Evaluating the impact of ecosystem service assessments on decision-makers

Ecosystem services support human livelihoods and economies but are declining in many places. Ecosystem service assessments estimate the benefits that nature provides to people and can be used to evaluate trade-offs in impacts and changes resulting from land use decisions. Such assessments can affect the capacity of decision-makers to make sustainable land use decisions, but the actual impact of such projects on decision-maker attitudes is almost entirely unstudied. We addressed this knowledge gap by evaluating the impact of an ecosystem service assessment on decision-makers in California. We asked how decision-makers’ understanding of and attitudes about ecosystem services changed “pre-” and “post-” assessments and between treatment groups where ecosystem services were assessed and a comparison group where ecosystem services were not assessed. Mixed methods included regression models to estimate the treatment effect of the assessment (using a difference-in-differences approach), as well as interviews and direct observations to further understand how decision-makers responded to the assessment. Regression results showed small increases relative to the comparison group in decision-maker understanding of ecosystem services and perceived relevance of ecosystem services to their work. Interviews confirmed that decision-makers learned specific ways that they could use ecosystem services in conservation and development decisions and believed that doing so would improve outcomes. These results demonstrate how ecosystem services assessments can facilitate a conceptual shift in the minds of decision-makers, which is a necessary ingredient for subsequent policy impact. Impact evaluation studies of this type − that estimate a counterfactual and explore rival explanations for observed outcomes − are needed to truly understand whether ecosystem service projects impact decision-makers and, ultimately, produce outcomes for environmental and human well-being.     

Influence of global warming on coastal infrastructural instability

The increasing infrastructure instability is an important issue in relation to the influences of global climate change in urban areas. A serious issue pertaining to this is the dual nature of damage triggered by events combined with climate change and natural hazards. For example, catastrophic damage could result from the combination of global warming with a great earthquake, which is a worst-case scenario. Although this worst-case scenario has rarely occurred and presents a low probability of occurrence, countermeasures must be prepared in advance based on an appropriate response and adaptation strategies. After an overview of possible infrastructural instabilities caused by global warming, methodologies are proposed placing emphasis on the increasing probability of infrastructural instability triggered by natural hazards resulting from groundwater-level (GWL) variations. These effects are expected to be particularly serious in coastal regions because of the influence of the rising sea level resulting from global warming. The influence of sea-level rises (SLR) will become apparent along with land subsidence because groundwater abstraction will become severe in coastal regions. Additionally, the probability of earthquake liquefaction increases if GWL rises in accompaniment with SLR. Using case histories, we examined the possible occurrence of these natural hazards as a result of global warming. Finally, possible countermeasures and adaptation strategies for reducing and mitigating infrastructure damage accelerated by global warming are described for each case in specific regions. In particular, special attention should be paid to adaptation strategies in coastal lowlands, which particularly suffer from the effects of land subsidence.     

Revisiting production and ecosystem services on the farm scale for evaluating land use alternatives

Urbanization pressure increases the demand on remaining open spaces to deliver food and biomass, as well as other ecosystem services, but it is often paired with a reduced capacity to deliver these services. This calls for an integrated and innovative use of the remaining space.However, current spatial planning paradigms are not always adapted to face these new challenges. In many regions, an important aspect of spatial planning in relation to agriculture is still the pragmatic and monofunctional allocation of land use between vocal stakeholders. This is rarely paired with a regional view on the effective or desired quantity of services provided by this open space. Since land use policies increasingly need to strive for resilience on top of diversification of services, assessments of the servicing capacity and sustainability of land uses are needed.This paper presents a framework to assess all ecosystem services (i.e. marketable and non-marketable ES) delivered by conventional as well as innovative land uses. The framework is then used to assess land use strategies at the scale of an unconventional case farm in Flanders, Belgium. The analysis combines spatial and economic analysis of land use alternatives and illustrates some shortcomings of usual ecosystem valuation tools. Our findings illustrate that land use evaluation might be biased against unconventional land management alternatives. The proposed framework provides land planners with a way to assess and arbitrate between land sharing and land sparring options more accurately. The approach can help to optimize land use from the societal perspective, and allows for benchmarking farm-level land use alternatives by comparing the services they deliver.     

退耕还林工程费用有效性的影响因素分析

费用有效性评价是工程评价的重要方面。从政策制定和执行角度对退耕还林的费用有效性及其影响因素进行分析。具有重要的意义。利用实地调研数据和相关统计数据．从退耕地选择和造林入手对退耕还林工程实施的费用有效性殛其影响因素进行考察．并尝试对这些因素的作用机制进行了分析。研究指出由于缺乏长期的和有效的退耕还林规划以及相关政策措施的缺失．使得退耕还林费用有效性的损失在微观层面和宏观层面广泛存在。而各利益主体的利益不相害性是影响工程有效实施的基本矛盾。有必要在遇耕还林中确立明确的规划、清晰的退耕地选择标准。建立和完善管理信息系统和及时有效的反馈和控制机制。构建协调多方利益的长期稳定的生态补偿机制。从而改进退耕还林工程的费用有效性。     

Trends in Vegetation Degradation in Relation to Land Tenure, Rainfall, and Population Changes in Peddie District, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Spatial and temporal variations in vegetation are examined in relation to land tenure, population increase, and rainfall variation in a part of Peddie district, Eastern Cape. Sequential aerial photographs between 1938 and 1988 are analyzed to determine trends in vegetation and population change in three different land-tenure units. The areal extent at each date of four distinct vegetation categories is determined using PC ARC/INFO GIS. Long-term annual rainfall trends for the area are analyzed and juxtaposed with vegetation changes. Extensive ground-truthing exercises are carried out to verify the present condition of vegetation condition in terms of cover and species composition. Differences in land-tenure systems are discerned as the dominant factor controlling variations in vegetation degradation. The study also reveals that neither population changes nor rainfall variations can explain the observed trends in vegetation degradation. Earlier injudicious land-use practices, sustained since the turn of the last century, may provide plausible explanations for the trends and present status of vegetation degradation in the area.     

不同设障年限沙丘土壤粒径和有机碳分布特征

为探讨沙柳沙障对毛乌素沙地土壤粒径和SOC(土壤有机碳)的影响,选取流动沙丘、设障2和7 a的半固定和固定沙丘为研究对象,利用多重分形理论分析不同设障年限沙丘PSD(土壤粒径分布)(以φ计)和w(SOC)的分布特征. 结果表明:设置沙障后,φ(黏粒)、φ(粉粒)与φ(极细砂)增加,φ(细砂)与φ(中砂)下降;土壤粒径的多重分形参数D₁/D₀(D₁为PSD均匀性程度,D₀为PSD宽度)和~f()谱图可以反映沙丘土壤PSD的宽度与均匀性程度,随着设障年限延长,PSD的D₁/D₀均小于流动沙丘,土壤中细粒物质显著增多. D₀表现为设障7 a沙丘(1.01)>流动沙丘(1.00)>设障2 a沙丘(0.93),D₁表现为流动沙丘(0.91)>设障2 a沙丘(0.88)>设障7 a沙丘(0.65). w(SOC)随着设障年限的延长而显著增加,设障7 a沙丘与其他2类沙丘间w(SOC)差异显著;多重分形参数可以表征土壤养分状况与流沙防治状况,设障沙丘上部、下部的w(SOC)与PSD的D₁/D₀之间有明显的相关关系,设障沙丘上部、下部D₁/D₀间呈明显负相关,设障沙丘中部D₁/D₀之间则呈正相关,流动沙丘各部位w(SOC)与D₁/D₀间无显著相关关系.      

Modeled historical land use and land cover for the conterminous United States

The landscape of the conterminous United States has changed dramatically over the last 200 years, with agricultural land use, urban expansion, forestry, and other anthropogenic activities altering land cover across vast swaths of the country. While land use and land cover (LULC) models have been developed to model potential future LULC change, few efforts have focused on recreating historical landscapes. Researchers at the US Geological Survey have used a wide range of historical data sources and a spatially explicit modeling framework to model spatially explicit historical LULC change in the conterminous United States from 1992 back to 1938. Annual LULC maps were produced at 250-m resolution, with 14 LULC classes. Assessment of model results showed good agreement with trends and spatial patterns in historical data sources such as the Census of Agriculture and historical housing density data, although comparison with historical data is complicated by definitional and methodological differences. The completion of this dataset allows researchers to assess historical LULC impacts on a range of ecological processes.     

Natural resource depletion and the economic performance of local districts: suggestions from a within-country analysis

SUMMARY

Studying the interactions among ecological factors and economic performance measured at the local scale is necessary to suggest policies able to mitigate natural resource depletion in complex ecosystems, like those in the Mediterranean region. The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship among natural resource depletion due to land degradation (LD) and some economic characteristics of local labour systems in Italy, a country where many areas, especially southern regions, are vulnerable. LD was estimated using an environmental sensitive area index, covering the national territory at a fine scale, which takes into account ecological factors such as climate, soil and vegetation. Economic indicators used here consider per capita income, land productivity, production and labour productivity by sector (agriculture, industry and services). A regression analysis was built-up at the LLS scale using an index change over time (1990–2000) as dependent variable and economic variables as predictors. A principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out to synthesise the outputs of the regression analysis. Results indicate a negative relationship among per capita income and LD over the whole study area. However, other variables showed a significant correlation with the dependent variable, highlighting the importance of local factors to increase land vulnerability. In order to clarify the contribution of economic factors to natural resource depletion it is necessary to drive integrate policies to combat LD in dry Mediterranean areas.     

Temporal-spatial dynamics of vegetation variation on non-point source nutrient pollution

The temporal-spatial interaction of land cover and non-point source (NPS) nutrient pollution were analyzed with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate the temporal-spatial features of NPS nutrient loading in the upper stream of the Yellow River catchment. The corresponding land cover data variance was expressed by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) that was calculated from MODIS images. It was noted that the temporal variation of land cover NDVI was significantly correlated with NPS nutrient loading. The regression analysis indicated that vegetation not only detained NPS nutrient pollution transportation, but also contributed to sustainable loading. The temporal analysis also confirmed that regional NDVI was an effective index for monthly assessment of NPS nitrogen and phosphorus loading. The spatial variations of NPS nutrient loading can be classified with land cover status. The high loadings of NPS nitrogen in high NDVI subbasins indicated that forestry and farmland are the main critical loss areas. Farmland contributed sustainable soluble N, but the loading of soluble and organic N from grassland subbasins was much lower. Most P loading came from the areas covered with dense grassland and forestry, which cannot directly discharge to local water bodies. However, some NPS phosphorus from suburban farmland can directly discharge into adjacent water bodies. The interactions among nutrient loading, NDVI, and slope were also analyzed. This study confirmed that the integration of NPS modeling, geographic information systems, and remote sensing is needed to understand the interactive dynamics of NPS nutrient loading. Understanding the temporal-spatial variation of NPS nutrients and their correlations with land cover will help NPS pollution prevention and water quality management efforts. Therefore, the proposed method for evaluating NPS nutrient loading by land cover NDVI can be an effective tool for pollution evaluation and watersheds planning.     

The dynamics of shifting cultivation captured in an extended Constrained Cellular Automata land use model

This paper presents an extension to the Constrained Cellular Automata (CCA) land use model of White et al. [White, R., Engelen, G., Uljee, I., 1997. The use of constrained cellular automata for high-resolution modelling of urban land-use dynamics. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 24(3), 323–343] to make it better suited for modelling the dynamics of shifting cultivation. In the extended model the time passed since the last land use transition of a location is a factor of its land use potential. The model can now account for the gradual decrease in soil fertility after an area of forest has been cleared for cultivation and also capture the process of regeneration once the plot is fallowed. The model is applied for the Ruhunupura area of Sri Lanka where chena, a particular practice of shifting cultivation, is a common land use that dominates the landscape dynamics. The model is calibrated for the period 1985–2001 and the results are assessed in terms of location to location overlap as well as structural similarity at multiple scales. These results give confidence in the representation of land use dynamics for the main land use classes. On the basis of a long term scenario run for the period 2001–2030, it is verified that the model captures stylized facts related to chena dynamics, in particular shortening fallow periods and increasingly long cultivation periods of chena, as a result of increasing land use pressure.