Search

Context: Landscape sensation is essential for the delivery of cultural ecosystem services (CESs), yet the pathways through which these services are delivered remain inadequately understood. Exploring how people obtain CESs from landscapes facilitates better understanding of the tradeoffs and synergies between ecosystem services and landscape sustainability. Objectives: This study aimed to elucidate the sensory pathways that links landscape attributes to CESs, focusing on the roles of cognitive and affective experiences. Methods: We analyzed social media comments for the measurement scale of cognition. We employed partial least squares structural equation modeling to integrate sensation, cognition, affect, and satisfaction, using questionnaire data (n = 503). Results: Cognitive comprehensions and affective responses play a crucial role in interpreting CESs while sensory experiences do not directly determine people’s satisfaction with CESs. The effective pathways are achieved through the sole mediator of cognition or by serial mediators of cognition and affect. Of the two mediators, cognition has a more profound mediating effect than affect. Conclusions: Both physical and biological components, such as landscape sensory attributes, as well as cognitive and affective responses, influence human-nature interactions. These components should be considered when promoting the sustainability of human-dominated landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The Regional Safe and Just Operating Space (RSJOS), serving as a conceptual framework that supports environmental governance and policy formulation, has garnered growing recognition. However, the application of ecosystem services in the RSJOS framework still constitutes a knowledge gap in the realm of landscape sustainability science. Objectives: Our objective was to discuss the role of ecosystem services within the Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS) framework to promote regional sustainability. Methods: We analyzed the relationship between ecosystem services and the SJOS framework, including their similarities in core concepts and research objectives, as well as how ecosystem services relate to environmental ceilings and social foundations. Based on these analyses, we discussed the potential and challenges of bridging safe space and just space using an ecosystem services approach. Results: We found that ecosystem services have the potential to help understand the interaction between ecological ceilings and social foundations when assessing RSJOS, using ecosystem service flows to link “safe” and “just” boundaries. However, challenges in applying ecosystem services to assess RSJOS can limit the benefits of this framework. Conclusions: The examination of RSJOS should extend beyond snapshots of the current regional state and encompass their inherent interconnections and impact mechanisms. This broader perspective can subsequently inform policy decisions. Ecosystem services play a pivotal role in addressing the challenges within the RSJOS framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Cultural ecosystem services (CESs) play a critical role in maintaining and improving human well-being in rapidly urbanizing landscapes. Few empirical studies, however, have comprehensively identified and revealed the interactions between urbanization, CES supply, CES demand, and subjective well-being (SWB). Objectives: The study aimed to understand human–ecosystem interactions from a bottom-up perspective through an analysis of residents’ perceived supply and demand of CESs and SWB at different urbanization levels. Methods: Questionnaire surveys including public participation GIS were adopted to obtain residents’ perceived provision of CESs, importance of CESs and SWB in a peri-urban area of Shanghai. Multiple statistical and spatial analyses were performed to uncover their relationships. Results: Residents identified cultural heritage and education as the highest supply of CES, whereas aesthetic and recreation were of the highest demand. Urbanization had a significant negative correlation with the supply of recreation, aesthetic, education and social interaction but had a significant positive correlation with the supply of cultural heritage. The demands of recreation and social interaction were significantly lower in areas with moderate urbanization level. In these areas, CESs were dominated by high supply–low demand and low-degree matches, whereas residents’ SWB was lower. Conclusions: The variations of the CES–SWB relationship in our study indicate the development trajectory of social–ecological systems in the context of urbanization. Thus, policies adapted to local conditions are needed to foster landscape sustainability in rapidly urbanizing areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: In the Tibetan Plateau (TP), the supply of cultural ecosystem services (CESs) is unique, and the demand for CESs is gradually increasing with rapid urbanization. Evaluating the relationship between the supply and demand for CESs is critical for guiding regional sustainable development. However, due to the difficulty in obtaining empirical data in the high altitude and complex topography of the TP, relevant research is still lacking. Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop an approach to address the difficulty of obtaining the empirical data on the TP and to evaluate the relationship between the supply and demand for CESs. Methods: Taking the Qinghaihu–Huangshui basin as an example, we combined the SolVES (Social Values for Ecosystem Services) model and social media big data to evaluate the supply and demand for CESs in the TP. Results: Our results showed that the combined method can effectively evaluate the supply and demand for CESs in the basin, and can be used for other remote regions. The supply and demand for CESs in the basin exhibited obvious spatial mismatch. Among the two types of mismatch, in the areas of high supply and low demand of CESs, residents' subjective well-being (SWB) were substantially lower. Being far away from central city was an important reason for the high supply and low demand of CESs. Conclusions: Establishing and improving the transportation system connecting central cities with other counties is encouraged to utilize the rich cultural and tourism resources of the TP, as well as enhance the SWB and promote regional sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on ecological civilization. The authors say that landscape sustainability science provides a clear path for creation of an ecological civilization. According to them, ecological civilization is based on ecological principles and demands integrated societal reforms such as economic, political, demographic and educational changes.

The future of humanity depends on whether or not we have a vision to guide our transition toward sustainability, on scales ranging from local landscapes to the planet as a whole. Sustainability science is at the core of this vision, and landscapes and regions represent a pivotal scale domain. The main objectives of this paper are: (1) to elucidate key definitions and concepts of sustainability, including the Brundtland definition, the triple bottom line, weak and strong sustainability, resilience, human well-being, and ecosystem services; (2) to examine key definitions and concepts of landscape sustainability, including those derived from general concepts and those developed for specific landscapes; and (3) to propose a framework for developing a science of landscape sustainability. Landscape sustainability is defined as the capacity of a landscape to consistently provide long-term, landscape-specific ecosystem services essential for maintaining and improving human well-being. Fundamentally, well-being is a journey, not a destination. Landscape sustainability science is a place-based, use-inspired science of understanding and improving the dynamic relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes under uncertainties arising from internal feedbacks and external disturbances. While landscape sustainability science emphasizes place-based research on landscape and regional scales, significant between landscape interactions and hierarchical linkages to both finer and broader scales (or externalities) must not be ignored. To advance landscape sustainability science, spatially explicit methods are essential, especially experimental approaches that take advantage of designed landscapes and multi-scaled simulation models that couple the dynamics of landscape services (ecosystem services provided by multiple landscape elements in combination as emergent properties) and human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of humans in the restoration of ecosystems has been emphasised since its inception. The human dimension of restoration is particularly well established in urban ecosystems because this is where people and nature co-exist. At the same time, the altered biophysical conditions that characterise cities place constraints on restoration in its strictest sense-assisting the recovery of historic ecosystems. Rather than viewing this as a shortcoming, in this paper, we discuss the ways in which such constraints can be viewed as opportunities. There is the chance to broaden traditional conservation and restoration goals for urban settings reflecting peoples' preferences for nature in their backyards, and in doing so, offer people multiple ways in which to engage with nature. In this paper, we consider four main restoration options-conserve and restore nature at the fringes, restore remnant patches of urban nature, manage novel ecosystems and garden with iconic species-in terms of their potential to contribute to promoting human-nature interactions in urban landscapes. We explore how these options are affected by environmental, economic, social and cultural factors, drawing on examples from cities around the world. Ecological restoration can contribute to the sustainability of urban landscapes, not just in terms of nature conservation, but also by providing opportunities for people to interact with nature and so increase our understanding of how people perceive and value landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscape ecological research about the cultural dimension of ecosystem services remains less developed as compared to other aspects of ecosystem services about landscapes. In this article, the cultural dimension of ecosystem services is defined as the psychological, cultural, and social relationships that influence people's connections to biodiversity and landscapes as well as to what benefits they consider useful and relevant. Yet to meet the challenge of understanding sustainability in different landscapes, such as urban ones, research about ecosystem services in landscape ecology will need to shift its emphasis towards the scale of people's experience of landscapes. As a means to improve this situation, cultivating deep care is proposed as a key concept to better integrate the cultural dimension of ecosystem services into landscape ecological research about urban landscapes. Cultivating deep care is defined as the adaptive process for deepening people's affinity of urban nature including enhancing people's appreciation, awareness, and actions for biodiversity, landscapes, and their own well-being that will ultimately benefit ecosystem services. The heart of this article is a conceptual framework that begins to outline the scope and boundaries of cultivating deep care as a key concept and connects it to its intellectual context that includes research such as landscape sustainability, landscape perception, resilience science, and ecosystem services. An important assumption is that cultivating deep care is a 'work in progress,' which will grow and evolve over time as new knowledge is contributed to it. In the conceptual framework, several principles explore and flesh important ideas and relationships about cultivating deep care as a key concept. Each principle is organized around three parts: (1) a brief description; (2) relevance to landscape ecological research; and (3) recommended research topics. Using these principles, I suggest potential avenues to advance landscape ecological research about biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]