scholarly journals Embedding ecosystem services in coastal planning leads to better outcomes for people and nature

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (24) ◽  
pp. 7390-7395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie K. Arkema ◽  
Gregory M. Verutes ◽  
Spencer A. Wood ◽  
Chantalle Clarke-Samuels ◽  
Samir Rosado ◽  
...  

Recent calls for ocean planning envision informed management of social and ecological systems to sustain delivery of ecosystem services to people. However, until now, no coastal and marine planning process has applied an ecosystem-services framework to understand how human activities affect the flow of benefits, to create scenarios, and to design a management plan. We developed models that quantify services provided by corals, mangroves, and seagrasses. We used these models within an extensive engagement process to design a national spatial plan for Belize’s coastal zone. Through iteration of modeling and stakeholder engagement, we developed a preferred plan, currently under formal consideration by the Belizean government. Our results suggest that the preferred plan will lead to greater returns from coastal protection and tourism than outcomes from scenarios oriented toward achieving either conservation or development goals. The plan will also reduce impacts to coastal habitat and increase revenues from lobster fishing relative to current management. By accounting for spatial variation in the impacts of coastal and ocean activities on benefits that ecosystems provide to people, our models allowed stakeholders and policymakers to refine zones of human use. The final version of the preferred plan improved expected coastal protection by >25% and more than doubled the revenue from fishing, compared with earlier versions based on stakeholder preferences alone. Including outcomes in terms of ecosystem-service supply and value allowed for explicit consideration of multiple benefits from oceans and coasts that typically are evaluated separately in management decisions.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayuree Nasa Khan ◽  
◽  
Mongkol Khan ◽  
Taraton Boongthong ◽  
Fatimah Hassan ◽  
...  

This paper aims to present the sustainable development of the environment in the Pha Taem national park in Thailand. It is in the context of the environmental supply for Eco-tourism and nature-based tourism. The study is in the area of the Pha Team National Park (PTNP) in Thailand, which consists of natural and historical features. PTNP has a distinctive geomorphological appearance. The uniqueness of the national park makes it more valuable as a site for not only establishing a national park but a geo-park as well. The PTNP is located on the edge east of Thailand’s territory. The boundary of the PTNP is along with Thailand and the Lao PDR border across the Mekong River. This study employed a semi-structured interview with the national park staff and superintendent. Fifteen questions ranging from the perspective of sustainable tourism development goals to environmental supply were posed to the respondents. The findings demonstrated that to successfully manage the national park and achieve its sustainable tourism development goals the national park should be careful with its management plan and deal cautiously with stakeholders. The national park tourism management plan should include the stakeholder in the planning process to avoid potential conflicts. Moreover, it is necessary for effective tourism management that the park staff enhance their expertise and skills with regard to the tourism operations and tour management aspects of the park.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Harner ◽  
Lee Cerveny ◽  
Rebecca Gronewold

Natural resource managers need up-to-date information about how people interact with public lands and the meanings these places hold for use in planning and decision-making. This case study explains the use of public participatory Geographic Information System (GIS) to generate and analyze spatial patterns of the uses and values people hold for the Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado. Participants drew on maps and answered questions at both live community meetings and online sessions to develop a series of maps showing detailed responses to different types of resource uses and landscape values. Results can be disaggregated by interaction types, different meaningful values, respondent characteristics, seasonality, or frequency of visit. The study was a test for the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service, who jointly manage the monument as they prepare their land management plan. If the information generated is as helpful throughout the entire planning process as initial responses seem, this protocol could become a component of the Bureau’s planning tool kit.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan W. Loiacono ◽  
Chu-Fei H. Ho ◽  
Natalie V. Sierra ◽  
Domènec Jolis ◽  
Carolyn Chiu ◽  
...  

The City and County of San Francisco (“City”) embarked upon a 30-year master planning process in part prompted by public concerns related to the neighbourhood impacts of the Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant (SEP). The Sewer System Master Plan, as it is called, developed a long term Integrated Urban Watershed Management Plan for the City's treatment plants and collection system. This paper focuses on the planning framework and public input to the process, particularly as it relates to proposed changes to the SEP. The resulting improvements address issues of replacing aging infrastructure, eliminating odor emissions, and visually screening the treatment plants that are situated within an urban setting. The recommended project addresses the needed repair of the existing infrastructure; and proposes that the City move towards an integrated urban watershed approach, initially through localized rainwater harvesting and opportunistic water reclamation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Smith ◽  
Justin Adams ◽  
David J. Beerling ◽  
Tim Beringer ◽  
Katherine V. Calvin ◽  
...  

Land-management options for greenhouse gas removal (GGR) include afforestation or reforestation (AR), wetland restoration, soil carbon sequestration (SCS), biochar, terrestrial enhanced weathering (TEW), and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). We assess the opportunities and risks associated with these options through the lens of their potential impacts on ecosystem services (Nature's Contributions to People; NCPs) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We find that all land-based GGR options contribute positively to at least some NCPs and SDGs. Wetland restoration and SCS almost exclusively deliver positive impacts. A few GGR options, such as afforestation, BECCS, and biochar potentially impact negatively some NCPs and SDGs, particularly when implemented at scale, largely through competition for land. For those that present risks or are least understood, more research is required, and demonstration projects need to proceed with caution. For options that present low risks and provide cobenefits, implementation can proceed more rapidly following no-regrets principles.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2060
Author(s):  
Elvira Buonocore ◽  
Umberto Grande ◽  
Pier Paolo Franzese ◽  
Giovanni F. Russo

The biotic and abiotic assets of the marine environment form the “marine natural capital” embedded in the global ocean. Marine natural capital provides the flow of “marine ecosystem services” that are directly used or enjoyed by people providing benefits to human well-being. They include provisioning services (e.g., food), regulation and maintenance services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage, and coastal protection), and cultural services (e.g., tourism and recreational benefits). In recent decades, human activities have increased the pressures on marine ecosystems, often leading to ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss and, in turn, affecting their ability to provide benefits to humans. Therefore, effective management strategies are crucial to the conservation of healthy and diverse marine ecosystems and to ensuring their long-term generation of goods and services. Biophysical, economic, and sociocultural assessments of marine ecosystem services are much needed to convey the importance of natural resources to managers and policy makers supporting the development and implementation of policies oriented for the sustainable management of marine resources. In addition, the accounting of marine ecosystem service values can be usefully complemented by their mapping to enable the identification of priority areas and management strategies and to facilitate science–policy dialogue. Given this premise, this study aims to review trends and evolution in the concept of marine ecosystem services. In particular, the global scientific literature on marine ecosystem services is explored by focusing on the following main aspects: the definition and classification of marine ecosystem services; their loss due to anthropogenic pressures, alternative assessment, and mapping approaches; and the inclusion of marine ecosystem services into policy and decision-making processes.


2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey D. Mullen

Several states in the southeast have acknowledged the need for statewide water planning but have yet to act. In contrast, Georgia is on the cusp of completing the Georgia Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Plan (SWMP). The SWMP provides for resource assessments, forecasts, and regional water planning. Over the past three years, an extensive effort has been made to implement the SWMP. This article describes the planning process undertaken in Georgia. Several of the recommended practices are also highlighted and critiqued with respect to their potential to affect aggregate water use in the state.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. D. Keesstra ◽  
J. Bouma ◽  
J. Wallinga ◽  
P. Tittonell ◽  
P. Smith ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this FORUM paper we discuss how soil scientists can help to reach the recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals in the most effective manner. Soil science, as a land-related discipline has important links to several of the SDGs which are demonstrated through the functions of soils and the ecosystem services that are linked to those functions. We explore and discuss how soil scientists can rise to the challenge both internally, in terms of our procedures and practices, and externally in terms of our relations with colleague scientists in other disciplines, diverse groups of stakeholders and the policy arena. To meet these goals we recommend the following steps to be taken by the soil science community as a whole: (i) Embrace the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as they provide a platform that allows soil science to demonstrate its relevance for realizing a sustainable society by 2030. (ii) Show the specific value of soil science: Research should explicitly show how using modern soil information can improve the results of inter- and trans-disciplinary studies on SDGs related to food security, water scarcity, climate change, biodiversity loss and health threats. (iii) Given the integrative nature of soils, soil scientists are in a unique position to take leadership in overarching systems-analyses of ecosystems; (iii) Raise awareness of soil organic matter as a key attribute of soils to illustrate its importance for soil functions and ecosystem services; (iv) Improve the transfer of knowledge through knowledge brokers with a soil background; (v) Start at the basis: educational programs are needed at all levels, starting in primary schools, and emphasizing practical, down-to-earth examples; (vi) Facilitate communication with the policy arena by framing research in terms that resonate with politicians in terms of the policy cycle or by considering drivers, pressures and responses affecting impacts of land use change; and finally (vii) all this is only possible if researchers, with soil scientists in the frontlines, look over the hedge towards other disciplines, to the world-at-large and to the policy arena, reaching over to listen first, as a basis for genuine collaboration.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Brooker ◽  
Charlotte Rachael Hopkins ◽  
Emilie Devenport ◽  
Lucy Greenhill ◽  
Calum Duncan

Sustainable development principles are based on the fundamental recognition of humans as an integral part of the ecosystem. Participation of civil society should therefore be central to marine planning processes and enabling ecosystem-based management, and development of mechanisms for effective participation is critical. To date, little attention has been given to the role of Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs) in public participation. In this paper, the results of two workshops, which involved various stakeholders and addressed public participation in marine planning, are reported and discussed in the context of the Scottish marine planning process. ENGOs’ role in communicating complex policies, representing members’ interests and contributing towards participatory governance in marine planning is highlighted. Innovative outreach methods are still required by decision-makers to translate technical information, integrate local knowledge, improve public representation and conserve resources. This could include collaboration with ENGOs to help promote public participation in decision-making processes.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
SeaPlan

As more ocean plans are developed and adopted around the world, the importance of accessible, up-to-date spatial data in the planning process has become increasingly apparent. Many ocean planning efforts in the United States and Canada rely on a companion data portal–a curated catalog of spatial datasets characterizing the ocean uses and natural resources considered as part of ocean planning and management decision-making.Data portals designed to meet ocean planning needs tend to share three basic characteris- tics. They are: ocean-focused, map-based, and publicly-accessible. This enables planners, managers, and stakeholders to access common sets of sector-speci c, place-based information that help to visualize spatial relationships (e.g., overlap) among various uses and the marine environment and analyze potential interactions (e.g., synergies or con icts) among those uses and natural resources. This data accessibility also enhances the transparency of the planning process, arguably an essential factor for its overall success.This paper explores key challenges, considerations, and best practices for developing and maintaining a data portal. By observing the relationship between data portals and key principles of ocean planning, we posit three overarching themes for data portal best practices: accommodation of diverse users, data vetting and review by stakeholders, and integration with the planning process. The discussion draws primarily from the use of the Northeast Ocean Data Portal to support development of the Northeast Ocean Management Plan, with additional examples from other portals in the U.S. and Canada.


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