Modelling dynamics of ecosystem services basket in Mediterranean landscapes: a tool for rational management

Natural ecosystems are life-supporting systems providing diverse ecosystem services (ESs) and benefits to human societies: e.g., food and clean water, recreation opportunities or climate regulation. The contribution of natural and semi-natural ecosystems to the provision of such services depends to a large extent on vegetation structure and composition, which, in turn, change as a result of interactions between human decisions about land management, and spontaneous biological and environmental processes. Rational management of these dynamic ecosystems requires an ability to predict short- and long-term effects of management decisions on the desired ESs. The vegetation then contributes to, and modifies, the products and services obtained from the land. We applied mathematical modeling to study these complex relationships. We developed a model for a Mediterranean ecosystem which predicts the dynamics of multiple services in response to management scenarios, mediated by vegetation changes. Six representative ESs representing different groups were selected, based on available scientific information, for a detailed study: (1) density of geophytes, (2) potential contribution to honey production, (3) energy density of fleshy fruits foraged by birds, (4) forage for goats, (5) forage for cattle, and (6) carbon retention in woody plants. Mean contributions to each service by different vegetation cover types were estimated, and the overall service provided by the site was calculated as a weighted mean of these contributions. Services were measured in their appropriate units and subsequently standardized to a percentage of the maximum value observed in the study area. We attempted to combine all studied ESs, despite their different nature, into one “ESs basket”. This paper presents the dynamics of simulated vegetation composition and values of services in response to management scenarios involving grazing, fire and their combinations. Our approach can help land managers to evaluate alternative management scenarios by presenting the “services basket” obtained from the entire managed area.     

Riparian habitat changes across the continental United States (1972–2003) and potential implications for sustaining ecosystem services

Riparian ecosystems are important elements in landscapes that often provide a disproportionately wide range of ecosystem services and conservation benefits. Their protection and restoration have been one of the top environmental management priorities across the US over the last several years. Despite the level of concern, visibility and management effort, little is known about trends in riparian habitats. Moreover, little is known about whether or not cumulative efforts to restore and protect riparian zones and floodplains are affecting the rates of riparian habitat change nationwide. To address these issues, we analyzed riparian land cover change between the early 1970s and the late 1990s/early 2000s using existing spatial data on hydrography and land cover. This included an analysis of land cover changes within 180 m riparian buffer zones, and at catchment scales, for 42,363 catchments across 63 ecoregions of the continental US. The total amount of forest and natural land cover (forests, shrublands, wetlands) in riparian buffers declined by 0.7 and 0.9%, respectively across the entire study period. Gains in grassland/shrubland accounted for the 0.2% lower percentage of total natural land cover loss relative to forests. Conversely, urban and developed land cover (urban, agriculture, and mechanically disturbed lands) increased by more than 1.3% within riparian buffers across the entire study period. Despite these changes, we documented an opposite trend of increasing proportions of natural and forest land cover in riparian buffers versus the catchment scale. We surmise that this trend might reflect a combination of natural recovery and cumulative efforts to protect riparian ecosystems across the US. However, existing models limit our ability to assess the impacts of these changes on specific ecosystem services. We discuss the implications of changes observed in this study on the sustainability of ecosystem services. We also recommend opportunties for future riparian change assessments.     

Assessment of the relationship between ecosystem services and human wellbeing in the social-ecological landscapes of Lefke Region in North Cyprus

Context

Social-ecological landscapes provide essential ecosystem services (ESs) for human wellbeing (HWB). Understanding the relationship between ESs and HWB is important for relevant policy development. Within this context, the purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between ESs and HWB in the social-ecological landscapes of Lefke Region located in North Cyprus.

Objectives

The objectives of the study include: to assess the relative values of ESs, their contributions to HWB, the relationship between ESs and HWB, and the major drivers of change.

Methods

The method of the study comprises two parts: (i) to develop a conceptual framework for assessing the linkages between ESs and HWB and (ii) to apply a socio-cultural preference method for evaluating the relative values of ESs and HWB based on local people’s perception obtained from a questionnaire. The average relative values were estimated by using a 0–5-point Likert scale.

Results

The results of the assessment revealed that the respondents perceived 20 ESs with a medium average relative value in all categories of ESs. These services contribute to 11 components of HWB from the highest (security) to the lowest (existence) degree. The relationship between the ESs and HWB changes from medium to low level in relation to several factors (e.g. culture). Several drivers (e.g. urbanization) have caused changes in the ecosystems and flow of ESs.

Conclusions

The results of this study can contribute to better understanding the human-environment interaction and developing appropriate policies for sustaining ESs and their contributions to HWB in Lefke Region and elsewhere.

     

Ecosystem services in changing landscapes: An introduction

The concept of ecosystem services from landscapes is rapidly gaining momentum as a language to communicate values and benefits to scientists and lay alike. Landscape ecology has an enormous contribution to make to this field, and one could argue, uniquely so. Tools developed or adapted for landscape ecology are being increasingly used to assist with the quantification, modelling, mapping, and valuing of ecosystem services. Several of these tools and methods encased therein are described among the eleven papers presented in this special issue, and their application has the potential to facilitate the management and promotion of services within ecosystems. Papers are associated with each of the four key categories of services that ecosystems provide to humans: supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural. The papers represent work conducted in eleven different countries, especially from South America. Each carries a unique approach to address a particular question pertaining to a particular set of ecosystem services. These studies are designed to inform and improve the economic, environmental and social values of the ecosystem services. This knowledge should help to develop new management alternatives for sustaining and planning ecosystems and the services they provide at different scales in space and time. We believe that these papers will create interest and inform management of some potential methods to evaluate ecosystem services at the landscape level with an integrative approach, offering new tools for management and conservation.     

Hopping on one leg – The challenge of ecosystem disservices for urban green management

The importance of ecosystem services for human well-being has been highlighted by several recent environmental studies and assessments. These assessments provide useful information for urban green management, but they largely exclude various nuisances and losses produced by ecosystem functions. Lack of attention to these ecosystem disservices may seriously hamper environmental management in general and urban green management in particular. Ecological, social and technological changes will affect both what kind of disservices will emerge and how they will be experienced and managed. Especially in urban areas, environmental, social and technological changes spanning from global to local levels are continuously altering urban ecosystems. Our ways of perceiving and valuing ecosystem functions are also undergoing rapid change. Here we discuss the concept of ecosystem disservices from the perspective of northern European urban ecosystems. It is concluded that perceptions about ecosystem disservices have an increasing influence on how urban green areas are experienced, valued, used, managed and developed.     

Developing a complementary framework for urban ecology

Cities are characterized by dynamic interactions between socio-economic and biophysical forces. Currently more than half of the global population reside in cities which influence the global biogeochemical cycles and climate change, substantially exacerbating pressures on urban pollution, water quality and food security, as well as operating costs for infrastructure development. Goods and services such as aesthetic values, water purification, nutrient recycling, and biological diversity, that urban ecosystems generate for the society, are critical to sustain. Urban planners are increasingly facing the considerable challenges of management issues for urban ecosystems. Poor understanding of the complementary roles of urban ecology in urban infrastructure, and the functioning of ecosystems and ecological resilience of a complex human-dominated landscape has impeded effective urban planning over time, resulting in social disharmony. Here a complementary framework for urban ecology is proposed, in which ecosystems interact with land use, architecture and urban design – “E-LAUD” – affecting ecosystem and human health, and building on the concept that land uses in urban green areas, road-strips, wetlands, ‘habitat islands’ and urban architecture could synergistically benefit when clustered together in different combinations of urban landscapes. It is proposed that incorporation of the E-LAUD framework in urban planning forms the context of a new interdisciplinary research programme on ecological resilience for urban ecosystems and helps promote ecosystem services.     

Bad nature: Newspaper representations of ecosystem disservices

Public perceptions and expectations towards ecosystems are an important part of environmental management and planning. This article focuses on the media representations that disseminate information, create framings and influence public attitudes. More specifically, the focus is on print media representations of ecosystem disservices. Ecosystem disservices are functions or properties of ecosystems that cause negative effects on human well-being or that are perceived as harmful, unpleasant or unwanted. Results from a case study focusing on the Finnish newspaper coverage of ecosystem disservices are presented. The results show that a wide variety of harms and nuisances related to ecosystems are brought up and discussed by the media. Implications for environmental management are discussed. The key claim is that taking into account the full repertoire of media representations of ecosystem functions is vital for preventing, anticipating and solving controversies related to environmental management and planning.     

The multifunctionality concept in urban green infrastructure planning: A systematic literature review

Urban green infrastructure is critical for providing a wide range of ecosystem goods and services that benefit the urban population. Past studies have suggested that multifunctionality concerning urban infrastructure services and functions is a prerequisite for targeting effective and impactful urban green infrastructure. Moreover, urban green infrastructure with multiple functions can offer socio-economic and environmental benefits. However, there has been a knowledge gap in the planning literature to elaborate multiple ecosystem functions in urban green infrastructure. In particular, existing methods and approaches are lacking for quantifying and monitoring such ecological services and biodiversity in urban green infrastructures at different spatial scales. Therefore, this research aims to review studies focusing on the multifunctionality concept in urban green infrastructure planning. The study highlights the current status and knowledge gaps through a systematic review. Our analysis revealed that current studies on green infrastructure multifunctionality have focused on five main themes: 1) planning methods for urban green infrastructure, 2) assessment approaches of urban green infrastructure, 3) ecosystem services and their benefits, 4) sustainability and climate adaptation, and 5) urban agriculture. The study found that the five themes are somewhat connected to each other. The study has revealed a knowledge gap regarding incorporating multifunctional green infrastructure in the planning principle. The results suggest at least five critical elements to ensure multiple functions in urban infrastructure. The elements are spatial distribution, optimal distance, integrated network, accessibility, and public participation and engagement. The study further recommends research directions for future analysis on green infrastructure multifunctionality that are critical for urban planning.     

Landscape planning for a rural ecosystem: case study of a resettlement area for residents from land submerged by the Three Gorges Reservoir,China

The goals of landscape planning are multiple for rural ecosystems of the resettlement area in the Hubei Province of China. They relate to the types, diversity and patterns of the ecosystems, and to the conservation of ecosystem functions and biodiversity. We were interested in the improvement of socio-economic conditions, and the promotion of the development of farmland ecosystems and natural forest ecosystems. The landscape planning took into account the conservation and the restoration of forestlands, and the reconstructions of farmlands, towns and villages. The areas of towns and villages were assigned by trade-off analysis balancing ecological, economic and social benefits. The spatial pattern of used lands was designed by a multi-criteria optimal spatial planning, resulting in the strengthening of some primary ecosystem functions. In the resettlement area forests will expand to a matrix, and cropland patches together with tree fences will form patch-corridor systems. Significant ecological, economic and social benefits can be derived from this landscape pattern.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A walk on the wild side: Perceptions of roadside vegetation beyond trees

Urban nature is of vital importance for human well-being in an increasingly urbanized world. Despite the wide variety of urban greenspaces, previous research has mostly focussed on parks and in particular presence of trees. Although streets are fundamental urban structures and offer an array of green elements beyond trees, the perception and valuation of other kinds of roadside vegetation by urban residents is understudied so far. This study explores the range of roadside vegetation and associated ecosystem services perceived by city dwellers in densely populated inner city districts of two German cities. Further, we explored how wild-grown roadside vegetation is valued by interviewees. Results confirmed the important role of trees but also demonstrated that city dwellers perceive a variety of cultivated and “wild” green components other than trees. Respondents attached a wide range of meanings and values to roadside greenery and showed a surprisingly high awareness of associated ecosystem services. Wild urban roadside vegetation met with high approval, although planted and maintained vegetation was preferred. Our study illustrated that trees and other elements of roadside vegetation fulfil important functions in the view of the public. For many respondents, ecological and economical functions of roadside vegetation were more important than orderliness. This indicates opportunities for enhancing the biodiversity of urban streetscapes. As public green spaces are in short supply in many cities, enhancing cultivated and wild roadside vegetation could help to deliver ecosystem services in the areas near where people move and live.     

The Nature Smart Cities business model: A rapid decision-support and scenario analysis tool to reveal the multi-benefits of green infrastructure investments

Incorporating natural spaces within urban areas has been shown to have multiple benefits. However, despite greening and adaptation strategies at different levels of government, progress remains slow with a lack of easy to use and comprehensive tools identified as key to overcoming this. This paper presents a co-designed tool with academic and local authority partners to demonstrate the ecosystem service benefits of small-scale urban green infrastructure projects. Through the tool, users can readily assess the impact of green infrastructure investments on the delivery of a selection of ecosystem services in the early stages of a project. Furthermore, the tool provides a standardised assessment of cultural ecosystem services’ contributions, as well as offering a method to score spatial designs on the impact on habitat for biodiversity. Use of the tool is demonstrated using a pilot study in Kapelle, the Netherlands. The results set out an overview of the impacts of the spatial design on estimated ecosystem service delivery. They also show the tool’s potential to add value in early project stages and as a planning and design tool, helping to maximise the benefits that can be achieved through green infrastructure design. Complementing these arguments with ball-park estimations on green infrastructure costs, the Nature Smart Cities Business Model aims to offer public sector officers the means to create a business case for green infrastructure measures, facilitating the translation from strategies to actual plans, thus benefitting green infrastructure implementation in the public realm.     

Urban green spaces and sustainability: Exploring the ecosystem services and disservices of grassy lawns versus floral meadows

Urban green spaces provide important ecological, environmental, and cultural benefits, including biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing. However, a significant portion of urban green space is currently managed as highly manicured grassy lawns that provide limited ecosystem services. Managing urban green spaces as diverse meadows can have a multitude of ecosystem benefits such as biodiversity conservation, stormwater infiltration, and aesthetics. Relatively little is known about the range of ecosystem services or disservices in managing urban green spaces as lawns versus meadows. In this paper, we separately characterize three major categories of ecosystem services and disservices (provisioning, regulation and maintenance, and cultural) delivered by urban lawns and meadows while highlighting several trade-offs and synergies associated with urban lawn and meadow management strategies. Additionally, we suggest specific research priorities to better evaluate ecosystem services and disservices across these urban green spaces. Understanding ecological, environmental, and cultural trade-offs and synergies of managing different urban green spaces is key to maintaining multiple ecosystem services in urban environments.     

Grassland ecosystem services: a systematic review of research advances and future directions

Landscape Ecology - Grasslands provide a variety of ecosystem services (ESs) for humans. While much ES research has focused on forests and wetlands, synthesizing the currently somewhat sporadic...     

Private trees contribute uniquely to urban forest diversity,structure and service-based traits

The urban forest provides our communities with a host of benefits through the delivery of ecosystem services. To properly quantify and sustain these benefits, we require a strong baseline understanding of forest structure and diversity. To date, fine-scale work considering urban forest diversity and ecosystem services has often been limited to trees on public land, considering only one or two green space types. However, the governance of urban green spaces means tree species composition is influenced by management decisions at various levels, including by institutions, municipalities, and individual landowners responsible for their care. Using a mixed-method approach combining a traditional field-inventory and community science project, we inventoried urban trees in the residential neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grȃce, Montreal. We assessed how tree diversity, composition and structure varies across multiple green space types in the public and private domain (parks, institutions, street rights of way and private yards) at multiple scales. We assessed how service-based traits – traits capturing aspects of plant form and functions that urban residents find beneficial – differed across green space types, with implications for the distribution of ecosystem services across the urban landscape. Green space types displayed meaningful differences in tree diversity, structure, and service-based traits. For example, the inclusion of private trees contributed an additional 52 species (>30% of total species) not found in the local public tree inventory. Trees on private land also tended to be smaller than those in the public domain. Beyond patterns of tree richness, size, and abundance we also observed differences in the composition of tree species and service-based traits at site-scales, particularly between street rights-of way and private yards. While species composition varied considerably across street blocks, blocks were very similar to one another in terms of mean service-based traits. Contrastingly, while species composition was similar from yard to yard, yards differed significantly in mean service-based trait values. Our work emphasises that public tree inventories are unlikely to be fully representative of urban forest composition, structure, and benefits, with implications for urban forest management at larger spatial scales.     

Street trees as cultural elements in the city: Understanding how perception affects ecosystem services management in Porto,Portugal

Processes shaping urban ecosystems reflect and influence the cultural context in which they emerge, bearing implications for ecosystem services (ES) planning and management. Investigating the perception of benefits and losses / costs delivered by a specific service providing unit (SPU) can generate objective orientations suitable for urban planning and management deeply embedded in the social-ecological systems where they occur, because the realization of ES into benefits and losses / costs is mediated by specific beneficiaries and reflects their characteristics, information and use of ecosystems. Street trees are a particularly relevant SPU in many densely built Southern-European cities due to the difficulty in implementing new sizeable green areas. In this study, a questionnaire was developed and applied in Porto to investigate how benefits (cultural, regulating and economic) and losses / costs caused by street trees are perceived by citizens and influenced by a set of socioeconomic variables (N = 819 people aged 18 years or older), and parametric statistical tests were used to analyze the effect of gender, age and school level. Results evidenced that people in Porto valued more environmental benefits (particularly air quality improvement) than cultural ones. School level was the variable accounting for more differences, underlining a tendency in people with lower level of academic education to value less the benefits provided by street trees in Porto and attribute more importance to losses and damages, compared to people who attended university or had higher academic degree. Age also held considerable differences in mean responses, with older people showing more concern towards losses and costs, while gender influenced perception of cultural benefits, which were more important for women than for men. The findings of the research are discussed concerning implications for environmental justice, planning and management of urban ecosystems.     

Wetland vegetation distribution modelling for the identification of constraining environmental variables

Wetland ecosystems are of primary concern for nature conservation and restoration. Adequate conservation and restoration strategies emerge from a scientific comprehension of wetland properties and processes. Hereby, the understanding of plant species and vegetation patterns in relation to environmental gradients is an important issue. The modelling approaches in this study statistically relate vegetation patterns to measured environmental gradients in a lowland wetland ecosystem. Measured environmental gradients included groundwater quantity and quality aspects, soil properties and vegetation management. Among this variety, the objective was to identify the key environmental gradients constraining the vegetation, using recently developed methodologies within the modelling approaches. Comparison of results indicated that different environmental gradients were considered to be important by different methodologies.     

Issues related to the detection of boundaries

Ecotones are inherent features of landscapes, transitional zones, and play more than one functional role in ecosystem dynamics. The delineation of ecotones and environmental boundaries is therefore an important step in land-use management planning. The delineation of ecotones depends on the phenomenon of interest and the statistical methods used as well as the associated spatial and temporal resolution of the data available. In the context of delineating wetland and riparian ecosystems, various data types (field data, remotely sensed data) can be used to delineate ecotones. Methodological issues related to their detection need to be addressed, however, so that their management and monitoring can yield useful information about their dynamics and functional roles in ecosystems. The aim of this paper is to review boundary detection methods. Because the most appropriate methods to detect and characterize boundaries depend of the spatial resolution and the measurement type of the data, a wide range of approaches are presented: GIS, remote sensing and statistical ones.     

The value of vegetation cover for ecosystem services in the suburban context

Latin-American cities can be characterized by dynamic processes of urbanization that encroach upon the natural and semi-natural surrounding landscapes. Our study presents the effects of landscape development, transformed from semi-natural conditions into a mostly disperse suburban settlement. We explore the impact that this transformation has had on this context by three ecosystem services that regulate rainwater runoff, enhance microclimate conditions and help to improve air quality by monitoring vegetation cover. We have designed a spatio-temporal hierarchical analysis which employs remote sensing techniques to capture the structural changes of this landscape over long, medium and short term scales on two spatial levels. This methodological approach was tested in the Metropolitan Area of Santiago (MAS) as case study area. Despite of the increase in impervious surfaces due to urban processes, there has also been an increase in vegetation cover, which has led to an improvement in the provision of the above-mentioned ecosystem services. Hence, if diverse urbanization processes continue and they are coupled with an increase in vegetation cover, the provision of ecosystem services could also expand. This phenomenon can be observed in some areas, where public and private green spaces are created and maintained. Our data analyses give evidence that certain types of suburban areas which increase the share of vegetation cover can provide daily ecological benefits for urban neighborhoods, and beyond, for adjacent areas. Moreover, suburban development can successfully provide ecological benefits to citizens. Such processes can only be ecologically sustainable if the composition of vegetation is well-adapted to the regional climatic conditions.     

Informing landscape planning and design for sustaining ecosystem services from existing spatial patterns and knowledge

Over the last decade we have seen an increased emphasis in environmental management and policies aimed at maintaining and restoring multiple ecosystem services at landscape scales. This emphasis has resulted from the recognition that management of specific environmental targets and ecosystem services requires an understanding of landscape processes and the spatial scales that maintain those targets and services. Moreover, we have become increasingly aware of the influence of broad-scale drivers such as climate change on landscape processes and the ecosystem services they support. Studies and assessments on the relative success of environmental policies and landscape designs in maintaining landscape processes and ecosystem services is mostly lacking. This likely reflects the relatively high cost of maintaining a commitment to implement and maintain monitoring programs that document responses of landscape processes and ecosystem services to different landscape policies and designs. However, we argue that there is considerable variation in natural and human-caused landscape pattern at local to continental scales and that this variation may facilitate analyses of how environmental targets and ecosystem services have responded to such patterns. Moreover, wall-to-wall spatial data on land cover and land use at national scales may permit characterization and mapping of different landscape pattern gradients. We discuss four broad and interrelated focus areas that should enhance our understanding of how landscape pattern influences ecosystem services: (1) characterizing and mapping landscape pattern gradients; (2) quantifying relationships between landscape patterns and environmental targets and ecosystem services, (3) evaluating landscape patterns with regards to multiple ecosystem services, and (4) applying adaptive management concepts to improve the effectiveness of specific landscape designs in sustaining ecosystem services. We discuss opportunities as well as challenges in each of these four areas. We believe that this agenda could lead to spatially explicit solutions in managing a range of environmental targets and ecosystem services. Spatially explicit options are critical in managing and protecting landscapes, especially given that communities and organizations are often limited in their capacity to make changes at landscape scales. The issues and potential solutions discussed in this paper expand upon the call by Nassauer and Opdam (Landscape Ecol 23:633–644, 2008) to include design as a fundamental element in landscape ecology research by evaluating natural and human-caused (planned or designed) landscape patterns and their influence on ecosystem services. It also expands upon the idea of “learning by doing” to include “learning from what has already been done.”     

Incorporating local ecological knowledge into urban riparian restoration in a mountainous region of Southwest China

Modern cities use straightened and concrete watercourses with simple greening for riparian zones, which has been criticised for insensitivity to natural system integrity and cultural identity. This increases the challenge to urban ecologists, landscape designers and managers to conceive innovative and effective design solutions that do not jeopardise hydraulic efficiency yet are culturally acceptable to local communities. This paper introduces the field of local ecological knowledge (LEK) as rich sources of inspiration and design solutions to meet this challenge. LEK refers to knowledge and practices of various local cultures about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with their environments. Wepropose a pragmatic framework that integrates LEK with modern landscape design. It includes steps: (1) investigate existing practices, skills andmeasures relating to LEK; (2) explore how and whereLEKcan inspire or integrate withdesign. Here we propose three aspects for integration in accordance with the nature of landscaping process: overall structure, component and maintenance.(3)evaluate and test the integration in terms of its acceptability by local communities. Taking the riparian revegetation project of Hanfeng Lake Urban Wetland Park (Chongqing Municipality) as an example, we illustrate the utility of this framework. 11 local common practices relating to LEK were identified. According to thethree aspects for integration, alternative design solutions were offered. The survey showed that LEK based designwas more highly valued than other conventional ways in terms of useracceptance. We conclude that LEK provides actionable ecologically sound and culturally desirablesolutions for urbanlandscape. We also recognise that LEK evolveswith changing environments and new harmonious and dynamic human-nature relationships arecontinually re-forming. The process of acquisition and application of LEK could encourage multidisciplinary and synthetic approaches to urban ecosystems. Such adaptability and interdisciplinary engagementare crucial totoday’schanging and complexurban environments.