Texts:
Ecosystem Services, Ronald E Hester & Roy M Harrison, 2010
- Preface
- Ch1: An Assessment of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in Europe
Ecosystem Services: From Concept to Practice, Jetske A. Bouma, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) , Pieter J. H. van Beukering, & Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 2015
- Ch1: Intro
- Ch4: Mapping ecosystem services
Ecosystem Services — Preface
“Ecosystem services” born out of visible/attainable limits to natural resources. This first led to ‘technological solutions’ like
- ‘End-of-pipe’ sewage/waste clean-up
- Increases in agricultural production via
- Plant breeding
- Pesticides
- Chemical fertilizers
Then came realization that these approaches are not sustainable, which led to more holistic thinking to environmental management (i.e, a life-cycle approach to manufacturing products for mass and energy flows at all points in the process).
Historically, society has treated the environment as a “free good” to be exploited without consequences. Thinking in terms of ecosystem services allowed full impact to be recognized.
Ecosystem service = nature doing a ‘service’ for human society (i.e., small villages dumping liquid waste into local water courses, rendering the water not harmful via self purification processes).
“Our most basic needs for food, water, and air are supplied through ecosystem services which society interferes with at its peril.”
“All ecosystems deliver a broad range of services, and managing an ecosystem primarily to deliver one service will reduce its ability to provide others.”
Ecosystem Services — Ch1: An Assessment of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in Europe
The ecosystem is the level at which “key processes such as carbon, water and nutrient cycling and productivity are determined” and measured. These processes determine how the world functions and are how services are identified.
Ecosystem Services: From Concept to Practice — Ch1: Intro
“…policy-makers and practitioners are struggling to implement the concept in practice. An important reason for this science–policy divide is the lack of an interdisciplinary framework” (p3)
“the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services is complex and non-linear. Although biodiversity forms the basis for all ecosystem services, biodiverse ecosystems do not necessarily provide more ecosys- tem services than ecosystems that are less diverse.” (p6)
Less biodiversity = less resilient ecosystem (threatens availability of ecosystem service in long run)
Ex: “drive towards monoculture food production. By increasing the productivity of food production, soil formation processes are diminished and disease regulation is reduced.” (p6)
“it is clear that the risk of ecosystem collapse is real”(p8)
“…the costs of replacing ecosystem services by man-made capital are often substantial and replacing natural capital by man-made capital usually greatly increases energy use as well.” (p8)
“Perhaps the question should not be to what extent improving the health of ecosystems improves human well-being. Instead we need to ask ourselves how the provisioning of ecosystem services can be safeguarded for generations to come.” (p8)
“protecting biodiversity may have implications for the poor. For example, Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau (2006) indicate that protected area establishment has increased poverty in parts of Africa as local communities were displaced.”(p9)
“…it is difficult to protect the ecosystem and alleviate poverty at the same time.”(p10)
“The key characteristic of ecosystems is that they consist of public or “common-good” resources.”(p11)
“an ecosystem delivers ecosystem services at a local, regional, and sometimes global scale. For example, a forest provides landscape and fuel benefits at a local level, yet the benefits of water purification and retention are regional and the benefits of the habitat function and carbon sequestration are global.”(p13)
“the concept of ecosystem services implies a shift from resource-focused policies (e.g. water, energy) to ecosystem-focused approaches (e.g. forests, wetlands) taking into account service delivery at multiple scales.”(p14)
Ecosystem service criticism exists over:
- The focus solely on benefits
- “Clearly, ecosystems have more functions than the delivery of benefits for humankind only, and focusing only on benefits carries the threat of ignoring the other important roles that ecosystems fulfill.”(p14)
- “debate about the ‘commodification’ of ecosystem services”(p14)
- “economic valuation of ecosystem services and introduction of market mechanisms is making ecosystem services tradable similar to other commodities”(p14) like timber and soy.
- Lack of attention for distributional issues
- “…effective governance of ecosystems requires attention for social justice and the distribution of ecosystem benefits.” (p15)
- Simplicity of the stock-flow relation underlying the concept
- “…the concept is too simplistic to be used for policy-making as it hides great uncertainties about ecosys- tems and the delivery of ecosystem services that need to be better understood.”(p15)
- proposal of alternative concept: “ecosystem resilience”: “instead of valuing the current societal benefits of ecosystems, the focus should be on ensuring the long-run resilience of ecosystems, with the implicit suggestion that this will benefit society in the long run.” (p15)
Ecosystem Services — Ch4: Mapping Ecosystem Services
“…the supply of ecosystem services is not homogeneously distributed across space” via “variability in plant functional traits + other environmental conditions” (p65)
“demand of ecosystem services dependent upon location as well” via “spatial variation in socioeconomic conditions” (p65)
Mapping is used to “understand the role of this spatial variation”. (p65)
Regulating service = most commonly mapped (esp climate regulation)
Provisioning = second most commonly mapped (esp food production)
Why do ecosystem services get mapped?
- To make inventory of current supply
- To determine priorities
- To perform a trade-off assessment
- “different stakeholders have different needs, and structuring the landscape to meet one of the objectives will have impacts on other ecosystem services”
- To determine changes in service supply/demand over time
What exactly gets mapped?
- Potential supply
- “the capacity of the ecosystem to provide ecosystem services without considering the demand for an ecosystem service.”(p68)
- Actual Supply
- “amount of the ecosystem service that is used by humans, i.e. the flow of an ecosystem service.” (p68)
- Demand for service
- “requirement for an ecosystem service by humans”(p68)
Maps can be based on:
- Occurance
- Quantities
- Values (sociocultural or monetary)
How are ecosystem services typically mapped?
5 methods:
- Look-up tables
- Expert knowledge
- Casual relationships
- Extrapolation of primary data
- Regression models