Assessing levels, trade-offs and synergies of landscape services in the Iranian province of Qazvin: towards sustainable landscapes

Context Evidence-based knowledge is crucial for place-based knowledge production and learning towards sustainable landscapes through stewardship and integrated spatial planning. Objectives We focus on the landscape service concept as a tool, and three fundamental challenges for its use: (1) how to monitor benefits provided by different landscapes; (2) to demonstrate trade-offs and synergies among benefits in a landscape; and (3) to discuss how to incorporate results from analyses into landscape stewardship and planning. Methods As a case study we chose the Iranian Qazvin province with diverse natural and anthropogenic landscapes, and top-down societal steering. Five landscape services (water yield, water regulation, pollination, actual net primary production (NPPact) and social-cultural connectivity) were assessed and compared. Results All landscape services were significantly correlated. Major trade-offs and synergies among services were between NPPact and water yield and regulation. Trade-off and synergy clusters showed that landscape functions depend on both natural and anthropogenic landscape patterns and processes. Conclusions Providing transparent data about trade-offs and synergies among landscape services can facilitate learning about which services are important among landscapes. For each of six settings we suggest action plans. We discuss the role of Iranian landscape stewardship and planning, and integrative research needs.

Marketing Strategies Used by U.S. Landscape Services Firms

The landscape service sector is an important part of the environmental horticulture industry. However, research addressing factors impacting its business and marketing practices are scarce. This manuscript uses data collected via online and mail industry surveys in 2014 and 2019 to investigate U.S. landscape service firms’ advertising and marketing practices and different factors that influence their business strategies by firm type and size. Product mix, advertising method, and the importance of different business factors were impacted by firm type. Landscape service only firms had the most diverse product offerings, while firms with wholesale production had the least diversity. Landscape service only firms primarily used in-person and telephone advertising, while firms with wholesale production used a broader swath of advertising medias to reach a more diversified clientele. Overall, weather and labor-related factors had the most impact on landscaping firms’ business practices. Larger firms perceived labor factors as more important than smaller firms.

Assessing landscape services as foundation for Green Infrastructure functionality: the case of the Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve.

Biosphere Reserves are considered as means for the people who live and work within them to attain a balanced relationship with the natural and semi-natural environment. Moreover, they contribute to the needs of society by showing a way to a more sustainable future. The Wienerwald Biosphere Reserve partly surrounds the city of Vienna and other minor settlements, representing a well-developed example of Green Infrastructure (GI) of great cultural and natural value. Its heterogeneous landscape offers a variety of landscape services (LS). In this work we quantified and mapped the capacity of LS offered by the open land elements of Wienerwald. Starting from a high-resolution dataset, we selected suitable indicator classes, and scored each ecological and socio-cultural service through an expert-based capacity matrix. The subsequent GIS analyses focused on the intensity and density of LS capacities by developing an index useful for mapping GI functionality. The work provides an effective monitoring tool for the Reserve’s both ecological and socio-cultural sustainability performance. It also allows detecting resilient areas, by considering both the spatial distribution and the abundance of landscape elements.