How to Detect Scale Effect of Ecosystem Services Supply? A Comprehensive Insight from Xilinhot in Inner Mongolia, China

Spatial scale plays a crucial role in the assessment and management of ecosystem services (ES), yet explicit information for identifying and understanding the scale effect on ES supply remains limited. In an attempt to detect scale effect on ES supply from a comprehensive perspective, this study developed a framework for integrating scale effect in three aspects, including individual ES patterns, pairwise ES interactions, and ecosystem service bundles (ESB). The framework was tested in Xilinhot, a prairie landscape city of Inner Mongolia, at four different levels of spatial scale. The results indicated that, most ES showed a decreasing clustering at coarser scales in terms of spatial pattern. At the same time, coarser scales resulted in fewer trade-offs and stronger synergies between pairwise ES. The identification of ESB varied greatly with scale, and this change reflected in the composition of ES variables and spatial distribution of bundles. We attributed the scale effect of the above three aspects to differences in social-ecological factors and their driving mechanisms at different scales. This comprehensive framework could support local managers to coordinate the management of multiple ES at different scales.

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Supporting the Management of Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas: Trade-Offs Between Effort and Accuracy in Evaluation

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management ◽

10.1142/s1464333217500077 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 19 (02) ◽

pp. 1750007 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Uta Schirpke ◽

Rocco Scolozzi ◽

Benedetta Concetti ◽

Bruna Comini ◽

Ulrike Tappeiner

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Spatial Scale ◽

Well Being ◽

Natura 2000 ◽

Qualitative And Quantitative ◽

Monetary Valuation ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Multiple Levels ◽

Different Levels

Integrating ecosystem services (ES) into the management of protected areas, such as European Natura 2000 sites, can improve biodiversity conservation and human well-being; yet, the assessment and application of ES remains challenging. In this study, we propose a roadmap to guide managers in the assessment of ES at multiple levels, including a non-monetary valuation in qualitative and quantitative terms, as well as a monetary valuation, and suggesting the appropriate applications related to ES mapping, communication and planning. The roadmap proceeds through four steps and along a gradient of accuracy and effort required in the assessment methods, with different levels of spatial scale, to effectively support managers. Together with the description of the roadmap, this paper provides insights from its application to terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in Italy.

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Ecosystem Services Becoming Political: How Ecological Processes Shape Local Resource-Management Networks

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution ◽

10.3389/fevo.2021.635988 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Béla Kuslits ◽

Ágnes Vári ◽

Eszter Tanács ◽

Réka Aszalós ◽

Anghel Drasovean ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Power Relations ◽

Ecological Factors ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Theoretical Understanding ◽

Social Sphere ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Trade Offs ◽

The Social ◽

Wide Range

While a landscape usually provides a wide range of benefits, the ecological and spatial entanglement of the processes behind ecosystem services does not allow maximizing benefits from all services at the same time. Different stakeholders relying on different services might therefore prefer different policies and management for the wider area where they operate. Trade-offs, disagreements and mutual interests are rooted in ecological processes but are manifested in the social sphere. Social networks were shown to have a significant impact on the management of ecosystem services. In this paper we show that ecosystem services also influence the structure of management-networks and power-relations among stakeholders, thus ecological factors set the stage for (local-regional) political discourse. We used social network analysis (SNA) to show how ecological processes become agents of social-ecological systems (SES), this method is also useful for finding those players who can adopt a mediator role in the social sphere, having a special position in the web of competing interests. Our research shows how mutual influence between social and ecological elements shapes management strategies in five protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe. The most voluminous and profitable ecosystem services (primarily timber production in our cases) define which stakeholders are the most powerful in management networks—this eminent position allows these players to make decisions unilaterally. Other, smaller players tend to negotiate with a diverse set of counterparts with whom they share and co-manage often multiple services. Power relations that emerge as a consequence of production differences among ecosystem services often do not allow participatory management methods. These situations lead to over-utilization of natural resources with a narrow interpretation of sustainability which decreases resilience for the whole social-ecological system. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of political discourses in SES and showcase how SNA can be applied as a tool to facilitate participatory landscape-management. We show how ecological factors co-create the social sphere where decisions are made about sustainable land-use.

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How Do Trade-Offs and Synergies between Ecosystem Services Change in the Long Period? The Case Study of Uxin, Inner Mongolia, China

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11216041 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (21) ◽

pp. 6041 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Zhang ◽

Li ◽

Buyantuev ◽

Bao ◽

Zhang

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Inner Mongolia ◽

Stepwise Regression ◽

Driving Forces ◽

Extended Period ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Development And Utilization ◽

Long Term Trends

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.

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A social-ecological analysis of ecosystem services supply and trade-offs in European wood-pastures

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.aar2176 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (5) ◽

pp. eaar2176 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Mario Torralba ◽

Nora Fagerholm ◽

Tibor Hartel ◽

Gerardo Moreno ◽

Tobias Plieninger

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Ecological Analysis ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Trade Offs

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Understanding the relationships between ecosystem services and associated social-ecological drivers in a karst region: A case study of Guizhou Province, China

Progress in Physical Geography Earth and Environment ◽

10.1177/0309133320933525 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 030913332093352 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sijing Qiu ◽

Jian Peng ◽

Jianquan Dong ◽

Xiaoyu Wang ◽

Zihan Ding ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Socioeconomic Factors ◽

Ecosystem Service ◽

Ecological Factors ◽

Water Yield ◽

Karst Region ◽

Human Society ◽

Grain Production ◽

Karst Landscape ◽

Social Ecological

Understanding the relationships among multiple ecosystem services could improve the landscape capacity to provide benefits to human society. However, the underlying mechanisms shaping ecosystem services relationships are still unclear although some studies have been conducted to explore how natural and socioeconomic factors influence the relationships among ecosystem services. In this study, the karst landscape in southwestern China, a vulnerable system with intensive human activities, was focused on, aiming to explore relationships between ecosystem services and associated social and ecological factors. The results showed that the distribution of eight individual ecosystem services were spatially heterogeneous and clustered based on the characteristics of the karst landscape. The relationships between provisioning services and regulating services, such as grain production and net primary productivity, as well as water yield and soil retention, were quite different in high karst coverage regions and low karst coverage regions. Among five ecosystem service bundles identified, ecosystem services in the urban development bundle were mainly determined by socioeconomic factors, while in the other four bundles of multifunction, grain production, habitat conservation, and carbon sequestration, ecosystem services were dominated by ecological factors. However, socioeconomic factors (i.e. population density and night-time light intensity) appeared to explain the overall ecosystem service delivery more than karst terrain. This study provided insights for sustainable ecosystem management in a vulnerable karst region through exploring social-ecological factors of the relationships among ecosystem services.

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Urban expansion in the Atlantic Forest: applying the Nature Futures Framework to develop a conceptual model and future scenarios

Biota Neotropica ◽

10.1590/1676-0611-bn-2019-0904 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (suppl 1) ◽

Author(s):

Rafael Cavalcanti Lembi ◽

Cecilia Cronemberger ◽

Caroline Picharillo ◽

Sheina Koffler ◽

Pedro H. Albuquerque Sena ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Conceptual Model ◽

Atlantic Forest ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Well Being ◽

Integrative Approach ◽

Natural Ecosystems ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Trade Offs ◽

The Impact

Abstract: The Atlantic Forest is an important hotspot of biodiversity and ecosystem services that contributes to the well-being of its 125 million human inhabitants, about three quarters of the Brazilian population. In the coming decades, forecasts show that urban areas in the Atlantic Forest will grow at the expense of natural ecosystems, leading to increasing pressure on biodiversity and ecosystem services. We used the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) for envisioning positive scenarios for cities in the Atlantic Forest. First, we developed a conceptual model based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) approach to describe consequences of urban growth for the three NFF perspectives: Nature for Society, Nature for Nature and Nature as Culture. Second, we proposed scenario storylines that encompass multiple social-ecological values of nature and could be used by policy makers to plan desirable futures for the Atlantic Forest. Then, we discussed the impact of distinct policies on these values, identifying the different ways in which the management of urban green and blue spaces, natural ecosystems, and urban densities can lead to different social-ecological outcomes. We further detail the complexity, trade-offs, and synergies regarding city development, nature conservation, and human well-being in this tropical hotspot. Applying NFF can contribute to the ongoing debate regarding urban sustainability, by providing an interdisciplinary and integrative approach that explicitly incorporates multiple values of nature and the visualization of positive futures.

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Monitoring social–ecological networks for biodiversity and ecosystem services in human-dominated landscapes

FACETS ◽

10.1139/facets-2020-0114 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

pp. 1670-1692

Author(s):

Carina Rauen Firkowski ◽

Amanda M. Schwantes ◽

Marie-Josée Fortin ◽

Andrew Gonzalez

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Ecosystem Service ◽

Ecological Systems ◽

Maple Syrup ◽

Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽

Causal Understanding ◽

Social Ecological Systems ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Analytical Tools

The demand the human population is placing on the environment has triggered accelerated rates of biodiversity change and created trade-offs among the ecosystem services we depend upon. Decisions designed to reverse these trends require the best possible information obtained by monitoring ecological and social dimensions of change. Here, we conceptualize a network framework to monitor change in social–ecological systems. We contextualize our framework within Ostrom’s social–ecological system framework and use it to discuss the challenges of monitoring biodiversity and ecosystem services across spatial and temporal scales. We propose that spatially explicit multilayer and multiscale monitoring can help estimate the range of variability seen in social–ecological systems with varying levels of human modification across the landscape. We illustrate our framework using a conceptual case study on the ecosystem service of maple syrup production. We argue for the use of analytical tools capable of integrating qualitative and quantitative knowledge of social–ecological systems to provide a causal understanding of change across a network. Altogether, our conceptual framework provides a foundation for establishing monitoring systems. Operationalizing our framework will allow for the detection of ecosystem service change and assessment of its drivers across several scales, informing the long-term sustainability of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

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Temporal variation and spatial scale dependency of the trade-offs and synergies among multiple ecosystem services in the Taihu Lake Basin of China

The Science of The Total Environment ◽

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.135 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 651 ◽

pp. 218-229 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Xuning Qiao ◽

Yangyang Gu ◽

Changxin Zou ◽

Deling Xu ◽

Lei Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Temporal Variation ◽

Spatial Scale ◽

Taihu Lake ◽

Lake Basin ◽

Scale Dependency ◽

Taihu Lake Basin ◽

Trade Offs

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Detecting the Complex Relationships and Driving Mechanisms of Key Ecosystem Services in the Central Urban Area Chongqing Municipality, China

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13214248 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (21) ◽

pp. 4248

Author(s):

Fang Wang ◽

Xingzhong Yuan ◽

Lilei Zhou ◽

Shuangshuang Liu ◽

Mengjie Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Area ◽

Water Conservation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Additive Models ◽

Mountainous Areas ◽

Chongqing Municipality ◽

Driving Mechanisms ◽

Social Ecological

Ecosystem services (ESs) are highly vulnerable to human activities. Understanding the relationships among multiple ESs and driving mechanisms are crucial for multi-objective management in complex social-ecological systems. The goals of this study are to quantitatively evaluate and identify ESs hotspots, explore the relationships among ESs and elucidate the driving mechanisms. Taking central urban area Chongqing municipality as the study area, biodiversity (BI), carbon fixation (CF), soil conservation (SC) and water conservation (WC) were evaluated based on the InVEST model and ESs hotspots were identified. The complex interactions among multiple ESs were determined by utilizing multiple methods: spearman correlation analysis, bivariate local spatial autocorrelation and K-means clustering. The linear or nonlinear relationships between ESs and drivers were discussed by generalized additive models (GAMs). The results showed that during 2000–2018, except for CF that exhibited no obvious change, all other ESs showed a decrease tendency. High ESs were clustered in mountains, while ESs in urban areas were lowest. At administrative districts scale, ESs were relatively higher in Beibei, Banan and Yubei, and drastically decreased in Jiangbei. Multiple ES hotspots demonstrated clear spatial heterogeneity, which were mainly composed of forestland and distributed in mountainous areas with high altitude and steep slope. The relationships between ES pairs were synergistic at the entire scale. However, at grid scale, the synergies were mainly concentrated in the high-high and low-low clusters, i.e., mountainous areas and urban central areas. Five ESs bundles presented the interactions among multiple ESs, which showed well correspondence with social-ecological conditions. GAMs indicated that forestland and grassland had positive impact on BI and CF. Additionally, SC was mainly determined by geomorphological factors, while WC were mainly influenced by precipitation. Furthermore, policy factors were confirmed to have a certain positive effect on ESs. This study provides credible references for ecosystem management and urban planning.

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