Understanding future ecosystem changes in Lake Victoria basin using participatory local scenarios

Understanding future ecosystem changes is central to sustainable natural resource management especially when coupled with in-depth understanding of impacts of drivers, such as governance, demographic, economic and climate variations and land use policy. This offers comprehensive information for sustainable ecosystem services provision. A foresight process of systematic and presumptive assessment of future state and ecosystem integrity of Lake Victoria basin, as participatory scenario building technique, is presented. Four scenarios have been illustrated as possible future states of the basin over the next twenty years. Using a scenario building model developed in Ventana Simulation (VENSIM^®) platform, the paper presents a scenario methodology for tracking changes in lake basin ecosystem status. Plausible trends in land use change, changes in lake levels and contribution of fisheries are presented. This is part of an initial attempt to setup long-term environmental policy planning strategies for Lake Victoria basin. The assumptions, driving forces, impacts and opportunities under each scenario depict major departure and convergence points for an integrated transboundary diagnosis and analysis of regional issues in the basin as well as strategic action planning for long-term interventions. The findings have been presented in terms of temporal, spatial, biophysical and human well-being dimensions. The attempts in this study can be embedded in a policy framework for basin management priority setting and may guide partnerships for environmental management.     

自然资本流变及其对生态系统服务价值的演变路径

生态系统服务价值化是将生态系统惠益于人类社会的价值进行量化,以评估生态系统服务状态,便于生态系统监测和管理。自然资本是生态系统服务的来源,结合自然资本视角进行生态系统服务价值化,其成果有利于提高生态系统保护政策制定的精准性和统筹力,有利于创新生态系统服务评估方法。通过梳理自然资本概念的缘起与发展过程,认为自然资本经历了"同义指代"、"边界明晰"、"多领域交汇"和"隐喻多义"四个阶段逐步丰富的过程。当今针对自然资本研究的三种主流视角,即将自然资本视为"产生经济价值的资产"、"产生服务流的存量"和"金融资本"为生态系统服务的价值化提供了多种途径。生态系统服务价值化的过程要体现可持续发展的基本目标,保证自然资本的稳定,维持人类社会代际公平。以此为前提,鼓励生态系统价值化视角的多样性。价值化途径应关注生态系统服务的时空动态变化、多种服务协同作用和供需权衡。生态系统服务价值化是自然资本金融杠杆化的推手,应警惕有可能带来的金融风险和生态风险。     

中、美喀斯特景观管理对比研究

喀斯特景观具有重要的经济、战略、美学、生态和科考价值,如何有效保护和管理复杂而脆弱的喀斯特景观生态系统逐渐成为国内外管理者和学者关注的议题。但国内在喀斯特景观管理的方法和体制等方面鲜有研究,特别是面临日益增加的人类活动压力情况下,开展中外喀斯特管理对比研究将为中国喀斯特可持续管理提供借鉴。采用历史分析、社会网络分析、比较研究等方法,探究中国与美国喀斯特景观保护和管理的历史进程、管理机构参与和管理方法。结果表明中美政府对喀斯特和洞穴管理投入存在差异,但目前在区域协调管理方面还都欠缺。管理过程都经历了从初步探索到不断成熟的阶段,关注的重点和议题在不断演进,从最初的喀斯特水文地质问题拓展到生态系统综合管理,从单一的环境问题到社会、经济、生态问题。所采用的方法和模型在不断发展,从利用传统的环境调查和监测方法发展到GIS、激光雷达、分子生物学、环境DNA等最新技术。管理方式从自上而下行政命令方式到政府、社会团体、公众合作管理模式。目前,鉴于喀斯特生态系统的复杂性和部门利益冲突,直接出台喀斯特管理的法规还存在很大障碍。最后,构建了一个可持续导向的喀斯特景观管理框架。本研究将管理者、研究者和公众3个...     

白洋淀流域生态系统服务评估及其调控

政策制定者在制定土地利用相关政策时需要权衡各方面的利益关系,协调资源保护和经济发展之间的关系.由于缺乏有效的评价与权衡办法,目前对这方面研究还较少.采用InVEST模型,评价了白洋淀流域7种服务功能指标,分析了其空间分布特征.通过情景(政策情景与保护情景)分析,较好的反映了农业直接经济收入与服务功能之间的关系.结果表明:生物多样性、水源涵养、土壤保持和固碳重要区域主要分布在流域西部、北部和流域中部山区;水质保护和授粉重要区域主要分布于流域东部、南部和中部平原区.政策情景下,产水量第二,农业产出有所下降,固碳能力较保护模式差,N/P输出最少.保护情景下产水量最大,农田产出价值不变,氮磷保持与政策情景差不多,但固碳效果最好.通过权衡不同情景下服务功能得失,筛选既不损害流域居民实际经济收入,又能使得水文服务功能得到提高的管理模式.研究表明InVEST模型可以很好的用于对自然资本评估和空间化特征分析,通过建立不同情景,评价结果可以用于权衡不同管理策略下服务功能得失,是一种评价和预测自然资本变化的有效方法,对政策制定和策略筛选具有重要的指导意义.     

生态系统服务供给与需求的理论与管理方法

生态系统服务是当前可持续科学研究的热点之一。随着环境保护与管理需求的不断增加,政策制定者希望将生态系统服务信息更多地融入管理实践中。由于理论的不确定性和研究方法的局限性,如何准确地评价生态系统服务、如何考虑不同利益相关者的需求,提取重要的生态系统服务信息给决策者参考,仍然是当前该领域研究的难点。基于生态系统服务的产生、传递和消耗过程,区分生态系统服务的潜在供给、实际供给和人类需求;引入生态系统服务供需比和供给率两个指标,为区域间自然资源资产的比较提供一种方法;以白洋淀流域为案例,采用生态系统服务矩阵法,结合GIS空间模拟技术,揭示生态系统服务供给与需求的空间特征。白洋淀流域2010年生态系统服务的供给率和供需比分别是:0.4966和0.1131,说明流域生态系统服务供给状态较好,且处于盈余状态。对流域内供给率较高且供给处于盈余的区域,应作为生态保护与补偿的主要区域;对生态系统服务需求较大的区域应进行必要的生态建设与修复。研究结果为区域生态环境管理和政策制定提供了实际的科学依据。     

Regional Scale Prioritisation for Key Ecosystem Services,Renewable Energy Production and Urban Development

Although the importance of addressing ecosystem service benefits in regional land use planning and decision-making is evident, substantial practical challenges remain. In particular, methods to identify priority areas for the provision of key ecosystem services and other environmental services (benefits from the environment not directly linked to the function of ecosystems) need to be developed. Priority areas are locations which provide disproportionally high benefits from one or more service. Here we map a set of ecosystem and environmental services and delineate priority areas according to different scenarios. Each scenario is produced by a set of weightings allocated to different services and corresponds to different landscape management strategies which decision makers could undertake. Using the county of Cornwall, U.K., as a case study, we processed gridded maps of key ecosystem services and environmental services, including renewable energy production and urban development. We explored their spatial distribution patterns and their spatial covariance and spatial stationarity within the region. Finally we applied a complementarity-based priority ranking algorithm (zonation) using different weighting schemes. Our conclusions are that (i) there are two main patterns of service distribution in this region, clustered services (including agriculture, carbon stocks, urban development and plant production) and dispersed services (including cultural services, energy production and floods mitigation); (ii) more than half of the services are spatially correlated and there is high non-stationarity in the spatial covariance between services; and (iii) it is important to consider both ecosystem services and other environmental services in identifying priority areas. Different weighting schemes provoke drastic changes in the delineation of priority areas and therefore decision making processes need to carefully consider the relative values attributed to different services.     

Global Climate Change Adaptation Priorities for Biodiversity and Food Security

International policy is placing increasing emphasis on adaptation to climate change, including the allocation of new funds to assist adaptation efforts. Climate change adaptation funding may be most effective where it meets integrated goals, but global geographic priorities based on multiple development and ecological criteria are not well characterized. Here we show that human and natural adaptation needs related to maintaining agricultural productivity and ecosystem integrity intersect in ten major areas globally, providing a coherent set of international priorities for adaptation funding. An additional seven regional areas are identified as worthy of additional study. The priority areas are locations where changes in crop suitability affecting impoverished farmers intersect with changes in ranges of restricted-range species. Agreement among multiple climate models and emissions scenarios suggests that these priorities are robust. Adaptation funding directed to these areas could simultaneously address multiple international policy goals, including poverty reduction, protecting agricultural production and safeguarding ecosystem services.     

Spatial covariance between biodiversity and other ecosystem service priorities

1.  Ecosystems support biodiversity and also provide goods and services that are beneficial to humans. The extent to which the locations that are most valuable for ecosystem services coincide with those that support the most biodiversity is of critical importance when designing conservation and land management strategies. There are, however, few studies on which to base any kind of conclusion about possible spatial patterns of association between ecosystem services and biodiversity. Moreover, little is known about the sensitivity of the conclusions to the quality of the data available, or to the choice and size of the region used for analysis.
2.  Here, we first present national-scale estimates of the spatial covariance in areas important for ecosystem services and biodiversity (richness of species of conservation concern), using Britain as a case study. We then explore how these associations are sensitive to the spatial resolution of the available data, the spatial extent of our study region and to regional variation across the study area.
3.  Our analyses reveal a mixture of negative and positive associations. In particular, the regionalization analysis shows that one can arrive at diametrically opposing conclusions about relationships between ecosystem services and biodiversity by studying the same question within different areas, even within a moderately small island.
4.   Synthesis and applications. In a policy context, the location-specific nature of relationships between ecosystem services and biodiversity underscores the importance of multi-scale environmental decision-making, so as to reflect both local conditions and broader-scale priorities. The results also suggest that efforts to establish general patterns of congruence in ecosystem services and biodiversity may offer a less constructive way forward than do more regional approaches.     

Defining Ecosystem Assets for Natural Capital Accounting

In natural capital accounting, ecosystems are assets that provide ecosystem services to people. Assets can be measured using both physical and monetary units. In the international System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, ecosystem assets are generally valued on the basis of the net present value of the expected flow of ecosystem services. In this paper we argue that several additional conceptualisations of ecosystem assets are needed to understand ecosystems as assets, in support of ecosystem assessments, ecosystem accounting and ecosystem management. In particular, we define ecosystems’ capacity and capability to supply ecosystem services, as well as the potential supply of ecosystem services. Capacity relates to sustainable use levels of multiple ecosystem services, capability involves prioritising the use of one ecosystem service over a basket of services, and potential supply considers the ability of ecosystems to generate services regardless of demand for these services. We ground our definitions in the ecosystem services and accounting literature, and illustrate and compare the concepts of flow, capacity, capability, and potential supply with a range of conceptual and real-world examples drawn from case studies in Europe and North America. Our paper contributes to the development of measurement frameworks for natural capital to support environmental accounting and other assessment frameworks.     

基于分布式水文模型和福利成本法的生态补偿空间选择研究

空间选择是生态补偿研究的核心问题之一,选择合理的区域进行生态补偿有利于提高生态补偿项目的效率.以黑河流域上游肃南县为研究区域,运用分布式水文模型Soil and Water Assessment Tool(SWAT)对研究区实施生态补偿后的水源涵养增加量进行模拟,同时考虑土地利用类型转化成本以及生态系统服务丧失风险,采用福利成本法对研究区生态补偿空间选择进行研究.结果表明:黑河上游肃南段内不同子流域的生态补偿效率系数最高值为0.0394,最低值0.0131,相差明显;根据效率系数,采用聚类分析方法,可将各子流域划分为优先补偿区、次级优先补偿区和潜在补偿区,分批进行补偿;采用空间选择后生态补偿效率较不采用时可提高54.5％.     

A Keyword Approach to Finding Common Ground in Community-Based Definitions of Human Well-Being

Ecosystem-based management involves the integration of ecosystem services and their human beneficiaries into decision making. This can occur at multiple scales; addressing global issues such as climate change down to local problems such as flood protection and maintaining water quality. At the local scale it can be challenging to achieve a consistent and sustainable outcome across multiple communities, particularly when they differ in resource availability and management priorities. A key requirement for consistent decision support at the community level is to identify common community objectives, as these can form the basis for readily transferable indices of ecosystem benefit and human well-being. We used a keyword-based approach to look for common terminology in community fundamental objectives as a basis for transferable indices of human well-being and then compared those commonalities to community demographics, location, and type. Analysis centered on strategic planning documents readily available from coastal communities in the conterminous United States. We examined strategic planning documents based on eight domains of human well-being, and found that Living Standards and Safety and Security were the most commonly addressed domains, and Health and Cultural Fulfillment were the least. In comparing communities, regional differences were observed in only one well-being domain, Safety and Security, while community type yielded significant differences in five of the eight domains examined. Community type differences followed an urban to rural trend with urban communities focusing on Education and Living Standards, and more rural communities focused on Social Cohesion and Leisure Time. Across all eight domains multivariate analysis suggested communities were distributed along two largely orthogonal gradients; one between Living Standards and Leisure Time and or Connection to Nature, and a second between Safety and Security and Social Priorities (Education/Health/Culture/Social Cohesion). Overall these findings demonstrate the use of automated keyword analysis for obtaining information from community strategic planning documents. Moreover, the results indicate measures and perceptions of well-being at the local scale differ by community type. This information could be used in management of ecosystem services and development of indices of community sustainability that are applicable to multiple communities with similar demographics, regional location, and type.     

Research priorities for natural ecosystems in a changing global climate

Climate change poses significant emerging risks to biodiversity, ecosystem function and associated socioecological systems. Adaptation responses must be initiated in parallel with mitigation efforts, but resources are limited. As climate risks are not distributed equally across taxa, ecosystems and processes, strategic prioritization of research that addresses stakeholder‐relevant knowledge gaps will accelerate effective uptake into adaptation policy and management action. After a decade of climate change adaptation research within the Australian National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, we synthesize the National Adaptation Research Plans for marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. We identify the key, globally relevant priorities for ongoing research relevant to informing adaptation policy and environmental management aimed at maximizing the resilience of natural ecosystems to climate change. Informed by both global literature and an extensive stakeholder consultation across all ecosystems, sectors and regions in Australia, involving thousands of participants, we suggest 18 priority research topics based on their significance, urgency, technical and economic feasibility, existing knowledge gaps and potential for cobenefits across multiple sectors. These research priorities provide a unified guide for policymakers, funding organizations and researchers to strategically direct resources, maximize stakeholder uptake of resulting knowledge and minimize the impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems. Given the pace of climate change, it is imperative that we inform and accelerate adaptation progress in all regions around the world.     

Multi-criteria decision analysis to select metrics for design and monitoring of sustainable ecosystem restorations

The selection of metrics for ecosystem restoration programs is critical for improving the quality and utility of design and monitoring programs, informing adaptive management actions, and characterizing project success. The metrics selection process, that in practice is left to the subjective judgment of stakeholders, is often complex and should simultaneously take into account monitoring data, environmental models, socio-economic considerations, and stakeholder interests. With limited funding, it is often very difficult to balance the importance of multiple metrics, often competing, intended to measure different environmental, social, and economic aspects of the system. To help restoration planners and practitioners develop the most useful and informative design and monitoring programs, we propose the use of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods, broadly defined, to select optimal ecosystem restoration metric sets. In this paper, we apply and compare two MCDA methods, multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT), and probabilistic multi-criteria acceptability analysis (ProMAA), for a hypothetical river restoration case study involving multiple stakeholders with competing interests. Overall, the MCDA results in a systematic, quantitative, and transparent evaluation and comparison of potential metrics that provides planners and practitioners with a clear basis for selecting the optimal set of metrics to evaluate restoration alternatives and to inform restoration design and monitoring. In our case study, the two MCDA methods provide comparable results in terms of selected metrics. However, because ProMAA can consider probability distributions for weights and utility values of metrics for each criterion, it is most likely the best option for projects with highly uncertain data and significant stakeholder involvement. Despite the increase in complexity in the metrics selection process, MCDA improves upon the current, commonly-used ad-hoc decision practice based on consultations with stakeholders by applying and presenting quantitative aggregation of data and judgment, thereby increasing the effectiveness of environmental design and monitoring and the transparency of decision making in restoration projects.     

Response diversity determines the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change

A growing body of evidence highlights the importance of biodiversity for ecosystem stability and the maintenance of optimal ecosystem functionality. Conservation measures are thus essential to safeguard the ecosystem services that biodiversity provides and human society needs. Current anthropogenic threats may lead to detrimental (and perhaps irreversible) ecosystem degradation, providing strong motivation to evaluate the response of ecological communities to various anthropogenic pressures. In particular, ecosystem functions that sustain key ecosystem services should be identified and prioritized for conservation action. Traditional diversity measures (e.g. ‘species richness’) may not adequately capture the aspects of biodiversity most relevant to ecosystem stability and functionality, but several new concepts may be more appropriate. These include ‘response diversity’, describing the variation of responses to environmental change among species of a particular community. Response diversity may also be a key determinant of ecosystem resilience in the face of anthropogenic pressures and environmental uncertainty. However, current understanding of response diversity is poor, and we see an urgent need to disentangle the conceptual strands that pervade studies of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Our review clarifies the links between response diversity and the maintenance of ecosystem functionality by focusing on the insurance hypothesis of biodiversity and the concept of functional redundancy. We provide a conceptual model to describe how loss of response diversity may cause ecosystem degradation through decreased ecosystem resilience. We explicitly explain how response diversity contributes to functional compensation and to spatio‐temporal complementarity among species, leading to long‐term maintenance of ecosystem multifunctionality. Recent quantitative studies suggest that traditional diversity measures may often be uncoupled from measures (such as response diversity) that may be more effective proxies for ecosystem stability and resilience. Certain conclusions and recommendations of earlier studies using these traditional measures as indicators of ecosystem resilience thus may be suspect. We believe that functional ecology perspectives incorporating the effects and responses of diversity are essential for development of management strategies to safeguard (and restore) optimal ecosystem functionality (especially multifunctionality). Our review highlights these issues and we envision our work generating debate around the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functionality, and leading to improved conservation priorities and biodiversity management practices that maximize ecosystem resilience in the face of uncertain environmental change.     

生态系统服务与自然资本价值评估

生态系统服务是生态系统提供的商品和服务,是人类生态和发展的物质基础和基本条件,是人类拥有的关键自然资本。概述了生态系统服务的内涵及类型,介绍了当前国内外有关生态系统服务及自然资本的价值理论、价值评估的各种方法及其类型;评述了研究的主要进展,存在的主要问题、难点和研究的主要趋向。认为生态系统服务及自然资本的价值评估研究是建立生态－环境－经济综合核算体系（可持续发展核算体系）的重要内容和关键环节,完善价值评估的理论与经济技术方法是生态系统服务价值评估研究亟待解决的问题。     

基于文献计量的自然资本研究现状及热点

文章以Web of Science数据库中检索的自然资本相关文献为数据源,利用文献计量方法,分析相关文献按年份的数量变化特征、世界各国中主要研究力量和高产作者发文情况,探究目前的研究现状。之后利用Bibexcel得出高频关键词共词矩阵,导入Ucinet和NetDraw得出共现网络可视图,最后对关键词进行聚类分析。研究表明,①自然资本相关文献数量整体呈上升趋势,可大体分为萌芽发展、加速发展和成熟发展3个增长阶段;②从研究力量上看,发达国家的影响力明显强于发展中国家,美国处于遥遥领先的地位,中国起步晚,影响力较小,国际合作需要加强;③根据共词分析得出生态系统服务的价值化和可持续发展是当前的研究热点;④利用聚类分析将高频关键词分成了生态脆弱性与适应性、资本经济与自然资源、生态系统服务和资本经济管理四类。分析结果表明,未来自然资本的研究将集中于生态系统服务的价值化研究、InVEST模型的应用、绿色经济发展与区域绿色经济转型、小尺度区域服务功能价值评估及自然资本的动态评估等方面。     

Understanding Perceptions of Climate Change,Priorities, and Decision-Making among Municipalities in Lima,Peru to Better Inform Adaptation and Mitigation Planning

Climate change poses multiple risks to the population of Lima, the largest city and capital of Peru, located on the Pacific coast in a desert ecosystem. These risks include increased water scarcity, increased heat, and the introduction and emergence of vector-borne and other climate sensitive diseases. To respond to these threats, it is necessary for the government, at every level, to adopt more mitigation and adaptation strategies. Here, focus groups were conducted with representatives from five Lima municipalities to determine priorities, perception of climate change, and decision-making processes for implementing projects within each municipality. These factors can affect the ability and desire of a community to implement climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. The results show that climate change and other environmental factors are of relatively low priority, whereas public safety and water and sanitation services are of highest concern. Perhaps most importantly, climate change is not well understood among the municipalities. Participants had trouble distinguishing climate change from other environmental issues and did not fully understand its causes and effects. Greater understanding of what climate change is and why it is important is necessary for it to become a priority for the municipalities. Different aspects of increased climate change awareness seem to be connected to having experienced extreme weather events, whether related or not to climate change, and to higher socioeconomic status.     

Effect of management on natural capital stocks underlying ecosystem service provision: a ‘provider group’ approach

Land management practices directly impact on the occurrence and condition of natural capital stocks, which can be measured using species diversity and abundance metrics. Species identity and abundance drive ecosystem service supply, either through effects of local diversity and/or through the presence of service providing species. However, the influence of management practices on the provision of ecosystem services is not adequately understood. We grouped grassland plant species into six groups according to desirable attributes (palatability and nutritional value to livestock; medicinal or aromatic compounds; nectar production; pollen production; nitrogen fixation; and endemic and red listed species), which we recognise as ecosystem service ‘provider groups’, and tested the influence of three land management practices (abandonment of mowing, grazing, and mowing) on diversity and abundance within these groups in upland temperate grasslands of Transylvania (Romania). All three management practices favoured at least one provider group, but hay making in upland grasslands favoured more provider groups than abandonment of mowing or grazing. The effects of management on diversity and abundance within several provider groups diverged from the effects on overall species diversity and abundance. Management, through changes in species composition, favours certain provider groups, and hence ecosystem services, over others. The provider group approach is more useful than overall species diversity metrics for assessing the provision of ecosystem services from landscapes and can be used to inform the development of agri-environment schemes and conservation policies aimed at meeting priorities for ecosystem service provision.     

Prioritising Mangrove Ecosystem Services Results in Spatially Variable Management Priorities

Incorporating the values of the services that ecosystems provide into decision making is becoming increasingly common in nature conservation and resource management policies, both locally and globally. Yet with limited funds for conservation of threatened species and ecosystems there is a desire to identify priority areas where investment efficiently conserves multiple ecosystem services. We mapped four mangrove ecosystems services (coastal protection, fisheries, biodiversity, and carbon storage) across Fiji. Using a cost-effectiveness analysis, we prioritised mangrove areas for each service, where the effectiveness was a function of the benefits provided to the local communities, and the costs were associated with restricting specific uses of mangroves. We demonstrate that, although priority mangrove areas (top 20%) for each service can be managed at relatively low opportunity costs (ranging from 4.5 to 11.3% of overall opportunity costs), prioritising for a single service yields relatively low co-benefits due to limited geographical overlap with priority areas for other services. None-the-less, prioritisation of mangrove areas provides greater overlap of benefits than if sites were selected randomly for most ecosystem services. We discuss deficiencies in the mapping of ecosystems services in data poor regions and how this may impact upon the equity of managing mangroves for particular services across the urban-rural divide in developing countries. Finally we discuss how our maps may aid decision-makers to direct funding for mangrove management from various sources to localities that best meet funding objectives, as well as how this knowledge can aid in creating a national mangrove zoning scheme.