences in ES provided in self-consumption (cluster1), ecological ES (cluster 2), socio-cultural ES for racing or draught oxen (cluster 3) and ES associated with territory vitality (cluster 4). The 66 goat LFS units were classified into 3 clusters different in ES concerning self-consumption (cluster 1), cultural aspects (cluster 2) and provisioning ES (cluster 3). Our study highlights that ES indicators are not breed dependent (P > 0.10) but rather livestock farming system dependent. The ES rely more on the rearing management than on the breed type, and up to now, there are no specifications in Guadeloupe to differentiate management between breeds.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 703
Author(s):  
Astrid Vannoppen ◽  
Jeroen Degerickx ◽  
Anne Gobin

Attractive landscapes are diverse and resilient landscapes that provide a multitude of essential ecosystem services. The development of landscape policy to protect and improve landscape attractiveness, thereby ensuring the provision of ecosystem services, is ideally adapted to region specific landscape characteristics. In addition, trends in landscape attractiveness may be linked to certain policies, or the absence of policies over time. A spatial and temporal evaluation of landscape attractiveness is thus desirable for landscape policy development. In this paper, landscape attractiveness was spatially evaluated for Flanders (Belgium) using landscape indicators derived from geospatial data as a case study. Large local differences in landscape quality in (i) rural versus urban areas and (ii) between the seven agricultural regions in Flanders were found. This observed spatial variability in landscape attractiveness demonstrated that a localized approach, considering the geophysical characteristics of each individual region, would be required in the development of landscape policy to improve landscape quality in Flanders. Some trends in landscape attractiveness were related to agriculture in Flanders, e.g., a slight decrease in total agricultural area, decrease in dominance of grassland, maize and cereals, a decrease in crop diversity, sharp increase in the adoption of agri-environmental agreements (AEA) and a decrease in bare soil conditions in winter. The observed trends and spatial variation in landscape attractiveness can be used as a tool to support policy analysis, assess the potential effects of future policy plans, identify policy gaps and evaluate past landscape policy.


Author(s):  
Ioannis Souliotis ◽  
Nikolaos Voulvoulis

AbstractThe EU Water Framework Directive requires the development of management responses aimed towards improving water quality as a result of improving ecosystem health (system state). Ecosystems have potential to supply a range of services that are of fundamental importance to human well-being, health, livelihoods and survival, and their capacity to supply these services depends on the ecosystem condition (its structure and processes). According to the WFD, Programmes of Measures should be developed to improve overall water status by reducing anthropogenic catchment pressures to levels compatible with the achievement of the ecological objectives of the directive, and when designed and implemented properly should improve the ecological condition of aquatic ecosystems that the delivery of ecosystem services depends on. Monitoring and evaluation of implemented measures are crucial for assessing their effectiveness and creating the agenda for consecutive planning cycles. Considering the challenges of achieving water status improvements, and the difficulties of communicating these to the wider public, we develop a framework for the evaluation of measures cost-effectiveness that considers ecosystem services as the benefits from the reduction of pressures on water bodies. We demonstrate its application through a case study and discuss its potential to facilitate the economic analysis required by the directive, and that most European water authorities had problems with. Findings demonstrate the potential of the methodology to effectively incorporate ecosystem services in the assessment of costs and benefits of proposed actions, as well as its potential to engage stakeholders.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 6041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang ◽  
Li ◽  
Buyantuev ◽  
Bao ◽  
Zhang

Ecosystem services management should often expect to deal with non-linearities due to trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services (ES). Therefore, it is important to analyze long-term trends in ES development and utilization to understand their responses to climate change and intensification of human activities. In this paper, the region of Uxin in Inner Mongolia, China, was chosen as a case study area to describe the spatial distribution and trends of 5 ES indicators. Changes in relationships between ES and driving forces of dynamics of ES relationships were analyzed for the period 1979–2016 using a stepwise regression. We found that: the magnitude and directions in ES relationships changed during this extended period; those changes are influenced by climate factors, land use change, technological progress, and population growth.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document