Sustainable Land Use in Mountain Regions Under Global Change: Synthesis Across Scales and Disciplines

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Mountain regions provide essential ecosystem goods and services (EGS) for both mountain dwellers and people living outside these areas. Global change endangers the capacity of mountain ecosystems to provide key services. The Mountland project focused on three case study regions in the Swiss Alps and aimed to propose land-use practices and alternative policy solutions to ensure the provision of key EGS under climate and land-use changes. We summarized and synthesized the results of the project and provide insights into the ecological, socioeconomic, and political processes relevant for analyzing global change impacts on a European mountain region. In Mountland, an integrative approach was applied, combining methods from economics and the political and natural sciences to analyze ecosystem functioning from a holistic human-environment system perspective. In general, surveys, experiments, and model results revealed that climate and socioeconomic changes are likely to increase the vulnerability of the EGS analyzed. We regard the following key characteristics of coupled human-environment systems as central to our case study areas in mountain regions: thresholds, heterogeneity, trade-offs, and feedback. Our results suggest that the institutional framework should be strengthened in a way that better addresses these characteristics, allowing for (1) more integrative approaches, (2) a more network-oriented management and steering of political processes that integrate local stakeholders, and (3) enhanced capacity building to decrease the identified vulnerability as central elements in the policy process. Further, to maintain and support the future provision of EGS in mountain regions, policy making should also focus on projectoriented, cross-sectoral policies and spatial planning as a coordination instrument for land use in general.

Constructing Consistent Multiscale Scenarios by Transdisciplinary Processes: the Case of Mountain Regions Facing Global Change

“…In MOUNTLAND, the project that frames this study (Huber et al 2013b), environmental expertise has been abundant. However, regional knowledge was a subject that required investigation through the transdisciplinary stakeholder process.…”

Sustainable Land-use Practices in European Mountain Regions under Global Change: an Integrated Research Approach

“…It is suitable for studying the dynamics and diversity of mountain-protected forests and grasslands and their interrelationship with disturbances, in particular fire, insect, and pathogen damage brought about by climate change (Rigling et al 2013 (Seppelt et al 2011). …”

Combining Policy Network and Model-Based Scenario Analyses: An Assessment of Future Ecosystem Goods and Services in Swiss Mountain Regions

“…However, these ecosystem goods and services are increasingly under stress due to ecological changes (IPCC 2001, Huber et al 2005, unfavorable socioeconomic conditions (European Commission 2004, Stucki et al 2004, and limited institutional capacities (Young 2002, Young et al 2008, Hirschi 2010, Kok and Veldkamp 2011. To guarantee the provision of these crucial ecosystem goods and services in the future, policy interventions are needed to steer these processes and mitigate their negative impacts on ecosystems and society (Huber et al 2013a). Such policy interventions require accurate assessments of the relevant ecological, socioeconomic, and political developments as well as of their potential future implications.…”

“…Empirically, we apply this novel approach to the case of Swiss agricultural policy, which is arguably one of the key policies for the future provision of ecosystem goods and services in mountain regions in Switzerland (Grêt-Regamey et al 2008, Huber et al 2013a). …”