Integration of ecosystem services into a conceptual spatial planning framework based on a landscape ecology perspective (original) (raw)
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The ecosystem services approach is an established framework for the balanced evaluation of ecological, economic and social landscape resources. It promotes functional synergies (win-win situations) as well as trade-offs among various benefits resulting from ecosystem processes. Spatial aspects of heterogeneity and configuration play a major role in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services and hence in human wellbeing. Cultural artifacts also contribute to landscape functionality. Because of the underlying areal aspects, an additional term, landscape service has been proposed and is increasingly used (Termorshuizen and Opdam, 2009). We take a particular interest in spatial aspects of this framework and the optimization of trade-offs between landscape services.
2011
Despite the attention that research on ecosystem services has attracted in recent years, its use to support real-life decision-making processes is still very limited, especially at the planning level. Spatial planning results in actions that may affect the distribution and quality of a wide range of ecosystem services. Hence, spatial planning decisions would benefit from systematic considerations of their effects on ecosystem services. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) provides an excellent platform to this purpose.
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Despite the attention that research on ecosystem services has attracted in recent years, its use to support real-life decision-making processes is still very limited, especially at the planning level. Land use and spatial planning result in actions that may affect the distribution and quality of a wide range of ecosystem services. Hence, decisions in this sector would benefit from systematic considerations of their effects on ecosystem services. This working paper is structured in two parts. Part I aims at providing insights on why it is important to promote ecosystem service-inclusive land use planning processes, and on how to do it by taking advantages of existing procedures, such as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Possible actions to include relevant information in the various planning and SEA stages are presented. The advantages are then discussed by considering both the characteristics of ecosystem services approaches and the criteria of good-quality planning and SEA....
The Concept of Ecosystem Services Regarding Landscape Research: A Review
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The awareness that natural and semi-natural ecosystems provide benefits to human society, which are of great economic, ecological and socio-cultural value, can be dated back to the mid-1960s and early 1970s. More recently, there has been an almost exponential growth in publications on the benefits of natural ecosystems to human society. However, despite the enhancing interest in ecosystem service research, still many open questions remain to fully integrate the ecosystem service concept in landscape research and decision making. The paper aims at providing the state-of-the-art of ecosystem service assessment regarding landscape research and to present a coherent knowledge base for further discussions. First the paper gives an overview of the different ways defining and classifying ecosystem services. Five selected typologies, very common in the literature are discussed in detail. The second main part of this review focuses on quantifying and mapping ecosystem services as well as on the different valuation approaches. As there are still a lot of challenges that have to be faced regarding quantifying, visualising as well as valuing ecosystem services the paper emphasizes the importance of further research, initiatives and projects to improve the implementation of the ecosystem service concept in environmental planning and management at all levels of decision making. To meet all these challenges research effort needs to be conducted side by side to understand underlying relationships and to improve ecological as well as socioeconomic understanding.
Integrating Ecosystem Services (E.S.) in spatial planning: a literature review
Global NEST International Conference on Environmental Science & Technology
Integration of ES in spatial planning constitutes a critical issue in the context of establishing resilient and sustainable policies. In this paper, a literature review was performed, to evaluate the integration of ES in spatial planning practices through institutional and governmental planning documents. The results indicated that ES have been gradually capturing the interest of the planning scientific community. However, the number of publications concerned with this topic is still very limited and with no clear methodology on the issue of integrating the ES concept in spatial planning. This paper suggests that the integration methodology to be built should focus more on urban environments, and with the intention to achieve integration within areas defined by ecosystem boundaries rather than administrative ones.
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Spatial planning has to deal with trade-offs between various stakeholders' wishes and needs as part of planning and management of landscapes, natural resources and/or biodiversity. To make ecosystem services (ES) trade-off research more relevant for spatial planning, we propose an analytical framework, which puts stakeholders, their land-use/management choices, their impact on ES and responses at the centre. Based on 24 cases from around the world, we used this framing to analyse the appearance and diversity of real-world ES trade-offs. They cover a wide range of trade-offs related to ecosystem use,
Integrating ecosystem services in landscape planning: requirements, approaches, and impacts
Landscape Ecology, 2014
Despite growing knowledge of ecosystem services (ES), and heightened awareness of their political and socio-economic relevance, mainstreaming and implementing ES in landscape planning and decision-making are still in their infancy. The objective of this special issue, therefore, is to explore requirements for, approaches to, and potential impacts of, integrating ES in landscape planning and management. The issue includes three key research themes: (i) Requirements and interests of planners and decision-makers for integrating ES in different application contexts, (ii) Approaches to applying ES in (participatory) planning, and (iii) Potential impacts of integrating ES in policy and decision-making. These themes are addressed by 12 papers that refer to case studies in Africa, Australia, and Europe. Four lessons are highlighted: (i) Information on ES is considered useful by many practitioners, but the type, production and communication of ES information need to be adapted to the specific context of a planning case; (ii) A broad range of approaches are available for integrating the ES concept in (participatory) planning with different and complementary contributions to decision-support; (iii) Effectively integrating ES in planning requires careful scoping of the context, objectives and capacities; (iv) Integrating ES in planning can effectively support the co-
Integration of ecosystem services in spatial planning: a survey on regional planners’ views
Landscape Ecology, 2014
Spatial plans shape land-use changes, which in turn are main drivers of anthropogenic ecosystem alterations, therefore influencing the ecosystem services (ES) delivered by a given territory. However, integration of the ES concept in policies and plans is reported as poor in literature. The main goal of this research is to gain insight on the views and perceptions of Portuguese regional spatial planners regarding the ES concept and its integration in spatial plans. For that we designed and administered a questionnaire survey aimed at practitioners and decision-makers from Portuguese regional spatial planning authorities. The survey focused on issues such as the level of awareness and knowledge of the ES concept among planners, the perceived level of current ES integration in regional spatial plans and corresponding strategic environmental assessments, the main factors that either facilitate or obstruct that integration, or the level of importance given to ES integration in the planning process. Findings show that planners know the ES concept, they consider it as important to be integrated in spatial planning and, interestingly, that it is already rather integrated in existing plans. They believe that planning teams and authorities have skilled human resources for ES integration. However, they revealed a low knowledge on the main initiatives intended to push ecosystem services into the political agenda, like for example the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The questionnaire used can be easily transferred into other spatial planning contexts to draw, e.g. a broader European picture on ES integration in spatial planning.