Linking biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being: three challenges for designing research for sustainability (original) (raw)
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Ecosystem services—current challenges and opportunities for ecological research
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2015
The concept of ecosystem services was originally developed to illustrate the benefits that natural ecosystems generate for society and to raise awareness for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. In this article we identify major challenges and opportunities for ecologists involved in empirical or modeling ecosystem service research. The first challenge arises from the fact that the ecosystem service concept has not been generated in the context of managed systems. Ecologists need to identify the effect of anthropogenic interventions in order to propose practices to benefit service-providing organisms and associated services. The second challenge arises from the need to evaluate relationships between indicators of ecosystem services that are collected in ecological studies while accounting for uncertainties of ecological processes that underlie these services. We suggest basing the assessment of ecosystem services on the utilization of sets of indicators that cover aspects of service-providing units, ecosystem management and landscape modification. The third challenge arises from the limited understanding of the nature of relationships between services and a lack of a general statistical framework to address these links. To manage ecosystem service provisioning, ecologists need to establish whether services respond to a shared driver or if services are directly linked to each other. Finally, studies relating biodiversity to ecosystem services often focus on services at small spatial or short temporal scales, but research on the protection of services is often directed toward services providing benefits at large spatial scales. Ecological research needs to address a range of spatial and temporal scales to provide a multifaceted understanding of how nature promotes human well-being. Addressing these challenges in the future offers a unique opportunity for ecologists to act as promoters for the understanding about how to conserve benefits gained from nature.
Application of the Ecosystem Service Concept in Social–Ecological Systems—from Theory to Practice
Sustainability, 2020
Ecological footprint analyses demonstrate that the world's more than 7.5 billion people consume multiple planets' worth of resources. To incite and evaluate societal changes for the sustainable use of the environment and its natural resources, the ecosystem service (ES) concept was developed more than 20 years ago. To ensure the sustainable provision of indispensable ES, the concept has been refined and enhanced, enabling its application across various temporal and spatial scales. However, evidence-based strategies and policies are needed to preserve biodiversity and natural capital in our changing world. This Special Issue comprises studies advancing the frameworks, concepts, and applications related to ES assessment, with a particular focus on social-ecological systems. To broadly apply the ES concept in different social-ecological systems, several key issues emerged: (1) ES-related definitions and procedures should be improved and standardized; (2) the complexity of the interactions in a social-ecological system must be recognized, and knowledge about spatial and temporal dynamics and interactions among multiple ESs must be deepened; and (3) communication about ES, considering cultural and stakeholder differences, must be increased.
Ecosystem services: Origins, contributions, pitfalls and alternatives
The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has taken the environmental science and policy literature by storm, and has become almost the approach to thinking about and assessing the nature-society relationship. This review paper asks whether and in what way the ES concept is a useful way of organizing research on the nature-society relationship. We trace the evolution of the different versions of the concept and identify key points of convergence and divergence. The essence of the concept nevertheless is that the contribution of biotic nature to human well-being is un-recognized and under-valued, which results in destruction of ecosystems. We discuss why this formulation has attracted ecologists and summarise the resultant contributions to research, particularly to the understanding of indirect or regulating services. We then outline three sets of weaknesses in the ES framework: confusion over ecosystem functions and biodiversity, omission of dis-services, trade-offs and abiotic nature, and the use of an economic valuation framework to measure and aggregate human wellbeing. Underlying these weaknesses is a narrow problem frame that is uni-dimensional in its environmental concern and techno-economic in its explanation of environmental degradation.
Getting the measure of ecosystem services - a social-ecological approach
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2013
Despite growing interest and investment in ecosystem services across global science and policy arenas, it remains unclear how ecosystem services -and particularly changes in those services -should be measured. The social and ecological factors, and their interactions, that create and alter ecosystem services are inherently complex. Measuring and managing ecosystem services requires a sophisticated systems-based approach that accounts for how these services are generated by interconnected social-ecological systems (SES), how different services interact with each other, and how changes in the total bundle of services influence human well-being (HWB). Furthermore, there is a need to understand how changes in HWB feedback and affect the generation of ecosystem services. Here, we outline an SES-based approach for measuring ecosystem services and explore its value for setting policy targets, developing indicators, and establishing monitoring and assessment programs.
Ecosystem services: a critical definition
The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology
Ecosystem services, commonly defined as the benefits provided by ecosystems to humans, are an increasingly dominant approach to ordering and organizing human and nonhuman (or ecosystemic) relations, setting norms for the management and governance of socioecologies. The ‘ecosystem services revolution’ aims to make visible and ideally quantifiable the often underappreciated and undervalued ecological structures and processes necessary for human life on earth. While the concept is becoming central to environmental governance, some academics (including geographers and ecologists) contest this turn, along with some environmental, Indigenous and social justice activists.
A quantitative review of ecosystem service studies: approaches, shortcomings and the road ahead
Journal of Applied Ecology, 2011
1. Ecosystem services are defined as the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems. Employing the ecosystem service concept is intended to support the development of policies and instruments that integrate social, economic and ecological perspectives. In recent years, this concept has become the paradigm of ecosystem management. 2. The prolific use of the term 'ecosystem services' in scientific studies has given rise to concerns about its arbitrary application. A quantitative review of recent literature shows the diversity of approaches and uncovers a lack of consistent methodology. 3. From this analysis, we have derived four facets that characterise the holistic ideal of ecosystem services research: (i) biophysical realism of ecosystem data and models; (ii) consideration of local trade-offs; (iii) recognition of off-site effects; and (iv) comprehensive but critical involvement of stakeholders within assessment studies. 4. These four facets should be taken as a methodological blueprint for further development and discussion. They should critically reveal and elucidate what may often appear to be ad-hoc approaches to ecosystem service assessments. 5. Synthesis and applications: Based on this quantitative review, we provide guidelines for further development and discussions supporting consistency in applications of the ecosystem service concept as well as the credibility of results, which in turn can make it easier to generalise from the numerous individual studies.
BioScience, 2013
Ecosystem services research has been focused on the ways that humans directly benefit from goods and services, and economic valuation techniques have been used to measure those benefits. We argue that, although it is appropriate in some cases, this focus on direct use and economic quantification is often limiting and can detract from environmental research and effective management, in part by crowding out other understandings of human-environment relationships. Instead, we make the case that the systematic consideration of multiple metaphors of such relationships in assessing social-ecological systems will foster better understanding of the many ways in which humans relate to, care for, and value ecosystems. Where it is possible, we encourage a deliberative approach to ecosystem management whereby ecosystem researchers actively engage conservationists and local resource users to make explicit, through open deliberation, the types of metaphors salient to their conservation problem.