Mapping the Loss of Ecosystem Services in a Region Under Intensive Land Use Along the Southern Coast of South Africa

Malherbe, Hanlie; Pauleit, Stephan; Lorz, Carsten

doi:10.3390/land8030051

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Much of the human population in sub-Saharan Africa depends directly or indirectly on the goods and services provided by biodiversity (Shackleton et al 2008; Egoh et al 2012), including clean water, soil productivity, firewood/charcoal, game animals, and medicinal plants (Daily & others 1997; Postel et al 2012) – nature’s contributions to people (Díaz et al 2018; Brondizio et al 2019). However, many of these services are being degraded through habitat loss and transformation, exacerbated by rapid urbanization, agricultural expansion, ‘land grabbing’ by foreign nations for food and biofuel production, and climate change (Egoh et al 2012; Malherbe et al 2019). The poor, and rural communities, tend to be most impacted by losses of ecosystem services as they frequently lack alternatives (Hope Sr 2007; United Nation Economic Commission for Africa 2010; Egoh et al 2012; Kumar & Yashiro 2014), while poverty is a major underlying contributor to environmental degradation (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987; Olanipekun et al 2019), although the relationship is complex (Barbier & Hochard 2018).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Tree phylogenetic diversity supports nature’s contributions to people, but is at risk from human population growth

Davies

Maurin

Yessoufou

et al. 2021

Preprint

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There is growing evidence for a link between biodiversity and ecosystem function, and for a correlation between human population and the species diversity of plants and animals in a region. Here, we suggest these relationships might not be independent. Using a comprehensive phylogeny of southern African trees and structural equation modelling, we show that human population density correlates with tree phylogenetic diversity and show that this relationship is stronger than the correlation with species richness alone. Further, we demonstrate that areas high in phylogenetic diversity support a greater diversity of ecosystem goods and services, indicating that the evolutionary processes responsible for generating variation among living organisms are also key to the provisioning of nature's contributions to people. Our results raise the intriguing possibility that the history of human settlement in southern Africa may have been shaped, in part, by the evolutionary history of its tree flora. However, the correlation between human population and tree diversity generates a conflict between people and nature. Our study suggests that future human population growth may threaten the contributions to people provided by intact and phylogenetically diverse ecosystems.

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Tree phylogenetic diversity supports nature’s contributions to people, but is at risk from human population growth

Davies

Maurin

Yessoufou

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This independence given by the survey methods allowed for development of a simple matrix linking ecosystem status categories with URES via weighting factors ( Table 3). The assessment of ecosystem services based on land cover respectively habitats by matrices is a commonly used method [51][52][53]. New in this work is that the matrix from Table 3 translates not only land cover but also water quality and hydromorphological quality into the potential to provide ecosystem services.…”

Section: Links Between Ures and Ecosystem Status Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Combined Field and Remote-Sensing Based Methodology to Assess the Ecosystem Service Potential of Urban Rivers in Developing Countries

Beißler

Hack

2019

Remote Sensing

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Natural rivers in urban areas bear significant potential to provide ecosystem services for the surrounding inhabitants. However, surface sealing by houses and street networks, urban drainage, disposal of waste and wastewater resulting from advancing urbanization usually lead to the deterioration of urban rivers and their riparian areas. This ultimately damages their ability to provide ecosystem services. This paper presents an innovative methodology for a rapid and low-cost assessment of the ecological status of urban rivers and riparian areas in developing countries under data scarce conditions. The methodology uses a combination of field data and freely available high-resolution satellite images to assess three ecological status categories: river hydromorphology, water quality, and riparian land cover. The focus here is on the assessment of proxies for biophysical structures and processes representing ecological functioning that enable urban rivers and riparian areas to provide ecosystem services. These proxies represent a combination of remote sensing land cover- and field-based indicators. Finally, the three ecological status categories are combined to quantify the potential of different river sections to provide regulating ecosystem services. The development and application of the methodology is demonstrated and visualized for each 100 m section of the Pochote River in the City of León, Nicaragua. This spatially distributed information of the ecosystem service potential of individual sections of the urban river and riparian areas can serve as important information for decision making regarding the protection, future use, and city development of these areas, as well as the targeted and tailor-made development of nature-based solutions such as green infrastructure.

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“…Other commonly used methods include the limit condition method, fuzzy clustering analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical analysis, multi-factor comprehensive evaluation, evaluation methods based on the pressure, state and response (PSR) model or the remote sensing images, stochastic frontier analysis, genetic algorithm, and BP neural network, etc. [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. Based on the concept of sustainable intensification and ecological constraints, Qian et al developed a sustainable intensification variable model to conduct a moderately intensive land use evaluation in Jinan City, China [46].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Shi and Huang analysed the relationship between land morphological characteristics and land-use intensity in Shanghai development zones [10]. Malherbe et al examined the effect of intensive land use activities on loss to ecosystem services in South Africa [42]. Goertzen and Suhling investigated the effect of different landscapes (urban, agricultural or more natural landscapes) or land use intensity on biodiversity in Germany [47].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Land Intensive Use in Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone

Zhou

Shi

Cao

2019

Land

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Free trade zones represent an important system innovation space to realize economic agglomeration advantages with high-level openings. However, its evaluation of land intensive use has not received enough attention. The goal of this paper is to build a land use performance evaluation index system in line with the development trend of industrial economy and the characteristics of mixed land use in the free trade zones. An evaluation index system is constructed based on the three factors of land use status, land use efficiency and pilot free trade zone influence. Using the Delphi method and the entropy method, an empirical evaluation of the intensive land use level in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone is conducted. The results show the following: (1) integrating new indicators such as the free trade zone influence, social and ecological benefits into the evaluation index system show a characteristic and innovative land use evaluation; (2) in terms of the level of intensive land use, the Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone has the highest intensity, followed by the Yangshan Free Trade Port Zone, and the Pudong Airport Comprehensive Free Trade Zone has the lowest intensity; and (3) development time, degree of land use, differences in leading functions, industrial land structures, and the diversification of employment structures are important factors that influence the differences in the levels of intensive land use in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. This study also expands the performance evaluation of industrial land to the performance evaluation of construction land and provides references for industrial transformation and urban renewal of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone.

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Mapping the Loss of Ecosystem Services in a Region Under Intensive Land Use Along the Southern Coast of South Africa

Cited by 15 publications

References 37 publications

Tree phylogenetic diversity supports nature’s contributions to people, but is at risk from human population growth

Tree phylogenetic diversity supports nature’s contributions to people, but is at risk from human population growth

A Combined Field and Remote-Sensing Based Methodology to Assess the Ecosystem Service Potential of Urban Rivers in Developing Countries

Evaluation of Land Intensive Use in Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone

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