Priority areas for restoring ecosystem services to enhance human well‐being in a dry forest

Abstract

Habitat destruction reduces biodiversity and affects ecosystem functioning, putting at risk the provision of ecosystem services (ESs) essential for human well‐being. Ecological restoration using native species with multiple uses may offer a long‐term supply of natural resources for vulnerable human populations. We selected priority areas for restoration in the Brazilian Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest (Caatinga), targeting areas with high ES demand but low supply. We estimated the supply and demand for three ESs: (1) food/medicine, (2) wood production, and (3) pollination. We estimated ES supply using maps of the potential geographical distribution of 194 native plant species used by the local population as a means of livelihood. For ES demand, we used maps of population density, rural municipalities, wood productivity, and crops dependent on pollination. We used a large‐scale prioritization tool (Zonation) to select two scenarios for each ES: (1) ES supply‐only and (2) ES supply + ES demand, selecting only nonvegetated areas. To select priority areas, where the potential occurrence of species (ES supply) corresponds to areas of high demand for the same services, we overlapped the maps of the two scenarios for each ES. The highest percentage of scenario overlap occurred for food/medicine ES (45%), whereas pollination showed the lowest percentage of overlap (10%), indicating little similarity between potential ES supply and demand areas. Our study shows the importance of including ES in ecological restoration opportunities, taking into account the vulnerable human population in dry regions and their demand for natural resources.

Caracterização Molecular De Amostras De Escherichia Coli Carreadoras Dos Genes STX Isoladas De Bovinos De Regiões Agropecuárias Brasileiras

“…Vale ressaltar uma importante observação, no estudo realizado por Costa et al (2021), realizado no bioma Caatinga, região Nordeste do país, foi o único que apresentou resultado inferior aos demais referente à dependência da polinização. Esse resultado foi apresentado após análise de um cenário de prioridades de oferta e demanda, indicando que a área da Caatinga possui grande oferta de polinizadores, no entanto, ao fazer a sobreposição com a dependência das culturas, as áreas procuradas com culturas que dependam dos polinizadores não são os mesmos locais onde há maior ocorrência atrativa de tais polinizadores.…”

Identifying priority areas for tidal wetland restoration by integrating ecosystem services supply and demand mismatches

“…Using the site selection algorithms (e.g., simulated annealing of MARXAN) of SCP to identify priority areas has more advantages than using scoring methods or expert opinions (McBride et al, 2010), such as reducing socio-economic investment and improving the connectivity of priority areas. Therefore, the SCP has been increasingly used to identify restoration priority areas for different ecosystems since 2006 (Crossman and Bryan, 2006;Qu et al, 2019;Costa et al, 2021;Gilby et al, 2021).…”

“…Thus, the regional context of the degree of coordination between ES supply and demand serves as another important basis for guiding restoration action (Shi et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2021a). However, only a few studies have addressed the mitigation of regional ES supply and demand mismatches as an essential target of restoration planning (Costa et al, 2021;Goyette et al, 2021). A recent study by Costa et al (2021) proved that ES demand should be integrated into forest landscape restoration to enhance local human well-being.…”

“…However, only a few studies have addressed the mitigation of regional ES supply and demand mismatches as an essential target of restoration planning (Costa et al, 2021;Goyette et al, 2021). A recent study by Costa et al (2021) proved that ES demand should be integrated into forest landscape restoration to enhance local human well-being. However, Costa et al (2021) did not examine the changes in restoration costs when improving the representativeness of ES demand in the priority area network.…”

“…A recent study by Costa et al (2021) proved that ES demand should be integrated into forest landscape restoration to enhance local human well-being. However, Costa et al (2021) did not examine the changes in restoration costs when improving the representativeness of ES demand in the priority area network. To the best of our knowledge, approaches for optimizing the allocation of restoration resources that simultaneously combine the status of regional ES supplydemand (mis)matches and restoration costs remain rare (Goyette et al, 2021).…”