Current and historical land use influence soil‐based ecosystem services in an urban landscape

Abstract

Urban landscapes are increasingly recognized as providing important ecosystem services (ES) to their occupants. Yet, urban ES assessments often ignore the complex spatial heterogeneity and land-use history of cities. Soil-based services may be particularly susceptible to land-use legacy effects. We studied indicators of three soil-based ES, carbon storage, water quality regulation, and runoff regulation, in a historically agricultural urban landscape and asked (1) How do ES indicators vary with contemporary land cover and time since development? (2) Do ES indicators vary primarily among land-cover classes, within land-cover classes, or within sites? (3) What is the relative contribution of urban land-cover classes to potential citywide ES provision? We measured biophysical indicators (soil carbon [C], available phosphorus [P], and saturated hydraulic conductivity [K ]) in 100 sites across five land-cover classes, spanning an ~125-year gradient of time since development within each land-cover class. Potential for ES provision was substantial in urban green spaces, including developed land. Runoff regulation services (high K ) were highest in forests; water quality regulation (low P) was highest in open spaces and grasslands; and open spaces and developed land (e.g., residential yards) had the highest C storage. In developed land covers, both C and P increased with time since development, indicating effects of historical land-use on contemporary ES and trade-offs between two important ES. Among-site differences accounted for a high proportion of variance in soil properties in forests, grasslands, and open space, while residential areas had high within-site variability, underscoring the leverage city residents have to improve urban ES provision. Developed land covers contributed most ES supply at the citywide scale, even after accounting for potential impacts of impervious surfaces. Considering the full mosaic of urban green space and its history is needed to estimate the kinds and magnitude of ES provided in cities, and to augment regional ES assessments that often ignore or underestimate urban ES supply.

Litter decomposition driven by soil fauna, plant diversity and soil management in urban gardens

“…vegetation structure ) and landscapescale factors (Angold et al, 2006;Frey et al, 2018a), our understanding of how such multi-scale factors affect the belowground BEF relationships is still limited (Lin and Egerer, 2018). For example, recent studies of ecosystems services rarely addressed the high spatial heterogeneity and complexity of urban soils (Ziter and Turner, 2018), and neither consider the variety of direct and indirect anthropogenic influences across spatial scales (Enloe et al, 2015), nor the role of different aspects of biodiversity (Schwarz et al, 2017). An assessment of BEF relationships in cities therefore requires integrated analytical tools, such as structural equation modelling (SEM), that allow for a causal understanding of direct and indirect at different spatial scales (Eisenhauer et al, 2015), especially including human components (Isbell et al, 2017).…”

Linking Ecosystem Services to Land Use Decisions: Policy Analyses, Multi-Scenarios, and Integrated Modelling

“…The acceleration of urbanization and industrialization in China has changed land use patterns, affected the type, area, and distribution of different ecosystems, and are an important impetus of change for ecosystem services (ESs) [1][2][3][4]. In return, the deterioration and loss of ESs can affect land use layout and land utilization, thus threatening regional ecological safety [5][6][7][8]. Therefore, land use optimization viewing ESs as constraints associated with regional ecological safety can facilitate coordinated and sustainable economic-social-ecological development against a background of rapid social and economic In brief, land use optimization refers to the reasonable distribution and layout of different land use types performed using a suitable model according to relevant constraints and practical needs; the aim of land use optimization is to achieve the maximization of a specific goal.…”

Uncovering the ecosystem service legacies of wetland loss using high‐resolution models

“…). Soil ecosystem services vary depending on soil type, present land use, and time since land cover conversion (Ziter and Turner ).…”

“…For example, time lags have been demonstrated where historical landscapes help explain differences in contemporary ecosystem services, especially for biodiversity-related services such as pollination. These time lags likely occur because species loss can continue after an initial land change event (Ziter and Turner 2018). Proposed pathways for land use legacies are supported by a rich history of research exploring how legacies of historical ecological function underpin contemporary ecosystem structures, such as forest age structure (Foster et al 2003(Foster et al , B€ urgi et al 2017).…”

“…Ecosystem services are sensitive to long-term land cover changes (Egarter Vigl et al 2016), and bundles of ecosystem services are dynamic over time (Renard et al 2015 (Johnson and Gerbeaux 2004). ecosystem services vary depending on soil type, present land use, and time since land cover conversion (Ziter and Turner 2018).…”