Undervalued and under pressure: A plea for greater attention toward regulating ecosystem services

Sutherland, Ira J.; Villamagna, Amy M.; Dallaire, Camille Ouellet; Bennett, Elena M.; Chin, Andrew T.M.; Yeung, Albert T.; Lamothe, Karl A.; Tomscha, Stephanie A.; Cormier, Roland

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.06.047

Cited by 43 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…In addition, we assumed that all our indicators of regulating ES represent actual supply, but this could be highly context-dependant (e.g. Andersson et al, 2015;Sutherland et al, 2017). Selection of ES indicators is frequently problematic and our study is no exception.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitations Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the distribution of forest ecosystem services in a highly populated Mediterranean region

Roces‐Díaz

Vayreda

Banqué-Casanovas

et al. 2018

Ecological Indicators

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Forest ecosystems provide a wide range of goods and services to society and host high levels of biodiversity. Nevertheless, forest ecosystem services (ES) are often quantified and assessed using simplified methodologies (e.g., proxy methods based exclusively on Land Use Land Cover maps) that introduce substantial uncertainty in the analysis by ignoring, for instance, the species composition and spatial configuration of the ecosystems studied. In this work we defined and calculated a set of 12 indicators of several ES for the forests of the highly populated region of Catalonia (North-eastern Iberian Peninsula). The indicators combined different sources of information such as forest surveys, ecological model predictions and official statistics, but also included additional land cover information. All ES indicators were aggregated at the municipality level to compare their values and distribution patterns. We assessed spatial trade-offs and synergies among ES, as well as their relationships with a set of socioeconomic, climatic and biodiversity variables using correlation analyses and mixed-effects models. The results suggest a clustering of provisioning and regulating ES in mountainous zones towards the North of the study area. These two types of services showed a high degree of spatial similarity and presented high positive correlations. In contrast, cultural ES showed a more scattered pattern, which included lower elevation areas in the South of the study region. Climatic conditions were the main determinants of the spatial variability in the supply of the different ES, with most indicators being positively associated with precipitation and negatively associated with temperature. In addition, biodiversity (particularly woody species richness) showed positive relations with most of these ES, while socioeconomic indicators (such as population density and the percentage employment in agriculture) showed negative associations with most of them. The combination of information from different data sources (including primary data) allowed for a detailed analysis of forest ES, likely removing some of the problems derived from approaches based only on proxy methods. In addition, the use of municipalities as study unit makes results directly relevant to management and planning strategies operating at this scale (e.g., forest management and planning).

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Section: Strengths and Limitations Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the distribution of forest ecosystem services in a highly populated Mediterranean region

Roces‐Díaz

Vayreda

Banqué-Casanovas

et al. 2018

Ecological Indicators

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“…Our results are, however, at odds with current emerging ES decision-making frameworks, which often understate regulating services. Rather, they tend to focus on cultural and provisioning ES that have more obvious links to human wellbeing (e.g., in closer proximity to beneficiaries [44]). The lack of scientific knowledge surrounding the processes that provide regulatory services e.g., [45] and the fact that many of the benefits provide by these services are indirect and far removed from the businesses that utilize or experience them, also makes them prone to being overlooked [46].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dependency of Businesses on Flows of Ecosystem Services: A Case Study from the County of Dorset, UK

Watson

Newton

2018

Sustainability

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Although it is widely assumed that business activity is dependent on flows of ecosystem services (ES), little evidence is available with which to evaluate this contention. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a questionnaire survey of business dependencies on twenty-six different ES in the English county of Dorset, where the environment supports a significant component of the local economy. Responses were received from 212 businesses across twenty-eight sectors. While virtually all businesses (98%) were familiar with the concept of ES, dependency on ES was highly divided with 50% of businesses surveyed claiming no dependence on any ES flows. The highest businesses dependencies reported in this study were for regulating services with the ES of water quality and waste water treatment being of particular importance to businesses. The results however, advised that greater efforts are needed in highlighting the indirect benefits provided by Dorset's ecosystems, with eight business sectors (58% of respondents) claiming no or little dependence on supporting and habitat services including the ES of biodiversity, habitats for species and maintenance of genetic diversity. Many businesses also indicated little or no dependence on the globally important ES of pollination and soil condition, which may reflect a lack of awareness of dependencies occurring upstream of their value chains. At the sector level, businesses directly involved in protecting, extracting, or manufacturing raw materials were found to be more dependent on provisioning, regulatory and supporting ES than those operating in the service sector who favored cultural ES. These results highlight the value of assessing business dependencies on ES flows, which could usefully inform environmental management and accounting systems and improve monitoring of business performance, and thereby contribute to achievement of sustainability goals.

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“…Given that conservation efforts are already limited by what humans perceive as valuable (e.g., Sutherland et al, 2018;Williams et al, 2018), this aspect of the concept creates no new problems. On the contrary, the concept does not depend on any particular type of value but instead generates position analogs and stakeholder salience from intrinsic, instrumental, cultural, or other sources of value attributed to the ecological phenomenon.…”

Section: Practical Concerns and Priorities For Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the contrary, the concept does not depend on any particular type of value but instead generates position analogs and stakeholder salience from intrinsic, instrumental, cultural, or other sources of value attributed to the ecological phenomenon. Given that conservation efforts are already limited by what humans perceive as valuable (e.g., Sutherland et al, 2018;Williams et al, 2018), this aspect of the concept creates no new problems.…”

Section: Practical Concerns and Priorities For Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological stakeholder analogs as intermediaries between freshwater biodiversity conservation and sustainable water management

et al. 2019

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Water security is essential for human well-being and is among the biggest challenges in environmental governance. Governments and nonprofit organizations alike are gaining increased appreciation for the contributions of intact ecosystems to water security, whereas conservation scientists call for decisive action to address the dire condition of earth's freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity. Stakeholder-based, Habermasian decision-making frameworks such as integrated water resources management (IWRM) are widely used to equitably manage complex water systems, and ecologists have developed increasingly sophisticated frameworks (e.g., environmental flows) to quantify and anticipate the ecological outcomes of water management decisions. IWRM implementation is criticized for being excessively top-down whereas ecological frameworks in water decision-making can fail to account for the cultural and societal values of ecosystems, and it remains unclear how best to connect the desired bottom-up implementation of IWRM with the expert-based, top-down structure of hydro-ecological research. We revisit and elaborate upon the ecological stakeholder analog (ESA) concept, which treats ecological phenomena (e.g., species and processes) as stakeholders and ecological information as interests and positions with respect to water management. We then illustrate how ESAs can address the many calls to improve environmental flows and IWRM strategies by improving their integration, and how established conceptual frameworks from stakeholder theory applies readily to ecological stakeholders.

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Undervalued and under pressure: A plea for greater attention toward regulating ecosystem services

Cited by 43 publications

References 87 publications

Assessing the distribution of forest ecosystem services in a highly populated Mediterranean region

Assessing the distribution of forest ecosystem services in a highly populated Mediterranean region

Dependency of Businesses on Flows of Ecosystem Services: A Case Study from the County of Dorset, UK

Ecological stakeholder analogs as intermediaries between freshwater biodiversity conservation and sustainable water management

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