The difficulty of steering settlement development to reduce the loss of ecosystem services: an exploration of different development scenarios in Switzerland using spatially explicit land-use models

By the end of this century effects of land-use change on ecosystem services are expected to be more significant than other world-wide transformation processes such as climate change, altering atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases or distribution of invasive alien species.In recent years, scientific literature has been embellished with numerous land-use models that aim to explore the behaviour of land use systems under changing environmental conditions and different territorial transformations explaining the different dynamics that contribute to it, and to formulate scenario analyses to be followed up by development strategies.In addition, it should be noted that a dimension of the nexus between planning and sustainability that is important but still too little explored, is the assessment of territorial changes and development dynamics through the alterations analysis induced on processes, functions and complex systems.While land-use models can help investigate the effects of a combination of drivers at different scales, ecosystem services approach can help in better understand the trade-offs between different development scenarios making explicit the relations that every variation induces within the relationship between man and territory &#160;and among different environmental components.In this framework is set the present work that aims to integrate scenario analysis of the Basilicata region (Italy) development with assessments of alterations induced on the capacity to deliver ecosystem services. Although this region is very poorly populated and characterised by low settlement density, it is not immune to the global phenomenon of land take associated with high territorial fragmentation.The building stock increase due to real development dynamics and relative demographic increase typical of the post-war period, was followed by a further built up environment growth - in contrast with the demographic trend - and a significant land take due to massive construction of renewable energy production plants.Changing model have been applied to identify and classify the driving forces for land use changes and predict future development scenarios.In order to contribute to the development of decision support systems, scenarios resulting from the implementation of different policies are analyzed with the ecosystem services approach.

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Facilitating spatially-explicit assessments of ecosystem service delivery to support land use planning

One Ecosystem ◽

10.3897/oneeco.5.e50540 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Author(s):

Dirk Vrebos ◽

Jan Staes ◽

Steven Broekx ◽

Leo de Nocker ◽

Karen Gabriels ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Ecosystem Service ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Spatially Explicit ◽

Practical Implementation ◽

Time Investment ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Impact

Since the early 2000s, there have been substantial efforts to transform the concept of ecosystem services into practice. Spatial assessment tools are being developed to evaluate the impact of spatial planning on a wide range of ecosystem services. However, the actual implementation in decision-making remains limited. To improve implementation, tools that are tailored to local conditions can provide accurate, meaningful information. Instead of a generic and widely-applicable tool, we developed a regional, spatially-explicit tool (ECOPLAN-SE) to analyse the impact of changes in land use on the delivery of 18 ecosystem services in Flanders (Belgium). The tool incorporates ecosystem services relevant to policy-makers and managers and makes use of detailed local data and knowledge. By providing an easy-to-use tool, including the required spatial geodatasets, time investment and the learning curve remain limited for the user. With this tool, constraints to implement ecosystem service assessments in local decision-making are drastically reduced. We believe that region-specific decision support systems, like ECOPLAN-SE, are indispensable intermediates between the conceptual ecosystem service frameworks and the practical implementation in planning processes.

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Limiting the loss of terrestrial ecosystems to safeguard nature for biodiversity and humanity

10.1101/2021.02.07.428694 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jeremy S. Simmonds ◽

Andres Felipe Suarez-Castro ◽

April E. Reside ◽

James E.M. Watson ◽

James R. Allan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

United Nations ◽

Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Spatially Explicit ◽

Multiple Goals ◽

Natural Ecosystems ◽

Natural Systems ◽

The People

ABSTRACTHumanity is on a pathway of unsustainable loss of the natural systems upon which we, and all life, rely. To date, global efforts to achieve internationally-agreed goals to reduce carbon emissions, halt biodiversity loss, and retain essential ecosystem services, have been poorly integrated. However, these different goals all rely on preserving natural ecosystems. Here, we show how to unify these goals by empirically deriving spatially-explicit, quantitative area-based targets for the retention of natural terrestrial ecosystems. We found that at least 67 million km2 of Earth’s natural terrestrial ecosystems (~79% of the area remaining) require retention – via a combination of strict protection but more prominently through sustainably managed land use regimes complemented by restoration actions – to contribute to biodiversity, climate, soil and freshwater objectives under four United Nations’ Resolutions. This equates to retaining natural ecosystems across ~50% of the total terrestrial (excluding Antarctica) surface of Earth. Our results show where retention efforts could be focussed to contribute to multiple goals simultaneously. The retention targets concept that we present explicitly recognises that such management can and should co-occur alongside and be driven by the people who live in and rely on places where natural and semi-natural ecosystems remain on Earth.

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ASSESSMENT OF ECOSYSTEMS SERVICES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND LAND USE MANAGEMENT

SOCIETY INTEGRATION EDUCATION Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference ◽

10.17770/sie2017vol4.2380 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 257

Author(s):

Elīna Konstantinova ◽

Līga Brūniņa ◽

Aija Peršēvica ◽

Marga Živitere

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Sustainable Development ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Economic Value ◽

National Level ◽

Sustainable Land Use ◽

Development Scenarios ◽

Planning Processes

A very important factor for sustainable development is a balance between the exploitation of natural resources for socio-economic development, and conserving ecosystem services that are critical to everyone’s wellbeing and livelihoods. The strategical importance of ecosystem services is set by the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, which put ecosystem services firmly on the policy agenda and the EU Biodiversity Strategy, which states that “Member States must map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory by 2014, assess the economic value of such services, and promote the integration of these values into accounting and reporting systems at EU and national level by 2020”. The aim of the paper is to present and discuss the approach of ecosystem services assessment for sustainable land use and strategical development scenarios. The paper will focus on the role of ecosystem services in development and spatial planning, and this approach can be integrated in planning processes and decision making. There will be presented a case study for two coastal territories in Latvia, where an ecosystem services assessment was implemented and sequentially different development scenarios considered and analysed.

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Integrating Ecosystem Services into Land-Use Modeling to Assess the Effects of Future Land-Use Strategies in Northern Ghana

Land ◽

10.3390/land9100379 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (10) ◽

pp. 379

Author(s):

Hongmi Koo ◽

Janina Kleemann ◽

Christine Fürst

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Planning ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Assessment Process ◽

Northern Ghana ◽

Agricultural Land Use ◽

Spatially Explicit ◽

Management Options ◽

Trade Offs

In West Africa, where the majority of the population relies on natural resources and rain-fed agriculture, regionally adapted agricultural land-use planning is increasingly important to cope with growing demand for land-use products and intensifying climate variability. As an approach to identify effective future land-use strategies, this study applied spatially explicit modeling that addresses the spatial connectivity between the provision of ecosystem services and agricultural land-use systems. Considering that the status of ecosystem services varies with the perception of stakeholders, local knowledge, and characteristics of a case study area, two adjoining districts in northern Ghana were integrated into an assessment process of land-use strategies. Based on agricultural land-management options that were identified together with the local stakeholders, 75 future land-use strategies as combinations of multiple agricultural practices were elaborated. Potential impacts of the developed land-use strategies on ecosystem services and land-use patterns were assessed in a modeling platform that combines Geographic Information System (GIS) and Cellular Automaton (CA) modules. Modeled results were used to identify best land-use strategies that could deliver multiple ecosystem services most effectively. Then, local perception was applied to determine the feasibility of the best land-use strategies in practice. The results presented the different extent of trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services delivered by future land-use strategies and their different feasibility depending on the district. Apart from the fact that findings were context-specific and scale-dependent, this study revealed that the integration of different local characteristics and local perceptions to spatially explicit ecosystem service assessment is beneficial for determining locally tailored recommendations for future agricultural land-use planning.

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Integrating mixed-cell CA model and Bayesian belief networks to optimize ecosystem services for ecological restoration and conservation

10.22541/au.163253247.72004401/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shuang Zhou ◽

Li Peng

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Ecological Restoration ◽

Land Development ◽

Bayesian Belief Networks ◽

The State ◽

Belief Networks ◽

Mixed Cell ◽

Development Scenarios ◽

Ca Model

The complexity and uncertainty of land use and environmental factors pose challenges to the management decisions of ecological restoration and conservation.We integrated the mixed-cell CA model and Bayesian belief networks to develop an innovative method for optimizing ecosystem services under different land development scenarios, including consideration of the uncertainty and variability of factors.The southern region of Sichuan Province, China, was selected as an example.We first established three development scenarios between 2015 and 2035, namely, natural development scenario (NDS), ecological protection scenario (EPS), and cultivated land protection scenario (CLPS).The MCCA model was utilized to simulate the land use pattern in 2035 under different scenarios.We then construced a BBN-based model to investigate the carbon sequestration, grain supply, soil conservation, habitat quality, and water yield in 2035 under uncertain scenarios.After the sensitivity analysis and evaluation of the model, we determined the state combination of influential factors at various ecosystem service levels and the ecological restoration and conservation key areas.The obtained result showed that the key influencing factors impacting the ecosystem services level included NPP, Slope, forestland and ET, and the state combination corresponding to the highest level of ecosystem services was predominantly distributed in regions with the highest NPP, the highest Slope, the highest forestland area and low ET.Based on this finding, we proposed some suggestions for ecological restoration and conservation of key areas.This model considers uncertainties and is capable of providing scientific recommendations on restoration and conservation; therefore, it can serve as an effective tool to assist stakeholders in making decisions.

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