Vulnerability and Importance of Arctic Wetlands as large-scale nature-based solutions for Sustainability in a Changing Climate

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisie Kåresdotter ◽  
Zahra Kalantari
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Arctic Wetlands

<p>Wetlands as large-scale nature-based solutions (NBS) provide multiple ecosystem services of local, regional, and global importance. Knowledge concerning location and vulnerability of wetlands, specifically in the Arctic, is vital to understand and assess the current status and future potential changes in the Arctic. Using available high-resolution wetland databases together with datasets on soil wetness and soil types, we created the first high-resolution map with full coverage of Arctic wetlands. Arctic wetlands' vulnerability is assessed for the years 2050, 2075, and 2100 by utilizing datasets of permafrost extent and projected mean annual average temperature from HadGEM2-ES climate model outputs for three change scenarios (RCP2.6, 4.5, and 8.5). With approximately 25% of Arctic landmass covered with wetlands and 99% being in permafrost areas, Arctic wetlands are highly vulnerable to changes in all scenarios, apart from RCP2.6 where wetlands remain largely stable. Climate change threatens Arctic wetlands and can impact wetland functions and services. These changes can adversely affect the multiple services this sort of NBS can provide in terms of great social, economic, and environmental benefits to human beings. Consequently, negative changes in Arctic wetland ecosystems can escalate land-use conflicts resulting from natural capital exploitation when new areas become more accessible for use. Limiting changes to Arctic wetlands can help maintain their ecosystem services and limit societal challenges arising from thawing permafrost wetlands, especially for indigenous populations dependent on their ecosystem services. This study highlights areas subject to changes and provides useful information to better plan for a sustainable and social-ecological resilient Arctic.</p><p>Keywords: Arctic wetlands, permafrost thaw, regime shift vulnerability, climate projection</p>

scholarly journals LANDSCAPE DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT: CASE STUDY OF TEHRAN AND HIS KAN RIVER

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilda Vagge ◽  
◽  
Gioia Maddalena Gibelli ◽  
Alessio Gosetti Poli ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Landscape Design ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Design For Sustainability ◽  
Holistic Method

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.

scholarly journals Melt Pond Retrieval Based on the LinearPolar Algorithm Using Landsat Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4674
Author(s):  
Yuqing Qin ◽  
Jie Su ◽  
Mingfeng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Relative Error ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Landsat Data ◽  
Melt Pond ◽  
Melt Ponds ◽  
Very High ◽  
Sentinel 2

The formation and distribution of melt ponds have an important influence on the Arctic climate. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain more accurate information on melt ponds on Arctic sea ice by remote sensing. The present large-scale melt pond products, especially the melt pond fraction (MPF), still require verification, and using very high resolution optical satellite remote sensing data is a good way to verify the large-scale retrieval of MPF products. Unlike most MPF algorithms using very high resolution data, the LinearPolar algorithm using Sentinel-2 data considers the albedo of melt ponds unfixed. In this paper, by selecting the best band combination, we applied this algorithm to Landsat 8 (L8) data. Moreover, Sentinel-2 data, as well as support vector machine (SVM) and iterative self-organizing data analysis technique (ISODATA) algorithms, are used as the comparison and verification data. The results show that the recognition accuracy of the LinearPolar algorithm for melt ponds is higher than that of previous algorithms. The overall accuracy and kappa coefficient results achieved by using the LinearPolar algorithm with L8 and Sentinel-2A (S2), the SVM algorithm, and the ISODATA algorithm are 95.38% and 0.88, 94.73% and 0.86, and 92.40%and 0.80, respectively, which are much higher than those of principal component analysis (PCA) and Markus algorithms. The mean MPF (10.0%) obtained from 80 cases from L8 data based on the LinearPolar algorithm is much closer to Sentinel-2 (10.9%) than the Markus (5.0%) and PCA algorithms (4.2%), with a mean MPF difference of only 0.9%, and the correlation coefficients of the two MPFs are as high as 0.95. The overall relative error of the LinearPolar algorithm is 53.5% and 46.4% lower than that of the Markus and PCA algorithms, respectively, and the root mean square error (RMSE) is 30.9% and 27.4% lower than that of the Markus and PCA algorithms, respectively. In the cases without obvious melt ponds, the relative error is reduced more than that of those with obvious melt ponds because the LinearPolar algorithm can identify 100% of dark melt ponds and relatively small melt ponds, and the latter contributes more to the reduction in the relative error of MPF retrieval. With a wider range and longer time series, the MPF from Landsat data are more efficient than those from Sentinel-2 for verifying large-scale MPF products or obtaining long-term monitoring of a fixed area.

Monitoring Soil Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services by Using Large-Scale Survey Data

2015 ◽  
pp. 127-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidan M. Keith ◽  
Robert I. Griffiths ◽  
Peter A. Henrys ◽  
Steve Hughes ◽  
Inma Lebron ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Large Scale Survey

scholarly journals ASSESSMENT OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES FOR PLANNING OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 315
Author(s):  
Maija Ušča ◽  
Ivo Vinogradovs ◽  
Agnese Reķe ◽  
Dāvis Valters Immurs ◽  
Anita Zariņa
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Supply Potential

Ecosystem services (ES) are defined as the benefits that human beings derive from ecosystem functions. Assessment and mapping of these benefits are crucial for sustainable environmental planning and future natural capital. Green infrastructure (GI) is natural or semi-natural territories that provide wide range of ES. Human affected ecosystems tend to fail to provide certain sets of ES due to the trade-offs among those services, which could be mitigated through implementation of GI. Mapping of ES, as well as assessing the interactions among various ES and analysing their supply potential’s cold/hot spots considerably enhances and substantiates the planning process of GI, particularly at the regional scale and for the territories with diverse landscape potential. The aim of this paper is to discuss the assessment of ES supply potential and analyse its spatial distribution to reveal cold/hot spots of ecosystem capacity to provide wide range services and functions for GI. The study presents GIS based assessment of ES in a case study of Zemgale Planning Region. ES supply potential was assessed for 27 Corine land use classes (CLC2018) together with 10 regulatory, 12 provisioning and 6 cultural ES. An expert-based ranking approach using a two-dimensional ES matrix and a geospatial analysis was applied to determine total ES supply potential, spatial patterns and relations among multiple ES. Additional statistical analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*) was performed on spatial distribution of regulatory ES to disclose statistically significant capacity of ecosystems to function as GI in given surroundings. Preliminary results show uneven distribution of ES, trade-offs between regulatory and provisioning ES and landscape dependent spatial clustering of these trade-offs supported by result of Getis-Ord Gi* analysis, thus laying a foundation for further planning of GI at the regional scale.

Ecosystem services determination on an Italian urban greenspace

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Busca ◽  
Francesca Vigliocco ◽  
Roberto Revelli
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Direct Products ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Urban Greenspace ◽  
Green Area ◽  
Runoff Reduction

<p>This paper is part of the panorama of studies on climate changes in an urban context. Starting from the concept of Ecosystem Services, we aim to underline the importance of rebalancing equally what is demanded in an urban ecosystem and what it provides people with, focusing on pollutants quantity, carbon sequestration and runoff reduction. Ecosystem services (ES) can be defined as the components of natural capital that provide direct products (food, drinking water, etc) and benefits (like biological variability and soil creation) to people. Our goal is to determinate and to quantify ES related to urban greenspaces in terms of both economic and environmental point of view.</p><p>Specifically, the study has been developed through the use of i-Tree, a suite developed in the US context, that shows on both small and large scale the economic, environmental and water-related benefits provided by a green area. Its applicability has been tested for an Italian context on a newly built park, located in “Revello Street – Turin”, with the collaboration of the Municipality of Turin, comparing past, present and future scenarios.</p><p>Eco, Hydro and Canopy tools were used for that urban greenspace, providing useful information on software usage and justifying the creation and/or the expansion of new urban green areas through economic and environmental outputs. Results show how the transition from a past residential area to an almost totally green area has led to air quality improvement, with a consequent increase in carbon storage and pollutants reduction, while in view of future improvement works in the park (intensification of arboreal and shrubby presence), the results economically justify the intervention by showing a significant water runoff reduction with consequent reduction of flood events risk.</p><p>This work aims to deepen advantages and disadvantages of i-Tree and to insert the software as an effective and innovative tool, not widely known in a European context, for the monitoring and development of methodologies to make urban spaces increasingly sustainable, within a view of smart cities.</p>

scholarly journals CASCADE – The Circum-Arctic Sediment CArbon DatabasE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannik Martens ◽  
Evgeny Romankevich ◽  
Igor Semiletov ◽  
Birgit Wild ◽  
Bart van Dongen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Biogeochemical Cycling ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Total N ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
Arctic Sediment ◽  
Sediment Carbon

Abstract. Biogeochemical cycling in the extensive shelf seas and in the interior basins of the semi-enclosed Arctic Ocean are strongly influenced by land-ocean transport of carbon and other elements. The Arctic carbon cycle system is also inherently connected with the climate, and thus vulnerable to environmental and climate changes. Sediments of the Arctic Ocean are an active and integral part in Arctic biogeochemical cycling, and provide the opportunity to study present and historical input and fate of organic matter (e.g., through permafrost thawing). To compare differences between the Arctic regions and to study Arctic biogeochemical budgets, comprehensive sedimentary records are required. To this end, the Circum-Arctic Sediment CArbon DatabasE (CASCADE) was established to curate data primarily on concentrations of organic carbon (OC) and OC isotopes (δ13C, Δ14C), yet also on total N (TN) as well as of terrigenous biomarkers and other sediment geochemical and physical properties drawn both from the published literature and from earlier unpublished records through an extensive international community collaboration. This paper describes the establishment, structure and current status of CASCADE. This first public version includes OC concentrations in surface sediments at 4244 oceanographic stations including 2317 with TN concentrations, 1555 with δ13C-OC values, 268 with Δ14C-OC values and 653 records with quantified terrigenous biomarkers (high molecular weight n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids and lignin phenols) distributed over the shelves and the central basins of the Arctic Ocean. CASCADE also includes data from 326 sediment cores, retrieved by shallow box- or multi-coring and deep gravity/piston coring, as well as sea-bottom drilling. The comprehensive dataset reveals several large-scale features, including clear differences in both OC content and isotope-based diagnostics of OC sources between the shelf sea recipients. This indicates, for instance, the release of strongly pre-aged terrigenous OC to the East Siberian Arctic shelf and younger terrigenous OC to the Kara Sea and thus provides clues about land-ocean transport of material released by thawing permafrost. CASCADE enables synoptic analysis of OC in Arctic Ocean sediments and facilitates a wide array of future empirical and modelling studies of the Arctic carbon cycle. CASCADE is openly and freely available online (https://doi.org/10.17043/cascade; Martens et al., 2020b), is provided in various machine-readable data formats (data tables, GIS shapefile, GIS raster), and also provides ways for contributing data for future CASCADE versions. CASCADE will be continuously updated with newly published and contributed data over the foreseeable future as part of the database management of the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University.

scholarly journals Regulating ecosystem service ‘Regulation of greenhouse gas flows’: Current status and regulatory Promotion in Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 05014
Author(s):  
Irina Akhmedova ◽  
Elena Pinigina ◽  
Olga Prituzhalova ◽  
Liliia Sulkarnaeva ◽  
Natalia Zherebyateva
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Alternative Energy ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Gas Flows ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Gas Emissions

Ecosystem services are an integral part of a country's natural capital, and they require economic valuation. However, in Russia, there is no legislative methodological basis for the economic assessment of many ecosystem services in Russia, particularly the regulation of greenhouse gas flows. The Global climate change, the urgent need in transition to a low-carbon economy, the fall in global oil demand and the dissimilation of the alternative energy sources, the need to reduce the carbon footprint emphasize the strong demand for the creation of the system of payment for ecosystem services and considering service "regulation of greenhouse gas flows" as a category of marketable goods. "Low carbon" is a significant competitive advantage in the markets. The article considers the Russian experience of the ecosystem services of terrestrial ecosystems assessment snd provides an overview of crucial Russian regulations in the field of regulating greenhouse gas emissions. We established that the rhetoric of the key legislation items in the field of greenhouse gas regulation goes along with the world agenda. The main problem today is the need to launch an economic mechanism for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

scholarly journals CASCADE – The Circum-Arctic Sediment CArbon DatabasE

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 2561-2572
Author(s):  
Jannik Martens ◽  
Evgeny Romankevich ◽  
Igor Semiletov ◽  
Birgit Wild ◽  
Bart van Dongen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Biogeochemical Cycling ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Total N ◽  
Arctic Sediment ◽  
Data Tables ◽  
Sediment Carbon

Abstract. Biogeochemical cycling in the semi-enclosed Arctic Ocean is strongly influenced by land–ocean transport of carbon and other elements and is vulnerable to environmental and climate changes. Sediments of the Arctic Ocean are an important part of biogeochemical cycling in the Arctic and provide the opportunity to study present and historical input and the fate of organic matter (e.g., through permafrost thawing). Comprehensive sedimentary records are required to compare differences between the Arctic regions and to study Arctic biogeochemical budgets. To this end, the Circum-Arctic Sediment CArbon DatabasE (CASCADE) was established to curate data primarily on concentrations of organic carbon (OC) and OC isotopes (δ13C, Δ14C) yet also on total N (TN) as well as terrigenous biomarkers and other sediment geochemical and physical properties. This new database builds on the published literature and earlier unpublished records through an extensive international community collaboration. This paper describes the establishment, structure and current status of CASCADE. The first public version includes OC concentrations in surface sediments at 4244 oceanographic stations including 2317 with TN concentrations, 1555 with δ13C-OC values and 268 with Δ14C-OC values and 653 records with quantified terrigenous biomarkers (high-molecular-weight n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids and lignin phenols). CASCADE also includes data from 326 sediment cores, retrieved by shallow box or multi-coring, deep gravity/piston coring, or sea-bottom drilling. The comprehensive dataset reveals large-scale features of both OC content and OC sources between the shelf sea recipients. This offers insight into release of pre-aged terrigenous OC to the East Siberian Arctic shelf and younger terrigenous OC to the Kara Sea. Circum-Arctic sediments thereby reveal patterns of terrestrial OC remobilization and provide clues about thawing of permafrost. CASCADE enables synoptic analysis of OC in Arctic Ocean sediments and facilitates a wide array of future empirical and modeling studies of the Arctic carbon cycle. The database is openly and freely available online (https://doi.org/10.17043/cascade; Martens et al., 2021), is provided in various machine-readable data formats (data tables, GIS shapefile, GIS raster), and also provides ways for contributing data for future CASCADE versions. We will continuously update CASCADE with newly published and contributed data over the foreseeable future as part of the database management of the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University.

Implications of Urban Sustainability, Socio-Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-53
Author(s):  
José G. Vargas-Hernández ◽  
Karina M. Pallagst
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Growth Strategies ◽  
Green Growth ◽  
Infrastructure Design ◽  
Literature Reviews

This chapter aims to analyze the implications that urban sustainability, socio-ecosystems, and ecosystem services have as the bases to design the urban green growth strategies. The method used is the analytic based on the theoretical and conceptual literature reviews on the topics described. Urban sustainability and environmental performance integrates biodiversity and socio-ecosystems for the provision of better quality ecosystem services supported by green infrastructure design into the green projects aimed to achieve economic and environmental benefits. It is concluded that the ecosystem services and human well-being may suffer irreversible severe declines if sustainability is not built based on biodiversity of socio ecosystems, green infrastructure, and natural capital.

scholarly journals Electrodialysis Applications in Wastewater Treatment for Environmental Protection and Resources Recovery: A Systematic Review on Progress and Perspectives

Membranes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Gurreri ◽  
Alessandro Tamburini ◽  
Andrea Cipollina ◽  
Giorgio Micale
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Municipal Wastewater ◽  
Separation Efficiency ◽  
Salt Water ◽  
Electrical Energy ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Recent Developments

This paper presents a comprehensive review of studies on electrodialysis (ED) applications in wastewater treatment, outlining the current status and the future prospect. ED is a membrane process of separation under the action of an electric field, where ions are selectively transported across ion-exchange membranes. ED of both conventional or unconventional fashion has been tested to treat several waste or spent aqueous solutions, including effluents from various industrial processes, municipal wastewater or salt water treatment plants, and animal farms. Properties such as selectivity, high separation efficiency, and chemical-free treatment make ED methods adequate for desalination and other treatments with significant environmental benefits. ED technologies can be used in operations of concentration, dilution, desalination, regeneration, and valorisation to reclaim wastewater and recover water and/or other products, e.g., heavy metal ions, salts, acids/bases, nutrients, and organics, or electrical energy. Intense research activity has been directed towards developing enhanced or novel systems, showing that zero or minimal liquid discharge approaches can be techno-economically affordable and competitive. Despite few real plants having been installed, recent developments are opening new routes for the large-scale use of ED techniques in a plethora of treatment processes for wastewater.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document