Provisioning ecosystem services supply and demand: The role of landscape management to reinforce supply and promote synergies with other ecosystem services

Sustainable landscape management based on cultural ecosystem services

“…Many up to date innovative ecosystem services methodologies are used during this assessment at different working scales, being the following the principal research lines carried out during the process: 1) Studying conditions & trends of Biodiversity & ecosystem services using indicators, and developing a multifunctionality indicator [16,17]; 2) Mapping ecosystems services at different scales taking into account all natural heritage (biological and geological heritage) [18,19], making special emphasis in mapping cultural ecosystem services [20,21]; 3) Analyzing social preferences (demand) and users' perceptions through participatory processes [22,23,24]; and 4) Developing future scenarios, both qualitative (participatory) [25] and quantitative (modelling) [26,27]. These research lines are interconnected.…”

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

“…In this way, the potential for increasing carbon sequestration in the long-term (>50 years) would be higher and other ES would also be favored, while avoiding the environmental problems the actual plantations cause [113], and consequently, biophysical and economic assessment could be matched. Similarly, the replacement of forestry land with high agrological capacity by the very highly economically valued (sustainable) agriculture would improve landscape multifunctionality, increase self-provisioning, recover natural ecosystems and maintain biodiversity and a diverse flow of ES [125,126], leading to a more balanced biophysical-economical assessment. Likewise, it is fundamental to stress the monetary value of ES provided by coastal systems, which seem not to be sufficiently recognized.…”

Relevance for decision making of spatially explicit, participatory scenarios for ecosystem services in an area of a high current demand

“…The greatest increase in biocapacity and therefore in provisioning ES supply comes with an increase in arable land, whereas increases in carbon storage and sequestration are seen in the scenario with greatest natural forest recovery. In regions like Biscay with high provisioning ES demand (Palacios-Agundez et al, 2015), selfprovisioning should be strengthened given the objective of increasing sustainability and diminishing the region's dependency on external sources. This becomes especially important if competition for scarce land increases at a global scale (Smith et al, 2013).…”

“…Our results have demonstrated that even if carbon sequestration were to increase, this will not offset Biscay's annual emissions unless the demand side is also managed; the scenario with highest expected carbon sequestration showed a maximum total carbon sequestration of 22,144 tC per year, which is only around 1% of Biscay's current annual emissions (IHOBE, 2010). Similarly, even if there is scope for improvement in self-sufficiency, current food demand cannot be met locally, especially if a diverse flow of local ES is required (Palacios-Agundez et al, 2015). This result shows that in regions like Biscay with high current ES demand, it is important to apply policy measures on the ES supply side, and implement ES demand side measures to find a balance that has an acceptable and equitable ecosystem service footprint (Burkhard et al, 2012).…”

“…To do this the work sought to: (1) verify the coherency and plausibility of LULC change for each scenario; (2) identify areas likely to experience LULC change; and; (3) analyze the sustainability of scenarios by reference to changes in biocapacity, carbon storage and sequestration. The latter were included because forest management has been identified as a key element for Biscay's future sustainable landscape (Palacios-Agundez et al, 2013, and because the ecological footprint accounts in Biscay have been shown to be influenced by the carbon footprint in the last eleven years (Palacios-Agundez et al, 2015). To achieve this we used a spatially explicit approach for mapping LULC change and for making the associated ES assessment.…”