Human dimensions indicators of coastal ecosystem services: A hierarchical perspective

Coastal resource management revolves around defining the dynamic between people and the marine and coastal resources they use and depend upon for a large range of goods and services. The process of defining that dynamic is iterative and must account not only for changing natural resource conditions but also for changing social conditions. Decision-making therefore happens within a context of a social system that includes differing levels of capacity, commitment, economics, political mandates and pressures, and cultural and traditional frameworks. The aim of this paper is to introduce a hierarchical approach in which the large number of variables needed to measure the complex, numerous and abstract social concepts used to evaluate the delivery of ecosystem services can be aggregated into smaller sets of indicators, which can ultimately be aggregated into a single report card. These variables and indicators can identify and describe non-economic human dimensions societal benefits derived as ecosystem services that are readily collected, that can identify changes over time, and are appropriate to specific coastal regions. The identified indicators would capture changes in the delivery of overall ecosystem services impacted by, or that will impact, changes in particular sets of environmental characteristics that are valued by society at large.     

Local Ecological Knowledge and Institutional Dynamics for Ecosystem Management: A Study of Lake Racken Watershed, Sweden

The sustainable use of resources requires that management practices and institutions take into account the dynamics of the ecosystem. In this paper, we explore the role of local ecological knowledge and show how it is used in management practices by a local fishing association in a contemporary rural Swedish community. We focus on the local management of crayfish, a common-pool resource, and also address the way crayfish management is linked to institutions at different levels of Swedish society. Methods from the social sciences were used for information gathering, and the results were analyzed within the framework of ecosystem management. We found that the practices of local fishing association resemble an ecosystem approach to crayfish management. Our results indicate that local users have substantial knowledge of resource and ecosystem dynamics from the level of the individual crayfish to that of the watershed, as reflected in a variety of interrelated management practices embedded in and influenced by institutions at several levels. We propose that this policy of monitoring at several levels simultaneously, together with the interpretation of a bundle of indicators and associated management responses, enhances the possibility of building ecological resilience into the watershed. Furthermore, we found that flexibility and adaptation are required to avoid command-and-control pathways of resource management. We were able to trace the development of the local fishing association as a response to crisis, followed by the creation of an opportunity for reorganization and the recognition of slow ecosystem structuring variables, and also to define the role of knowledgeable individuals in the whole process. We discuss the key roles of adaptive capacity, institutional learning, and institutional memory for successful ecosystem management and conclude that scientific adaptive management could benefit from a more explicit collaboration with flexible community-based systems of resource management for the implementation of policies as experiments. Received 26 April 2000; accepted 13 October 2000.     

生态系统综合评价的内容与方法

生态系统综合评价是系统分析生态系统的生产及服务能力,对生态系统进行健康诊断,做出综合的生态分析和经济分析,评价其当前状态,并预测生态系统今后的发展趋势,为生态系统管理提供科学依据。从总体上讲,综合评价更强调生态系统一系列产品与服务功能之间的权衡,具有很强的实践意义。许多学者对不同的生态系统服务功能进行了经济价值评估,但缺乏对生态系统的产品、服务、健康与管理之间关系的进一步探讨。对生态系统服务功能评价、健康评价的生态管理与预测进行了系统论述,目的是提出生态系统综合评价的框架,指导生态系统评价行动及生态系统管理。     

The EBM-DPSER Conceptual Model: Integrating Ecosystem Services into the DPSIR Framework

There is a pressing need to integrate biophysical and human dimensions science to better inform holistic ecosystem management supporting the transition from single species or single-sector management to multi-sector ecosystem-based management. Ecosystem-based management should focus upon ecosystem services, since they reflect societal goals, values, desires, and benefits. The inclusion of ecosystem services into holistic management strategies improves management by better capturing the diversity of positive and negative human-natural interactions and making explicit the benefits to society. To facilitate this inclusion, we propose a conceptual model that merges the broadly applied Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR) conceptual model with ecosystem services yielding a Driver, Pressure, State, Ecosystem service, and Response (EBM-DPSER) conceptual model. The impact module in traditional DPSIR models focuses attention upon negative anthropomorphic impacts on the ecosystem; by replacing impacts with ecosystem services the EBM-DPSER model incorporates not only negative, but also positive changes in the ecosystem. Responses occur as a result of changes in ecosystem services and include inter alia management actions directed at proactively altering human population or individual behavior and infrastructure to meet societal goals. The EBM-DPSER conceptual model was applied to the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas marine ecosystem as a case study to illustrate how it can inform management decisions. This case study captures our system-level understanding and results in a more holistic representation of ecosystem and human society interactions, thus improving our ability to identify trade-offs. The EBM-DPSER model should be a useful operational tool for implementing EBM, in that it fully integrates our knowledge of all ecosystem components while focusing management attention upon those aspects of the ecosystem most important to human society and does so within a framework already familiar to resource managers.     

Patches and pulses as fundamental characteristics for matching ecological and cultural diversity: the Baltic Sea archipelago

Focusing on the Baltic archipelago, we address the questions: to what extent are the rhythms of natural and social systems compatible and under which criteria can we make them coincide? Existing mismatches between resource availability and human demand are identified as well as human attempts to dampen ecosystem fluctuations. By means of examples from forestry and fisheries, we illustrate how changes in property rights and technology have altered the diversity and resilience of the archipelago system. Our results suggest that intermediate scale processes of years up to a century are most critical for bringing natural and cultural systems in concordance. The time frame relevant to management and policy in the archipelago seems to correlate with eutrophication processes and the regrowth of forests. In fisheries, a shift from traditional to recreational fisheries has created fishery patterns badly adapted to the dynamics of the coastal ecosystem in disregard of traditional ecological knowledge. A multipurpose and adaptive management of natural resources is advocated as the most appropriate approach for promoting ecological and cultural diversity in the Baltic archipelago. Existing mismatches between the two have to be addressed by governing institutions at many hierarchical levels.     

滨海湿地生态系统服务及其价值评估研究进展

滨海湿地是介于海陆之间的过渡地带,具有丰富的生物多样性和很高的生产力,能为人类提供诸多生态系统服务,但它又是对人类活动极为敏感的生态脆弱区。沿海经济的发展使湿地资源的有限性与人类需求的无限性之间的矛盾日益突出,导致湿地多样性丧失、服务功能退化等。在阐述滨海湿地特征及其服务产生机理的基础上,介绍了运用经济学方法对生态系统服务进行评价的进展,分析了各方法的优缺点及应用情况,最后对滨海湿地生态系统服务价值评估中存在的问题进行了总结归纳,评估所面临的困难一方面来自生态系统本身的复杂性;另一方面来自经济学方法的局限性。因此今后的研究应从生态系统服务的形成机制入手,注重生态学及经济学理论的结合,改善评估方法,提高评估结果的有效性和可信度,为湿地资源管理及生态补偿机制制定提供有力支持。     

基于复合生态系统理论的海洋生态监控区区划指标框架研究

海岸带是海陆生态系统的交错带,其生态系统对社会经济发展和全球变化敏感、脆弱。随着沿海各省市新一轮开发规划的实施,近岸海域生态环境面临巨大压力,海洋生态管理面临着新的经济、环境问题,海洋生态监控区需要进行适应性调整。海洋生态监控区,指依据海洋生态特征和问题冲突特点而确定的、通过生态监测和评价而提出的用于保护管理和开发利用调控的海洋区域。海洋生态监控区是基于生态系统的海洋管理的重要手段,是海洋生态系统管理的重要基础。基于复合生态系统理论,从自然视角、经济视角和社会视角3个方面深入分析了海洋生态重要性区域的内涵,并结合生态社会与生态系统服务描述了海洋生态监控区内涵;结合沿海社会经济发展新趋势和海洋生态系统管理需要,从管理学、生态学、管理对象及管理实施等方面探讨了海洋生态监控区区划的原则;分析了影响海洋生态监控区的主要因素,结合近岸海域生态系统主要服务功能,构建了区划指标体系,包括自然环境、生态系统和社会经济和三大方面14个指标。     

胶州湾滨海湿地生态系统服务价值变化

为科学的评估青岛胶州湾滨海湿地生态系统服务功能的变化特点并明确其驱动因素,通过构建生态系统服务评价体系,综合运用生态学和经济学方法,对2005年、2010年和2015年胶州湾滨海湿地生态系统的供给、调节和文化3大类共12项生态服务的价值进行了评估。结果表明,气候调节和水产品生产是胶州湾滨海湿地生态系统的两大核心功能,二者占到服务总价值的90%以上;调节服务是其主要的服务类型,占到总服务价值的60%以上;2005年、2010年和2015年胶州湾滨海湿地生态系统服务总价值呈递减趋势,分别为1419.73×10~7元、1343.91×10~7元和1239.23×10~7元。湿地面积减少、湿地功能退化是造成胶州湾滨海湿地生态系统服务价值总体呈下降趋势的直接原因,不合理围垦、过度开发生物资源、水污染严重是造成湿地面积减少、功能退化的人为因素,气候条件的不利变化是造成湿地环境进一步恶化的自然因素。建议以生态系统服务价值为指导,将评估结果纳入到决策体系中,加强对青岛胶州湾滨海湿地现有资源的保护和生态恢复。     

Livelihoods and Fisheries Governance in a Contemporary Pacific Island Setting

Inshore marine resources play an important role in the livelihoods of Pacific Island coastal communities. However, such reliance can be detrimental to inshore marine ecosystems. Understanding the livelihoods of coastal communities is important for devising relevant and effective fisheries management strategies. Semi-structured household interviews were conducted with householders in Langalanga Lagoon, Solomon Islands, to understand household livelihoods and resource governance in fishing-dependent communities. Households were engaged in a diverse range of livelihoods. Fishing, shell money production and gardening were the most important livelihoods. Proximity to an urban centre influenced how households accessed some livelihoods. Perceptions of management rules varied and different reasons were cited for why rules were broken, the most common reason being to meet livelihood needs. Current models of inshore small-scale fisheries management that are based on the notion of community-based resource management may not work in locations where customary management systems are weak and livelihoods are heavily reliant on marine resources. An important step for fisheries management in such locations should include elucidating community priorities through participatory development planning, taking into consideration livelihoods as well as governance and development aspirations.     

Ecomarkets for conservation and sustainable development in the coastal zone

Because conventional markets value only certain goods or services in the ocean (e.g. fish), other services provided by coastal and marine ecosystems that are not priced, paid for, or stewarded tend to become degraded. In fact, the very capacity of an ecosystem to produce a valued good or service is often reduced because conventional markets value only certain goods and services, rather than the productive capacity. Coastal socio‐ecosystems are particularly susceptible to these market failures due to the lack of clear property rights, strong dependence on resource extraction, and other factors. Conservation strategies aimed at protecting unvalued coastal ecosystem services through regulation or spatial management (e.g. Marine Protected Areas) can be effective but often result in lost revenue and adverse social impacts, which, in turn, create conflict and opposition. Here, we describe ‘ecomarkets’ – markets and financial tools – that could, under the right conditions, generate value for broad portfolios of coastal ecosystem services while maintaining ecosystem structure and function by addressing the unique problems of the coastal zone, including the lack of clear management and exclusion rights. Just as coastal tenure and catch‐share systems generate meaningful conservation and economic outcomes, it is possible to imagine other market mechanisms that do the same with respect to a variety of other coastal ecosystem goods and services. Rather than solely relying on extracting goods, these approaches could allow communities to diversify ecosystem uses and focus on long‐term stewardship and conservation, while meeting development, food security, and human welfare goals. The creation of ecomarkets will be difficult in many cases, because rights and responsibilities must be devolved, new social contracts will be required, accountability systems must be created and enforced, and long‐term patterns of behaviour must change. We argue that efforts to overcome these obstacles are justified, because these deep changes will strongly complement policies and tools such as Marine Protected Areas, coastal spatial management, and regulation, thereby helping to bring coastal conservation to scale.     

Characterizing mauka-to-makai connections for aquatic ecosystem conservation on Maui,Hawaiʻi

Mauka-to-makai (mountain to sea in the Hawaiian language) hydrologic connectivity – commonly referred to as ridge-to-reef – directly affects biogeochemical processes and socioecological functions across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems. The supply of freshwater to estuarine and nearshore environments in a ridge-to-reef system supports the food, water, and habitats utilized by marine fauna. In addition, the ecosystem services derived from this land-to-sea connectivity support social and cultural practices (hereafter referred to as socio-cultural) including fishing, aquaculture, wetland agriculture, religious ceremonies, and recreational activities. To effectively guide island resource management, a better understanding of the linkages from ridge-to-reef across natural and social usages is critical, particularly in the context of climate change, with anticipated increasing temperature and shifting precipitation patterns. The objective of this study was to identify spatial linkages that promote multiple and diverse uses, following the ridge-to-reef concept, at an island-wide scale to identify regions of high conservation importance for aquatic resources. We selected the Island of Maui as a study representative of many Pacific islands. Diverse datasets, including agricultural lands within watersheds, wetland locations, presence of stream species, indicators of freshwater input from streams, coral cover, nearshore fish biomass, socio-cultural data such as fishpond locations, wetland taro cultivation, beach recreation use, and lastly the dynamically downscaled Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase (CMIP5) future climate projections scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 & 8.5) were used to examine the spatial linkages through hydrological connectivity from land to the sea. Zonation spatial planning software was used to prioritize areas of high management and conservation value and to help inform aquatic resources management. The resulting prioritized areas included many minimally disturbed watersheds in east Maui and western nearshore and coastal zones that are adjacent to diverse coral reefs. These results are driven by the importance of fish biomass and coral reef distribution as well as traditional wetland taro cultivation and coastal access points for recreation. These results underline the importance of examining ridge-to-reef systems for aquatic resource management and including important social and cultural values in resource management upon planning adaptation strategies for climate change. Improving our understanding of diverse natural and socio-cultural influences on habitat conditions and their values in these areas provides an opportunity to strategically plan future management and conservation actions.     

海洋可持续发展目标与海洋和滨海生态系统管理

海洋和海岸带可以为人类提供多种生态系统服务,保护与持续利用海洋资源以促进海洋和海岸带可持续发展已被正式纳入联合国可持续发展目标。实施海洋可持续发展目标面临几大挑战,包括如何减小陆基人类活动的影响、加强海岸带的综合管理、提高海洋资源效率、适应气候变化和提高沿海居民的人类福祉等。为应对这些挑战,需要将海洋和海岸带融合为一个大型生态系统,利用基于生态系统的管理方法,综合考虑各个部门和多种胁迫因素的累积影响,通过建立综合的海洋观测体系,合理划分海洋功能区,按照海洋环境承载力限制陆基人类活动,合理配置并有效利用海洋资源,提升海洋和海岸带生态系统的整体服务功能,从而进一步推进实施海洋可持续发展目标。     

Marine ecosystem regime shifts: challenges and opportunities for ecosystem-based management

Regime shifts have been observed in marine ecosystems around the globe. These phenomena can result in dramatic changes in the provision of ecosystem services to coastal communities. Accounting for regime shifts in management clearly requires integrative, ecosystem-based management (EBM) approaches. EBM has emerged as an accepted paradigm for ocean management worldwide, yet, despite the rapid and intense development of EBM theory, implementation has languished, and many implemented or proposed EBM schemes largely ignore the special characteristics of regime shifts. Here, we first explore key aspects of regime shifts that are of critical importance to EBM, and then suggest how regime shifts can be better incorporated into EBM using the concept of integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA). An IEA uses approaches that determine the likelihood that ecological or socio-economic properties of systems will move beyond or return to acceptable bounds as defined by resource managers and policy makers. We suggest an approach for implementing IEAs for cases of regime shifts where the objectives are either avoiding an undesired state or returning to a desired condition. We discuss the suitability and short-comings of methods summarizing the status of ecosystem components, screening and prioritizing potential risks, and evaluating alternative management strategies. IEAs are evolving as an EBM approach that can address regime shifts; however, advances in statistical, analytical and simulation modelling are needed before IEAs can robustly inform tactical management in systems characterized by regime shifts.     

海岸带城市生态承载力综合评价——以连云港市为例

海岸带是人类聚居和海洋资源开发利用的重点区域。海岸带城市综合生态承载力体现了海岸带生态系统对人类社会经济活动的承受能力,是判断海岸带城市生态系统健康程度和制定海岸带环境管理政策的重要依据。基于"压力(P)-状态(S)-响应(R)"概念模型,以连云港市为例,构建海岸带综合生态承载力评价指标体系,并对2005—2014年间连云港市的综合生态承载力进行评价。结果显示:连云港市海岸带综合生态承载力呈现逻辑斯蒂式波动上升趋势,2005—2007年处于超载状态,2008—2011年基本处于平衡状态,2012年后处于可载状态。对影响承载力的主要因素进行贡献度分析的结果表明:负向指标中,海岸带环境压力大于人口压力;正向指标中,海岸带经济发展水平及科技支撑条件的贡献呈上升趋势,海岸带可利用资源波动下降。结合相关分析和因子分析,得出海岸带环境压力、科技支撑条件及经济发展水平是制约综合承载力的关键因素。研究结果对海岸带地区环境管理及可持续发展政策制定具有重要意义。     

Fishers' Knowledge of Marine Species Assemblages: Bridging between Scientific and Local Ecological Knowledge in Southeastern Puerto Rico

Increasingly, local ecological knowledge (LEK) held by groups of people engaging directly with their ecosystems for food production is recognized as a valuable tool for understanding environmental change, as well as for ecosystem management and conservation. However, the acceptance of LEK for resource management has been partly hindered by difficulties in translating local knowledge into a form that can be applied directly to Western scientific endeavors. Anthropology's focus on cultural meaning makes its practitioners uniquely qualified to find common ground between different systems of knowledge. Here, I report the use of ethnographic methods to represent Puerto Rican small-scale fishers' knowledge about tropical coastal habitat connectivity and the composition of species assemblages by underwater habitats. These two topics are of current interest for tropical fishery science and their study can benefit from fishers' extensive experience with the coastal environments on which they depend.     

社会-生态综合视角下海岸带生态监管框架与应用——以深圳为例

海岸带作为海洋与陆地两大生态系统的连接与桥梁,既是国民经济、社会发展的重要区域与战略中心,也是生态环境破坏和污染的热点区域。以往针对海岸带区域开展的城市化对生态环境的影响研究,主要利用30 m空间分辨率的Landsat数据分析城市扩张对自然生态系统的侵占,如自然用地减少、景观异质性降低、填海造陆速度变快等,而针对污染产业、人类活动等引起的河口水质污染、水温异常、自然岸线退化等复杂生态环境问题关注不足,难以满足陆海统筹管理、综合防治的需求。因此,研究围绕海岸带面临的主要问题,面向海岸带生态环境综合管制,构建了“问题识别-格局量化-地面调查-生态监管”的综合框架,通过明确生态环境问题,量化社会-生态格局,开展实地调查,制定生态监管目标和策略。通过融合高分影像、兴趣点、道路等多源异构数据并结合地面调查,准确识别影响生态环境的社会-生态格局因子,实现空间显性的生态监管。进一步以深圳为典型案例,探讨该概念框架的应用,将深圳市海岸带划分为了四类共980个生态监管单元,其中包括153个优先保护单元,主要为分布在海岸带东部的林地,7个生态风险较大的核心管控单元,597个几乎分布在海岸带西部的重点管控单...     

Ngadju kala: Australian Aboriginal fire knowledge in the Great Western Woodlands

Indigenous fire knowledge offers significant benefits for ecosystem management and human livelihoods, but is threatened worldwide because of disruption of customary practices. In Australia, the historical prevalence and characteristics of Aboriginal burning are intensely debated, including arguments that Aboriginal burning was frequent across the continent. Frequent burning is supported by contemporary Aboriginal knowledge and practice in some regions, but in southern Australia evidence is typically limited to historical and ecological records. Towards characterizing Aboriginal fire regimes in southern Australia, we collaborated with Ngadju people from the globally significant Great Western Woodlands in south‐western Australia to document their fire knowledge. We used workshops, site visits, interviews and occupation mapping to aid knowledge sharing. Consistent with the established significance of Aboriginal fire in Australia, planned fires were important in Ngadju daily life and land management. However, Ngadju use of fire was characterized by its selectivity rather than its ubiquity. Specifically, Ngadju described only highly targeted planned burning across extensive eucalypt woodlands and sandplain shrublands. By contrast, frequent planned burning was described for resource‐rich landscape elements of more restricted extent (granite outcrop vegetation, grasslands and coastal scrub). Overall, Ngadju fires are likely to have resulted in subtle but purposeful direct effects on the vegetation and biota. However the extent to which they collectively constrained large, intense wildfires remains unclear. Ngadju demonstrated a predictive knowledge of the ecological consequences of burning, including attention to fine‐scale needs of target organisms, and application of diverse fire regimes. These are consistent with the recently proposed concept that Aboriginal burning was guided by ‘templates’ targeting different resources, although diverse regimes predominantly reflect edaphically driven vegetation patterns rather than template‐driven use of fire to create resource diversity. We conclude that Ngadju fire knowledge fills an important gap in understanding Aboriginal fire regimes in southern Australia, highlighting a novel balance between frequent and constrained use of fire.     

我国区域尺度生态系统管理中的几个重要生态学命题

生态系统管理学是研究生态系统管理的理论与实践技术,相关政策和管理策略的综合性应用生态学。当前,综合研究全球或区域尺度生态系统管理模式及其相关的重大科学问题不公是人类社会可持续发展的迫切需要,也是生态系统管理学的重要发展方向和科学任务,为此,本文系统地论述了生态服务功能、可持续性、复杂性和不确定性的综合评价与生态学机制,自然资源保护、生态系统健康以及退化生态系统恢复的生态学基础,生态系统管理的基础生态学过程,生态系统适应性管理的理论与实践,生态系统网络研究,监测和成果集成,区域尺度生态系统管理的综合性专题研究等一系列重要生态学命题,讨论了这些生态学命题的国内外研究进展及其发展方向。     

Confronting Feedbacks of Degraded Marine Ecosystems

In many coastal areas, marine ecosystems have shifted into contrasting states having reduced ecosystem services (hereafter called degraded). Such degraded ecosystems may be slow to revert to their original state due to new ecological feedbacks that reinforce the degraded state. A better understanding of the way human actions influence the strength and direction of feedbacks, how different feedbacks could interact, and at what scales they operate, may be necessary in some cases for successful management of marine ecosystems. Here we synthesize interactions of critical feedbacks of the degraded states from six globally distinct biomes: coral reefs, kelp forests, seagrass beds, shallow soft sediments, oyster reefs, and coastal pelagic food webs. We explore to what extent current management captures these feedbacks and propose strategies for how and when (that is, windows of opportunity) to influence feedbacks in ways to break the resilience of the degraded ecosystem states. We conclude by proposing some challenges for future research that could improve our understanding of these issues and emphasize that management of degraded marine states will require a broad social–ecological approach to succeed.