Uncovering the ecosystem service legacies of wetland loss using high‐resolution models

Abstract

Ecosystem services provided by contemporary landscapes are different from those of the past, and this difference is influenced by the legacies of policies that incentivized wetland drainage without considering the impact on ecosystem services. Heterogeneity in ecosystem service legacies is rarely acknowledged or documented. Even less understood is the relative role of historical wetland type (e.g., swamps, fens) and contemporary land cover in shaping these heterogeneous outcomes. Here, we contrasted contemporary ecosystem services with a scenario of no wetland drainage in the Ruamahanga Basin, New Zealand, a region historically rich in wetlands. Using the high‐resolution Land Use Capability Indicator model, we mapped nitrogen retention, phosphorous retention, sediment retention, agricultural productivity, and flood mitigation at a 5‐m spatial resolution under these two scenarios. Our work supports the broad understanding that agricultural productivity has increased in contemporary landscapes, while flood mitigation and nutrient retention have decreased. Net losses in ecosystem services occurred for the majority of historical wetlands, while net gains were less common. However, spatially heterogeneous and divergent responses of ecosystem services to land cover changes reinforced the need for high‐resolution models to untangle the range of factors affecting ecosystem service provisioning. Contemporary land cover explained very little variation in ecosystem services. Initial conditions, however, played an important role in determining ecosystem service outcomes with losses of swamps being particularly problematic for net loss of ecosystem services provisioning. The maps we produced, and the algorithms underlying them, provide tools to envision both local‐ and broad‐scale effects of historical wetland drainage.

Ecosystem Services Assessment Tools for Regenerative Urban Design in Oceania

“…It is applicable in diverse contexts such as sustainable development, policy making, conservation, and ecological restoration. LUCI has been widely used in the rural context of New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and applied in Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Vanuatu, and other Pacific Islands [45,70]. As a first step to providing information to guide decision making, the tool emphasises producing transparent and easy to interpret outputs and generates colour-coded maps where green shows good opportunities for changes and red designates areas that should be preserved or restored.…”

Ecosystem services assessment tools for regenerative urban design in oceania

“…It is applicable in diverse contexts such as sustainable development, policy making, conservation, and ecological restoration. LUCI has been widely used in the rural context of New Zealand and tested in Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Vanuatu, and other Pacific Islands [45,70]. As a first step to providing information to guide decision making, the tool emphasises producing transparent and easy to interpret outputs and generates colour coded maps where green shows good opportunities for changes and red designates areas that should be preserved or restored.…”

LUCI-EntEx v1.0: A GIS-based algorithm to determine stream entry and exit points at boundaries of any given shape

“…LUCI has a proven record of providing reliable output for exploring the impact of land use or management changes on ecosystem service provision in multiple countries, enabling better spatial planning of land management interventions (Emmett et al 2017;Thomas et al, 2019;Tomscha et al, 2019;Pedersen Zari et al, 2020). Uniquely, LUCI is able to model at a range of spatial scalesfrom field or plot level up to catchment/watershed or even national level (Sharps et al, 2017;Emmett et al, 2017, Thomas et al, 2019.…”

“…These latter inputs are available for the study areas and have been used as input across all analyses. LUCI can assess a range of ecosystem services including agricultural production, carbon sequestration, water quantity, water quality, erosion and sediment, amongst others (Tomscha et al, 2019, Sharps et al, 2017, Jackson et al, 2013.…”