Aligning landscape structure with ecosystem services along an urban–rural gradient. Trade-offs and transitions towards cultural services

Abstract

Context Urban-rural gradients provide a suitable framework for studying the provision of urban and rural ecosystem services (ES), linked to social welfare. Landscape structure (LS) changes along urban-rural gradients but our understanding of the effects of LS on ES remains at an early stage. Objectives We have quantified the relationship between changes in LS and ES supply along an urban-rural gradient in Central Spain, and compared the intensity of change with the land conservation status, degree of urbanization and proximity to Madrid city. Methods We inferred the provision of ES at municipality level based on proxies from socio-economic data and land use maps, and characterized LS through metrics calculated from Corine land cover maps at two dates. We used Canonical Correspondence Analysis and Generalized Linear Models to analyse the data. Results There was a marked tendency for change in 20 years towards heterogeneous and poorly connected landscapes. This structural change appeared associated with trade-offs in ES, consisting of a loss of provisioning and regulating services inherent to agricultural and silvo-pastoral landscapes in favour of tourist-cultural and accommodation services, recently demanded by a growing urban population. The ''Landscape Governance and the ES Framework'' edited by José Muñoz-Rojas and Teresa Pinto-Correia (ICAAM, Portugal) and Per Angelstam (SLU, Sweden).

Designing Protected Areas for Social–Ecological Sustainability: Effectiveness of Management Guidelines for Preserving Cultural Landscapes

“…or F. angustifolia interconnected by hedgerow networks of woody vegetation that play a key role in the maintenance of biocultural diversity and associated ecosystem services [44]). This has resulted in a multifunctional silvopastoral system providing numerous provisioning and regulating ecosystem services, which has been the main traditional economic activity in this territory for centuries [25,45].…”

“…This social-ecological system, with high natural and cultural values, is under the direct influence of a major city-Madrid. This connection to the city is a major factor that has driven the transition from a silvopastoral system to another type of landscape providing cultural and accommodation services to tourists [45]. The need to protect these rural multifunctional landscapes from the high pressure of Madrid's inhabitants, as well as the highly valued biodiversity they encompass and other ecosystem services they provide, has led to the designation of several PAs in the last 40 years.…”

“…Thus, the overlapped area is regulated by both the management categories of national and regional parks, which differ in their protection status and the administration in charge, as well as in the elapsed time since their declaration and establishment. The conservation objectives of both PAs intend to protect the biodiversity and ecological processes that are maintained by a highly threatened, traditional, silvicultural landscape, although, according to previous studies, these goals are not being fully achieved [44,45,48,49].…”

Linking Biophysical and Economic Assessments of Ecosystem Services for a Social–Ecological Approach to Conservation Planning: Application in a Biosphere Reserve (Biscay, Spain)

“…The use of LULC as suitable proxies is a useful and frequent approach when ES cannot be quantified because of the lack of empirical information about them and how they are changing over time [55][56][57]. This approach is appropriate in areas, as the one studied here, where primary data and environmental information are absent or lacking [58,59].…”

Combining participatory games and backcasting to support collective scenario evaluation: an action research approach for sustainable agroforestry landscape management

“…Sustainable agroforestry practices can support landscape management and enhance forest conservation, agrobiodiversity, food production and livelihoods (Herrero-Jáuregui et al 2019). At the landscape level, tree diversity within the agroforestry systems (AFS) has an important ecological function as biological corridors and habitats and is essential to the conservation of forest-dependent biodiversity or agricultural production (van Noordwijk et al 2016;Andreotti et al 2018).…”