The challenge of valuing ecosystem services that have no material benefits

Since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ecosystem service science has made much progress in framing core concepts and approaches, but there is still debate around the notion of cultural services, and a growing consensus that ecosystem use and ecosystem service use should be clearly differentiated. Part of the debate resides in the fact that the most significant sources of conflict around natural resource management arise from the multiple managements (uses) of ecosystems, rather than from the multiple uses of ecosystem services.If the ecosystem approach or the ecosystem service paradigm are to be implemented at national levels, there is an urgent need to disentangle what are often semantic issues, revise the notion of cultural services, and more broadly, practically define the less tangible ecosystem services on which we depend. This is a critical step to identifying suitable ways to manage trade-offs and promote adaptive management.Here we briefly review the problems associated with defining and quantifying cultural ecosystem services and suggest there could be merit in discarding this term for the simpler non-material ecosystem services. We also discuss the challenges in valuing the invaluable, and suggest that if we are to keep ecosystem service definition focused on the beneficiary, we need to further classify these challenging services, for example by differentiating services to individuals from services to communities. Also, we suggest that focussing on ecosystem service change rather than simply service delivery, and identifying common boundaries relevant for both people and ecosystems, would help meet some of these challenges.     

Biodiversity mediates relationships between anthropogenic drivers and ecosystem services across global mountain,island and delta systems

Global change increasingly threatens nature, endangering the ecosystem services human wellbeing depends upon. Biodiversity potentially mediates these impacts by providing resilience to ecosystems. While biodiversity has been linked to resilience and ecosystem service supply on smaller scales, we lack understanding of whether mediating interactions between biodiversity and anthropogenic drivers are global and ubiquitous, and how they might differ between systems. Here, we examine the potential for biodiversity to mediate anthropogenic driver-ecosystem service relationships using global datasets across three distinct systems: mountains, islands and deltas. We found that driver-ecosystem service relationships were stronger where biodiversity was more intact, and weaker at higher species richness, reflecting the negative correlation between intactness and richness. Mediation was most common in mountains, then islands, then deltas; reducing with anthropogenic impact. Such patterns were found across provisioning and regulating ecosystem services, and occurred most commonly with climate change and built infrastructure. Further, we investigated the contribution of biodiversity and abiotic and anthropogenic drivers to ecosystem services. Ecosystem service supply was associated with abiotic and anthropogenic drivers alongside biodiversity, but all drivers were important to different ecosystem services. Our results empirically show the importance of accounting for the different roles that biodiversity plays in mediating human relationships with nature, and reinforce the importance of maintaining intact biodiversity in ecosystem functioning.     

Economic and ecosystem costs and benefits of alternative land use and management scenarios in the Lake Rotorua,New Zealand,catchment

A significant challenge in resource management is addressed: the perceived trade-off between economic growth and ecosystem restoration and conservation. Traditional approaches to management regard restoration as a potential cost to economic productivity. In this study we show that by considering a broader range of economic values, including ecosystem services values, an argument can be made that restoration of lake ecosystems also leads to favourable economic outcomes when commonly disregarded values are considered. Our case study analyses the ecological outcomes of different catchment mitigation and land use scenarios in terms of water quality results in a lake, assessing changes in land use values based on opportunity costs, and ecosystem services values. We show that when considering the value of ecosystem services, intensive agricultural land use is not necessarily the most economically valuable form of land use within a lake catchment. Indeed, a shift towards alternative land uses within a catchment can lead to both ongoing economic benefits and improvements in water quality. In this context, land-use change offers an option for water quality improvement that minimises lake and land mitigation costs, while adding value to catchment land use. An argument is made supporting land use change towards indigenous forest types, which can sustain alternative sources of income such as a range of recreational values, while supporting important ecosystem functions for the region.     

A place-based approach to payments for ecosystem services

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes are proliferating but are challenged by insufficient attention to spatial and temporal inter-dependencies, interactions between different ecosystems and their services, and the need for multi-level governance. To address these challenges, this paper develops a place-based approach to the development and implementation of PES schemes that incorporates multi-level governance, bundling or layering of services across multiple scales, and shared values for ecosystem services. The approach is evaluated and illustrated using case study research to develop an explicitly place-based PES scheme, the Peatland Code, owned and managed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s UK Peatland Programme and designed to pay for restoration of peatland habitats. Buyers preferred bundled schemes with premium pricing of a primary service, contrasting with sellers’ preferences for quantifying and marketing services separately in a layered scheme. There was limited awareness among key business sectors of dependencies on ecosystem services, or the risks and opportunities arising from their management. Companies with financial links to peatlands or a strong environmental sustainability focus were interested in the scheme, particularly in relation to climate regulation, water quality, biodiversity and flood risk mitigation benefits. Visitors were most interested in donating to projects that benefited wildlife and were willing to donate around £2 on-site during a visit. Sellers agreed a deliberated fair price per tonne of CO₂ equivalent from £11.18 to £15.65 across four sites in Scotland, with this range primarily driven by spatial variation in habitat degradation. In the Peak District, perceived declines in sheep and grouse productivity arising from ditch blocking led to substantially higher prices, but in other regions ditch blocking was viewed more positively. The Peatland Code was developed in close collaboration with stakeholders at catchment, landscape and national scales, enabling multi-level governance of the management and delivery of ecosystem services across these scales. Place-based PES schemes can mitigate negative trade-offs between ecosystem services, more effectively include cultural ecosystem services and engage with and empower diverse stakeholders in scheme design and governance.     

辽河流域生态系统时空格局及服务价值变化研究

以辽宁省境内辽河流域为研究对象,将流域生态系统划分为7类,从全流域、15个子流域、河岸带3个尺度分析了生态系统结构的空间和时间变化,结合生态系统服务价值评估方法,评价了三个尺度下生态系统服务价值及变化。结果表明：全流域生态系统以农田和森林生态系统为主,子流域生态系统结构及时空变化存在较大差异,河岸带生态系统结构与全流域结构差异显著,与全流域生态系统结构相比,河岸带森林生态系统所占成分显著降低,水体与湿地生态系统显著增加。全流域生态系统服务总价值逐渐降低,森林生态系统服务价值最高;子流域内森林生态系统服务价值对子流域服务价值最大;河岸带内水体与湿地生态系统服务价值最大。     

Malnutrition and conflict in East Africa: the impacts of resource variability on human security

Changes in climate, along with anthropogenic pressures, impact vegetation productivity and related ecosystem services on which human security relies. The impacts of these climate changes on society will be experienced both through changes in mean conditions over long time periods and through increases in extreme events. Uncertainties remain on how short-term changes in ecosystems influence human security. Most studies analyzing the relationship between human security and climate are at the country level, ignoring fine-grained spatial heterogeneity in local climatic and socio-economic conditions. Here, we used detailed spatio-temporal information extracted from wide-swath satellite data (MODIS) to examine the impact of interannual variability in ecosystems on malnutrition and armed conflict in East Africa while controlling for other natural and socio-economic factors. The analysis was performed at a subnational and village scales. At the regional level, ecosystem variability was associated with malnutrition. This relationship was not statistically significant at the village level. At both levels of analysis, our results indicated that armed conflicts were more likely in regions with more vegetation. Results suggested that, in East Africa, increased levels of malnutrition were related to armed conflicts. They also showed the importance, in low-income countries, of local economic activity and accessibility to reduce the likelihood of malnutrition and insecurity.     

Future makers or future takers? A scenario analysis of climate change and the Great Barrier Reef

The extent to which nations and regions can actively shape the future or must passively respond to global forces is a topic of relevance to current discourses on climate change. In Australia, climate change has been identified as the greatest threat to the ecological resilience of the Great Barrier Reef, but is exacerbated by regional and local pressures. We undertook a scenario analysis to explore how two key uncertainties may influence these threats and their impact on the Great Barrier Reef and adjacent catchments in 2100: whether (1) global development and (2) Australian development is defined and pursued primarily in terms of economic growth or broader concepts of human well-being and environmental sustainability, and in turn, how climate change is managed and mitigated. We compared the implications of four scenarios for marine and terrestrial ecosystem services and human well-being. The results suggest that while regional actions can partially offset global inaction on climate change until about mid-century, there are probable threshold levels for marine ecosystems, beyond which the Great Barrier Reef will become a fundamentally different system by 2100 if climate change is not curtailed. Management that can respond to pressures at both global and regional scales will be needed to maintain the full range of ecosystem services. Modest improvements in human well-being appear possible even while ecosystem services decline, but only where regional management is strong. The future of the region depends largely on whether national and regional decision-makers choose to be active future ‘makers’ or passive future ‘takers’ in responding to global drivers of change. We conclude by discussing potential avenues for using these scenarios further with the Great Barrier Reef region's stakeholders.     

Cost-benefit analysis in the context of ecosystem services for human well-being: A multidisciplinary critique

This paper provides a critique of the cost-benefit analysis tool for ecosystem services policy evaluation. We argue that when applied to public ecosystem services, the theoretical assumptions that underlie economic valuation and cost-benefit analysis fail to fully acknowledge the multiple dimensions of human well-being, the plural forms of value articulation, the complex nature of ecosystems, the distributional biases of markets and the fairness implications of spatio-temporal framing. The current monistic utilitarian approach to ecosystem services policy evaluation should therefore be replaced by a pluralist framework composed of a heterogeneous set of value-articulating instruments that are appropriate to the specific context within which decision-making takes place. It is argued that within this pluralist framework cost-benefit analysis may remain an appropriate tool to examine the contingent trade-offs of local policies that have limited impacts on ecosystems and their services.     

Communities and blue carbon: the role of traditional management systems in providing benefits for carbon storage,biodiversity conservation and livelihoods

Blue carbon refers to the considerable amounts of carbon sequestered by mangroves, seagrass beds, tidal marshes and other coastal and marine vegetated ecosystems. At the present time, carbon market mechanisms to compensate those conserving blue carbon ecosystems, and thus reducing carbon emissions, are not yet in place. The ecosystem services provided by coastal vegetated ecosystems extend beyond their carbon storage capacity, and include their contribution to fishery production; shoreline protection; provision of habitat for wildlife and migratory species; flood water attenuation; nutrient cycling, pollution buffering; as well as their cultural, spiritual, subsistence and recreational uses. Because these services are of high economic, social and cultural value, the management and protection of blue carbon ecosystems could build collaboration between climate change and biodiversity practitioners on the national and international level. Such collaboration would also allow for the transfer of lessons learned from coastal management and conservation activities to carbon mitigation projects, and would include the need to work closely together with indigenous peoples and local communities. Resulting management activities on the local level could utilize and strengthen traditional knowledge and management systems related to blue carbon ecosystems, and increase both the resilience of biodiversity and that of coastal communities, as well as provide for long-term storage of blue carbon. While the challenge of scaling up local initiatives remains, some concrete examples already exist, such as the network of locally-managed marine areas (LMMAs) in the Pacific and beyond.     

A century of climate and ecosystem change in Western Montana: what do temperature trends portend?

The physical science linking human-induced increases in greenhouse gasses to the warming of the global climate system is well established, but the implications of this warming for ecosystem processes and services at regional scales is still poorly understood. Thus, the objectives of this work were to: (1) describe rates of change in temperature averages and extremes for western Montana, a region containing sensitive resources and ecosystems, (2) investigate associations between Montana temperature change to hemispheric and global temperature change, (3) provide climate analysis tools for land and resource managers responsible for researching and maintaining renewable resources, habitat, and threatened/endangered species and (4) integrate our findings into a more general assessment of climate impacts on ecosystem processes and services over the past century. Over 100 years of daily and monthly temperature data collected in western Montana, USA are analyzed for long-term changes in seasonal averages and daily extremes. In particular, variability and trends in temperature above or below ecologically and socially meaningful thresholds within this region (e.g., ?17.8°C (0°F), 0°C (32°F), and 32.2°C (90°F)) are assessed. The daily temperature time series reveal extremely cold days (≤??17.8°C) terminate on average 20 days earlier and decline in number, whereas extremely hot days (≥32°C) show a three-fold increase in number and a 24-day increase in seasonal window during which they occur. Results show that regionally important thresholds have been exceeded, the most recent of which include the timing and number of the 0°C freeze/thaw temperatures during spring and fall. Finally, we close with a discussion on the implications for Montana’s ecosystems. Special attention is given to critical processes that respond non-linearly as temperatures exceed critical thresholds, and have positive feedbacks that amplify the changes.     

Historical and future quantification of terrestrial carbon sequestration from a Greenhouse-Gas-Value perspective

Terrestrial ecosystems provide a range of important services to humans, including global and regional climate regulation. These services arise from natural ecosystem functioning as governed by drivers such as climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide mixing ratio, and land-use change. From the perspective of carbon sequestration, numerous studies have assessed trends and projections of the past and future terrestrial carbon cycle, but links to the ecosystem service concept have been hindered by the lack of appropriate quantitative service metrics. The recently introduced concept of the Greenhouse Gas Value (GHGV) accounts for the land-atmosphere exchanges of multiple greenhouse gases by taking into consideration the associated ecosystem pool sizes, annual exchange fluxes and probable effects of natural disturbance in a time-sensitive manner.We use here GHGV as an indicator for the carbon sequestration aspects of the climate regulation ecosystem service, and quantify it at global scale using the LPJ-GUESS dynamic global vegetation model. The response of ecosystem dynamics and ecosystem state variables to trends in climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and land use simulated by LPJ-GUESS are used to calculate the contribution of carbon dioxide to GHGV. We evaluate global variations in GHGV over historical periods and for future scenarios (1850–2100) on a biome basis following a high and a low emission scenario.GHGV is found to vary substantially depending on the biogeochemical processes represented in LPJ-GUESS (e.g. carbon–nitrogen coupling, representation of land use). The consideration of disturbance events that occur as part of an ecosystem's natural dynamics is crucial for realistic GHGV assessments; their omission results in unrealistically high GHGV. By considering the biome-specific response to current climate and land use, and their projections for the future, we highlight the importance of all forest biomes for maintaining and increasing biogeochemical carbon sequestration. Under future climate and carbon dioxide levels following a high emission scenario GHGV values are projected to increase, especially so in tropical forests, but land-use change (e.g. deforestation) opposes this trend. The GHGV of ecosystems, especially when assessed over large areas, is an appropriate metric to assess the contribution of different greenhouse gases to climate and forms a basis for the monetary valuation of the climate regulation service ecosystems provide.     

Leveraging modern climatology to increase adaptive capacity across protected area networks

Human-driven changes in the global environment pose an increasingly urgent challenge for the management of ecosystems that is made all the more difficult by the uncertain future of both environmental conditions and ecological responses. Land managers need strategies to increase regional adaptive capacity, but relevant and rapid assessment approaches are lacking. To address this need, we developed a method to assess regional protected area networks across biophysically important climatic gradients often linked to biodiversity and ecosystem function. We plot the land of the southwestern United States across axes of historical climate space, and identify landscapes that may serve as strategic additions to current protected area portfolios. Considering climate space is straightforward, and it can be applied using a variety of relevant climate parameters across differing levels of land protection status. The resulting maps identify lands that are climatically distinct from existing protected areas, and may be utilized in combination with other ecological and socio-economic information essential to collaborative landscape-scale decision-making. Alongside other strategies intended to protect species of special concern, natural resources, and other ecosystem services, the methods presented herein provide another important hedging strategy intended to increase the adaptive capacity of protected area networks.     

Socio-economic and management implications of range-shifting species in marine systems

Climate change is leading to a redistribution of marine species, altering ecosystem dynamics as species extend or shift their geographic ranges polewards with warming waters. In marine systems, range shifts have been observed in a wide diversity of species and ecosystems and are predicted to become more prevalent as environmental conditions continue to change. Large-scale shifts in the ranges of marine species will likely have dramatic socio-economic and management implications. Australia provides a unique setting in which to examine the range of consequences of climate-induced range shifts because it encompasses a diverse range of ecosystems, spanning tropical to temperate systems, within a single nation and is home to global sea surface temperature change ‘hotspots’ (where range shifts are particularly likely to occur). We draw on global examples with a particular emphasis on Australian cases to evaluate these consequences. We show that in Australia, range shifts span a variety of ecosystem types, trophic levels, and perceived outcomes (i.e., negative versus positive). The effect(s) of range shifts on socio-economic change variables are rarely reviewed, yet have the potential to have positive and/or negative effects on economic activities, human health and ecosystem services. Even less information exists about potential management responses to range-shifting species. However, synthesis of these diverse examples provides some initial guidance for selecting effective adaptive response strategies and management tools in the face of continuing climate-mediated range shifts.     

Assessment of the management of organizations supplying ecosystem services from tropical forests

Global environmental change leads to degradation of tropical forests in many countries. In response to this pressure, programs for payments for ecosystem services (PES) are developing and organizations are emerging which manage forests in order to supply ecosystem services, rather than only harvest timber. Typically such services are carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, pollination, and watershed protection. Public or private actors interested to invest in or donate money for the provisioning of such services are faced with the problem of choosing the appropriate organization supplying ecosystem services. The goal of this paper was to develop an assessment framework based on the balanced scorecard concept including drivers, impact, performance and context variables. Results of a survey of international market actors were used to determine assessment criteria and their weights. Putting the focus of this paper on drivers and impacts, we assessed Latin American organizations that “sell” ecosystem services from tropical forests in terms of their general management, marketing, forest management, client and stakeholder satisfaction, and forest ecosystem status. We found that supplying organizations vary widely with respect to their achievements in these areas. However, the variance of assessment results is influenced even more by the variance in weights the international market actors allocate to the assessment criteria. The insights of this study can contribute to the continuous improvement of management processes in supplying organizations and can support investors and donors in their decision-making with respect to organization supplying ecosystem services.     

Strengthening conceptual foundations: Analysing frameworks for ecosystem services and poverty alleviation research

A research agenda is currently developing around the linkages between ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. It is therefore timely to consider which conceptual frameworks can best support research at this nexus. Our review of frameworks synthesises existing research on poverty/environment linkages that should not be overlooked with the adoption of the topical language of ecosystem services. A total of nine conceptual frameworks were selected on the basis of relevance. These were reviewed and compared to assess their ability to illuminate the provision of ecosystem services, the condition, determinants and dynamics of poverty, and political economy factors that mediate the relationship between poverty and ecosystem services. The paper synthesises the key contributions of each of these frameworks, and the gaps they expose in one another, drawing out lessons that can inform emerging research. Research on poverty alleviation must recognize social differentiation, and be able to distinguish between constraints of access and constraints of aggregate availability of ecosystem services. Different frameworks also highlight important differences between categories of services, their pathways of production, and their contribution to poverty alleviation. Furthermore, we highlight that it is important to acknowledge the limits of ecosystem services for poverty alleviation, given evidence that ecosystem services tend to be more associated with poverty prevention than reduction. We conclude by reflecting on the relative merits of dynamic Social–Ecological Systems frameworks versus more static checklists, and suggest that research on ecosystem services and poverty alleviation would be well served by a new framework distilling insights from the frameworks we review.     

Transborder political ecology of mangroves in Senegal and The Gambia

Existing studies of mangroves in Senegal and The Gambia have found net increases in mangrove tree cover at the national scale, but these do not accord with local accounts and explanations of loss. This paper utilizes remote sensing analysis and political ecology frameworks to assess local accounts of mangrove wood trafficking across the border between The Gambia and southern Senegal, which were encountered in conducting qualitative field research. The remote sensing results demonstrate overall increases in mangrove cover in The Gambia and in the Sine Saloum and Low Casamance estuaries in Senegal between 1988 and 2018, but also highlight greater declines in mangrove cover in Low Casamance in the 1990s—a period of heightened regional political conflict—and in particular areas of the estuary near the Gambian and Guinea-Bissauan borders. Focusing on political ecology’s attention to multiple scales of analysis, this paper addresses divergent interpretations of mangrove changes in the region, and how local accounts of destruction may not be fully captured by the scale of observation and analysis in remote sensing. The paper argues for greater attention to spatial and temporal variation in studies of mangrove dynamics, and greater consideration for how these patterns may result from confluences of political, social, and natural factors.     

气候变暖下干旱对森林生态系统的影响

人类活动显著影响着全球大气循环格局,全球平均温度升高导致干旱事件发生幅度、频度和持续时间增加,这对森林生态系统带来更多的是负面影响.本文基于已有研究,系统总结了干旱事件对森林生态系统地理分布格局、群落结构重建、植物生长和生理特性、死亡和灭绝、植物生产力以及碳循环功能的影响及其机理,并对未来干旱事件对森林生态系统长期效应以及在不同时间尺度上作用机理的研究提出建议.本研究对开展全球变化背景下森林生态系统对干旱事件响应机制的研究具有重要指导意义.     

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) in the face of external biophysical stressors

Economic instruments such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes are increasingly promoted to protect ecosystems (and their associated ecosystem services) that are threatened by processes of local and global change. Biophysical stressors external to a PES site, such as forest fires, pollution, sea level rise, and ocean acidification, may undermine ecosystem stability and sustained ecosystem service provision, yet their threats and impacts are difficult to account for within PES scheme design. We present a typology of external biophysical stressors, characterizing them in terms of stressor origin, spatial domain and temporal scale. We further analyse how external stressors can potentially impinge on key PES parameters, as they (1) threaten ecosystem service provision, additionality and permanence, (2) add challenges to the identification of PES providers and beneficiaries, and (3) add complexity and costs to PES mechanism design. Effective PES implementation under external stressors requires greater emphasis on the evaluation and mitigation of external stressors, and further instruments that can accommodate associated risks and uncertainties. A greater understanding of external stressors will increase our capacity to design multi-scale instruments to conserve important ecosystems in times of environmental change.     

Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses

The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social–ecological systems. This article presents the origin of the resilience perspective and provides an overview of its development to date. With roots in one branch of ecology and the discovery of multiple basins of attraction in ecosystems in the 1960–1970s, it inspired social and environmental scientists to challenge the dominant stable equilibrium view. The resilience approach emphasizes non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprise, how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales. The history was dominated by empirical observations of ecosystem dynamics interpreted in mathematical models, developing into the adaptive management approach for responding to ecosystem change. Serious attempts to integrate the social dimension is currently taking place in resilience work reflected in the large numbers of sciences involved in explorative studies and new discoveries of linked social–ecological systems. Recent advances include understanding of social processes like, social learning and social memory, mental models and knowledge–system integration, visioning and scenario building, leadership, agents and actor groups, social networks, institutional and organizational inertia and change, adaptive capacity, transformability and systems of adaptive governance that allow for management of essential ecosystem services.     

Taking the Pulse of Mountains: Ecosystem Responses to Climatic Variability

An integrated program of ecosystem modeling and field studies in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest (U.S.A.) has quantified many of the ecological processes affected by climatic variability. Paleoecological and contemporary ecological data in forest ecosystems provided model parameterization and validation at broad spatial and temporal scales for tree growth, tree regeneration and treeline movement. For subalpine tree species, winter precipitation has a strong negative correlation with growth; this relationship is stronger at higher elevations and west-side sites (which have more precipitation). Temperature affects tree growth at some locations with respect to length of growing season (spring) and severity of drought at drier sites (summer). Furthermore, variable but predictable climate-growth relationships across elevation gradients suggest that tree species respond differently to climate at different locations, making a uniform response of these species to future climatic change unlikely. Multi-decadal variability in climate also affects ecosystem processes. Mountain hemlock growth at high-elevation sites is negatively correlated with winter snow depth and positively correlated with the winter Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index. At low elevations, the reverse is true. Glacier mass balance and fire severity are also linked to PDO. Rapid establishment of trees in subalpine ecosystems during this century is increasing forest cover and reducing meadow cover at many subalpine locations in the western U.S.A. and precipitation (snow depth) is a critical variable regulating conifer expansion. Lastly, modeling potential future ecosystem conditions suggests that increased climatic variability will result in increasing forest fire size and frequency, and reduced net primary productivity in drier, east-side forest ecosystems. As additional empirical data and modeling output become available, we will improve our ability to predict the effects of climatic change across a broad range of climates and mountain ecosystems in the northwestern U.S.A.