Including stakeholders’ perspectives on ecosystem services in multifunctionality assessments

Abstract

Multifunctional landscapes are used and shaped by a range of different stakeholders. The high number of diverging values, interests or demands in such landscapes can lead to conflicts that impact sustainability goals. In this study, our aim was to include stakeholders' valuations of ecosystem services in multifunctionality assessments and thereby to identify different and possibly contradictory perspectives on landscape multifunctionality. Two European cultural landscapes, the Vereinigte Mulde (Germany) and the Kromme Rijn (The Netherlands), were used as case studies. Spatially explicit indicators of eleven ecosystem services were assessed and weighted according to their survey-based perceived importance for different stakeholder groups. While some significant differences between the groups were apparent, the results also revealed that all stakeholder groups acknowledge the importance of multiple ecosystem services. Stakeholder-specific multifunctionality hotspots occurred mainly in forests or grasslands and largely overlapped between the groups. Our study therefore clearly shows that the diversity of ecosystem services must be preserved in order to preserve the values that cultural landscapes offer to a wide range of people. While local solutions must be sought to resolve local land use conflicts over the use of ecosystem services, we conclude that multifunctionality can be declared a common goal.

Perceived Benefits and Costs of Owning a Pet in a Megapolis: An Ecosystem Services Perspective

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has also introduced more concerns regarding pets, such as (1) how to care for pets during such crises in the future, (2) whether there are zoonotic concerns associated with caring for a pet, and 3) what repercussions there are for pet care [69,76]. Thus, urban planning is challenged with addressing these and other demands of pet owners, while balancing them with those of other interest groups, for instance through the cooperation between multiple beneficiaries and the identification of stakeholder-specific multifunctionality hotspots [77].…”

Residents’ urbanized landscape preferences in rural areas reveal the importance of naturalness-livability contrast

“…These visual indicators are developed as part of landscape characters (LCs), to improve the understanding of the relationship between people and place and make informed planning decisions (Butler, 2016;Bartlett et al, 2017). Except from the aesthetic characters, multifunctional characters are also assessed based on the potential supply of ecosystem services (Hölting et al, 2020), which includes but is not constrained to recreation, production, habitat and tourism (Howley, 2011;Gulickx et al, 2013). However, aesthetic and multifunctional characters are always studied separately because aesthetic characters are considered intrinsic values of a landscape (Jorgensen, 2011), while multifunctional characters are assessed based on the human needs (Gulickx et al, 2013).…”

“…However, residents should be one of the primary decision makers in their communities because they share common responsibilities for the area they live (Lee, 2020). Hence, an increasing number of researchers have expressed the need to incorporate public perceptions into landscape management processes (Tress and Tress, 2003;Vouligny et al, 2009;Kristensen and Primdahl, 2019;Hölting et al, 2020), especially those residents who experience certain landscapes in their daily lives. Vouligny et al (2009) found that the inhabitants value ordinary landscapes on a set of criteria related to emotion and eveyday experience, and the visual criteria used by the experts were not important to the inhabitants.…”

Governance, Values, and Conservation Processes in Multifunctional Landscapes

“…Consideration of landscapes as multifunctional acknowledges complexity and diversity in land uses including: private recreation, residential development, energy development, and production of food, fiber, and fuel. Recent research on multifunctional landscapes has shown they support SESs via the conservation of biodiversity and supply of ecosystem services [16]. For example, Walston et al [6] showed that spatial planning for both native vegetation and solar energy facilities enhanced multiple supporting and regulating ecosystem services including pollination and sediment retention.…”