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Ecosystem health is one of the most important topics for ecosystem management and it is also the main core in ecosystem assessment. In this study, a regional ecosystem health assessment (REHA) method is adopted to develop a spatial ecosystem health framework for Gorgan Township, North-Eastern Iran. The REHA methodology refers to an ecosystem mosaic's ability to both maintain physical health and guarantee the supply of the Ecosystem Services (ES) necessary for human communities. In order to spatially quantify ecosystem health, an integrated evaluation of land use land cover (LULC) change and ecosystem services modelling was implemented. The analysis revealed that during 1987–2005, there was a slight decline in the mean regional ecosystem health that occurred in Gorgan Township (−0.86), especially within urban vegetation and suburban areas. The built-up areas and expansion of agricultural fields into natural lands were influential factors affecting the overall regional ecosystem health value. Our result showed that among all the ecosystem health indicators, ecosystem resilience and ecosystem vigour were the most important factors positively and negatively influenced the REH in the study area. Relations between land use patterns, Ecosystem Health (EH), and ES in the study area indicate high intricacy of the structure-functional interaction within the landscape. Providing local managers with their integrative model may become a useful tool for efficient natural resource management on the one hand, and the protection of valuable ecosystems on the other.

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T08:39:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2022-04-01 Ecosystem management (EM) encompasses all the activities required to design and manage ecosystems for distributed value creation. Although the literature represents a growing body of knowledge on the unique challenges related to operating within an ecosystem, there is a limited understanding of EM from an organisational perspective, including its general purpose (mandate and theoretical reasons), structures, boundaries, and roles. Through a rich inductive case study of five business-to-business (B2B) firms, we examine EM as a function to address the interplay among the ecosystem, systemic innovation (a digital platform), and the focal firm. Our results indicate that the EM function entails managing multilevel configuration co-evolution (organisation, ecosystem, and platform), ecosystem regulation (strategically changing such configurations through increases or decreases in the ecosystem's stability), and ecosystem learning (learning orchestration and progressive learning). Based on these findings, we propose a new theoretical framework for EM: the EM function. Our study contributes to B2B ecosystem research by increasing the empirical knowledge and theoretical understanding of EM. School of Economics Business Administration and Accounting University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 908, SP Production Engineering Department Campus Itapeva São Paulo State University (Unesp), Rua Geraldo Alckmin, 519, SP Production Engineering Department Polytechnic School University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 1380, SP Production Engineering Department Campus Itapeva São Paulo State University (Unesp), Rua Geraldo Alckmin, 519, SP

Based on data on experienced ecosystem services of selected rural communities in Zimbabwe, this research adopts the millennium ecosystem assessment (MEA) and nature’s contribution to people (NCP) frameworks to understand the role of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in managing ecosystems and its potential in enhancing climate change responses. The study was motivated by the limited understanding about how indigenous communities are using ecosystems to adapt to climate change. A qualitative research paradigm involving focus group interactions with purposively selected respondents informed the case study. Results show that indigenous practices have significant conservation potential. The motivation behind ecosystem management stems from recognition of diverse ecosystem services, which exist as: provisioning; regulatory and supporting; and spiritual and informative benefits. The participants attribute the perpetuation of these diverse benefits to keeping strong ties with their ancestors, a system that requires them to maintain their traditional ecosystem conservation practices, which has fairly withstood exogenous pressures of colonial and post-colonial legacies in Zimbabwe. Many of these practices exist as local ways of adapting to climate change through ecosystem-based practices. Indigenous communities have a collective obligation to protect ecosystems, which are inhabited by the spirits, whom they believe have powers to influence the local climate system. These observations reverberate the critical role of indigenous communities in ecosystem management and shed more insights to the design of ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) interventions in communities endowed with rich indigenous forests and biodiversity.

As an important component of cryospheric provisioning services, freshwater provisioning services of the cryosphere is particularly critical to human well-being and socio-economic sustainability. It is imperative to quantitatively estimate the value of freshwater provisioning services to facilitate informed decision-making for ecosystem management and economic development. This study assessed the economic value and associated changes in benefits of freshwater provisioning services for industrial, agricultural, services and domestic water uses combining cost-based method and hydrological model in the Urumqi River during 2010–2016. The results showed that the average annual economic value of agricultural, services, domestic and industrial water uses generated from freshwater provisioning services were estimated to be 1.7, 4.4, 9.9, and 15.7 million CNY. The annual value of snowmelt provisioning services of sectorial water uses was much higher than that of glacier meltwater due to the greater contribution of snowmelt to outlet streamflow than glacier melt. The relative contributions of agricultural, services, domestic and industrial sectors to total economic value of freshwater provisioning services were 6%, 13%, 32%, and 49% respectively, depending on the meltwater supply and market prices. The benefits of freshwater provisioning services from different sectors generally increased in 2010–2016, with a significant increase in the services sector. Considering the impact of changes in freshwater supply under climate change on the assessment of cryospheric provisioning services, the results emphasize the necessity of promoting industrial structure optimization and adopting resource-efficient policies.

Vegetation patterning in water-limited and other resource-limited ecosystems highlights spatial self-organization processes as potentially key drivers of community assembly. These processes provide insight into predictable landscape-level relationships between organisms and their abiotic environment in the form of regular and irregular patterns of biota and resources. However, two aspects have largely been overlooked; the roles played by plant - soil-biota feedbacks and allelopathy in spatial self-organization, and their potential contribution, along with plant-resource feedbacks, to community assembly through spatial self-organization. Here, we expand the drivers of spatial self-organization from a focus on plant-resource feedbacks to include plant - soil-biota feedbacks and allelopathy, and integrate concepts of nonlinear physics and community ecology to generate a new hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, below-ground processes can affect community assemblages through two types of spatial self-organization, global and local. The former occurs simultaneously across whole ecosystems, leading to self-organized patterns of biota, allelochemicals and resources, and niche partitioning. The latter occurs locally in ecotones, and determines ecotone structure and motion, invasion dynamics, and species coexistence. Studies of the two forms of spatial self-organization are important for understanding the organization of plant communities in drier climates which are likely to involve spatial patterning or re-patterning. Such studies are also important for developing new practices of ecosystem management, based on local manipulations at ecotones, to slow invasion dynamics or induce transitions from transitive to intransitive networks of interspecific interactions which increase species diversity.

To protect species of concern in rangeland systems, managers and policy makers must understand the human dimensions of the ecosystems those species rely on. Sagebrush (Artemesia spp. L.) ecosystems are among the most extensive rangelands in the western United States and have been of particular concern in recent years due to the decline of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) and other sagebrush obligate species. While there is a substantial body of literature on the biophysical aspects of sagebrush ecosystems, the human dimensions of sagebrush management are not well understood and social science research is distributed throughout a wide range of journals and disciplines. We used systematic review principles to conduct a synthesis of literature to assess existent knowledge on the human dimensions of sagebrush management and conservation and to identify areas for future research. We cast a broad net to include studies from economics, political science, social psychology, sociology, governance, anthropology, and other fields. Using Web of Science and search terms sourced from our research questions and relevant stakeholders, we identified 78 studies meeting the following criteria: 1) the research was conducted within the distribution of North American sagebrush and 2) the research included social science methods. We coded the 78 studies to identify the focus of research on resource issue(s), social issue(s), geographical region, and additional research needs. The literature focused on resource issues primarily related to fire, land use, sage-grouse, and rangeland management, while social issues emphasized collaboration, stakeholder perceptions and attitudes, and modes of governance. Research gaps include assessments of the longevity and ecological impacts of collaboration, perceptions and attitudes surrounding wild horse and burro management, and governance approaches to managing invasives and ecological restoration. Research that includes input from Native Nations is lacking, and inclusive social science relevant to diverse stakeholders in sagebrush is overdue.

Eutrophication is one of the most pressing problems affecting water quality. As a consequence, harmful algae blooms (HABs) are intensifying their occurrence in many aquatic ecosystems around the world. Under this water quality risk scenario, long term monitoring arises as a need to recognize, understand and anticipate the HABs outbreaks. However, existing monitoring methodologies are limited when dealing with HABs, thus forcing to make assumptions and decisions based on interpolated and inconsistent data. This conceptual paper attempts to highlight the importance of moving towards an integrated water monitoring methodology, where manual sampling, on-site automatic high-frequency monitoring (AHFM) and remote sensing are aligned to facilitates decision-making. In addition, because of the key role of microbial communities on the drift of aquatic ecosystems and water quality, they should be considered as a key element in HABs monitoring and management programs. In this manner, the biotic knowledge could be integrated into coordinated response plans as ecosystem management tools. Therefore, this holistic approach could provide decision makers and stakeholders an adaptive water resource management grounded on the theory of ecohydrology.

Mining activities can pose negative, sometimes irreversible damage to ecosystems, yet consequences for ecosystem services (ES) and their contribution to human wellbeing are more uncertain. Obtaining a clear understanding of where and how mining impacts ES and the methods used to show this is crucial for determining management approaches to overcome impacts. Here, we review the academic literature examining mining impacts to ES. We found only 60 papers assessed impacts to ES, with the majority focused on coal mining. Regulating services, such as carbon storage and erosion prevention, were most commonly assessed. We observed considerable variation in ES definitions and conceptualisations with no methodological consistency in ES assessments among studies. While we found negative impacts on ES were attributed to active mining operations and some positive impacts were related to restoration activities, our results also highlight major limitations to managing ES in mining regions. Assessing the full extent of impacts to ES from mining requires clear identification of changes in the ES chain – from biophysical supply to benefits and human wellbeing throughout the mining lifecycle. We propose a research agenda to address these knowledge gaps, which will help to improve pre- and post-mining ecosystem management for ES and human wellbeing.

Given the increasing speed and intensity of ongoing climate change and human interventions, more systematic research is needed to realize the Sustainable Development Goals in drylands. The current research status of drylands globally was reviewed together with a conceptual framework that included four key themes: (1) dryland social-ecological system dynamics and driving forces, (2) dryland social-ecological system structure and functions, (3) dryland ecosystem services and human well-being in a changing environment and society, and (4) ecosystem management and sustainable livelihoods in drylands. The themes and their linkages were then analysed to outline three research priorities under each theme. The resulting conceptual framework and research priorities were proposed as the agenda of a new scientific programme, the Global Dryland Ecosystem Programme (Global-DEP), which is intended to facilitate actionable interdisciplinary research on drylands. This framework could be useful for wider dryland research and help meet the needs of practitioners and policymakers in drylands.

Climate, land use and land cover (LULC) changes are among the primary driving forces of soil loss. Decoupling their effects can help in understanding the magnitude and trend of soil loss in response to human activities and ecosystem management. Here, the RUSLE model was applied to estimate the spatial-temporal variations of soil loss rate in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) area during 2001–2015, followed by a scenario design to decouple the effects of climate and LULC changes. The results showed that increasing rainfall generated as much as 2.90 × 107 t soil loss in the TGR area. However, such effect was offset by changes in LULC particularly afforestation, which retained about 1.10 × 107 t soil annually. Other human activities such as dam development and urbanization aggravated soil loss by as much as 1.40 × 106 t annually. Because of land use policies that favor economic development, distinct spatial variances of soil loss were observed in TGR area. Soil loss in some counties located downstream of the TGR area (i.e., close to the dam) was more influenced by dam development, but soil loss in the other counties was more influenced by urbanization. As climate change (i.e., increasing rainfall) did not affect plant performance in TGR area, our findings suggested that ecological restoration was more beneficial to curb the amount of soil loss caused by urbanization and dam construction.

Ecosystem Services (ES) are common-pool resources that can be valued by people's willingness to pay (WTP). In contrast to place-based WTP research at the community-level, the stakeholders tend to be geographically diverse, and the benefits are not spatially apparent on the national level. Aiming to find the geographical diversity of the WTP for ES at the large scale, this study implemented an online survey of more than 25,000 samples to detect the WTP of Chinese people for water conservation, soil retention, carbon fixation, pollution decomposition, biodiversity conservation, and aesthetic existence of the Tibetan Plateau. The results showed the top limit of payments was 1,080.95 CNY/year/capita on average, and people would like to pay 172.40 CNY/year/capita for water conservation, which is the highest among the six ES. The percent of people “Aged 16–35”, “Government agency staff” and “Know WTP” influenced payments at provincial level. On an individual level, people's knowledge and attitudes directly drove the payment amounts, as well as their ecosystem management decisions. Consequently, geographical diversity of the payment for ES exists in China, and in contrast to the objective social structure and spatial accessibility of ES, people's knowledge and attitudes were the main driving forces of this geographical diversity. These findings suggest that a bottom-up adaptive governance approach is encouraged for managing common pool resources in developing countries.

Present works on the relationship between pairwise ecosystem services (ES) in one period are mostly based on global perspective, which ignores the influence of spatial heterogeneity. In view of this problem, this study proposes a static local association model for pairwise ES, and the applicability of this model is then tested in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China. Four ES, namely, grain production, livestock production, soil conservation, and carbon sequestration, are selected. The global and local associations among these services are tested and compared using Spearman's correlation analysis and the proposed local static association model, respectively. Results showed that all six possible ES pairs were significantly correlated in the global scale. However, for strongly correlated pairwise ES (e.g., grain production and livestock production and carbon sequestration), a reverse trend still exists in some local areas. This inference is especially true for ES pairs with relatively low correlation coefficient. We also determine that some of the trade-offs or synergies are formed only by artifact, such as the synergy between grain and livestock production in the midwest, the trade-off between grain production and carbon sequestration concentrating on the southern mountains, and the trade-off between livestock production and soil conservation and carbon sequestration in the central area of the northern Yellow River irrigation district. In summary, local association analysis conveys the abstract overall relationship among specific spatial locations to identify the mechanism of the relationship among ES. This finding will provide new insights for the planning and management of ES, which include that local ES cannot be managed and planned according to the global relationship, local trade-offs or synergies caused by artifact cannot be applied to ES management, the proposed local association analysis helps identify ES problems in parts, and the high-value synergy area is an appropriate reference for ecosystem management.

Water resources provide multiple services, one of the most important the provision of drinking water, conventionally treated before public consumption as potable supplies. With increasing pressures from land use and climate change, there are advantages to be gained from considering raw water quality as a fundamental characteristic of the natural resource, and to anticipate emerging risks within the catchments rather than relying on treatment. This research proposes a large-scale, rapid risk screening of raw water quality based on catchment sensitivity to pressures as prerequisite to a more strategic inclusion of emerging risks in water resource and ecosystem management. Raw water quality observations from 154 surface water catchments in Scotland were investigated to determine the national baseline and to identify current pressures and underlying drivers. Patterns and spatial dependencies were investigated using principal component analysis, redundancy analysis, cluster analysis, and regression trees. These statistical approaches highlight the interaction between intrinsic catchment biophysical properties, land use and climate in characterising water quality risks and identify the focus for prioritising catchment interventions and risk-mitigation in the future. The emphasis on raw water quality will also support an ecosystem-based approach to increase catchment resilience, to ensure long-term supply of good quality drinking water while simultaneously creating wider benefits for society and the environment.

Natural capital serves as a major constraint that affects the sustainable development of mountainous plateau areas. Determining ecological carrying capacity (ECC), as the key to measuring the critical natural capital of cropland, is needed for sustainable development. This study aims to provide new insights into ECC by diagnosing whether human activities are within the allowable range of natural capital and whether the spatial allocation of natural capital is reasonable in such specific areas. Taking Yunnan Province, China as the study area, we proposed an improved Ecological Footprint (EF) model to evaluate cropland's ecological capacity (CEC), and then, a framework of balance evaluation and spatial optimal allocation was constructed to examine the cropland's allowable range and optimize its spatial allocation if found unreasonable. Results show the following. (1) The per capita CEC of Yunnan Province between 2009 and 2016 decreased from 0.103 ha/capita to 0.095 ha/capita, and the cropland ecological balance index (EBI) presented a “critical overload” state ranging from 0.433 to 0.463, at which the supply exceeded the demand. Hence, the cropland was not within the allowable range in terms of supply–demand balance. (2) The comprehensive Gini coefficient of CEC was 0.462–0.515, and the gravity center of CEC deviated from the geometric center and shifted toward the westward, thereby, CEC is neither balanced in terms of spatial allocation nor coordinated with the population, economy, and resource environment. (3) The spatial allocation pattern of the study area was grouped into five zones on the basis of the optimization model. These zones are key optimization zone, adjustment optimization zone, maintenance zone, reasonable reduction zone, and key reduction zone. Accordingly, the targeted and differentiated strategies were accordingly put forward. Our study can contribute to identifying the practical approach to sustainable ecosystem management in mountainous plateau areas from the perspective of ECC and are beneficial for decision-making as regards new policies on cropland protection and Chinese ecological civilization construction.

Pre-print / Óritrýnd útgáfa greinar © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., Glaciers have been an increasingly studied topic in the ecosystem services (ES) literature, with 6 multiple scientific studies affirming a critical and diverse contribution to human well-being. 7 However, the literature to date on glacier ES has lacked a systematic analysis of their type and 8 the various stages in the formation of glacier ES, including the linkages between biophysical 9 structures and ecological processes to human values, benefits and well-being. This paper begins 10 to fill this gap by (1) detailing the first Common International Classification for Ecosystem 11 Services classification of ecosystem services specific to glaciers; and (2) constructing an ES 12 cascade model specific to the ES of glaciers, integrating four main stages of co-production: 13 value attribution, mobilisation of ES potential, value appropriation, and commercialisation. In 14 both stages, examples from the academic and grey literature are highlighted. Based on a 15 systematic literature review, a total of 15 ES are identified, categorised as follows: provisioning 16 (2), regulation and maintenance (6), and cultural (7). Apart from abiotic regulation and 17 maintenance ES, it is evident that human interventions are necessary in order to mobilise, 18 appropriate and commercialise several glacier ES, including freshwater for drinking, 19 hydropower generation, recreation and education. Rapidly intensifying climate change has led 20 to intense focus on the initial co-production process of value attribution and identification of 21 dynamic ecosystem services potential, with a view to maximising commercial benefits in the 22 coming decades where this is possible, especially linked to hydropower generation from glacial 23 rivers. However, this study also finds that adaptive ecosystem management is a necessary pre24 requisite of resilience but may be insufficient in this context to address potential ecosystem 25 disservices and potentially catastrophic impacts to human well-being, such as from dangerous 26 glacier outburst floods., This paper has been funded by NordForsk (grant number 76654) via their financial support to 743 the Nordic Centre of Excellence ARCPATH (Arctic Climate Predictions – Pathways to 744 Resilient, Sustainable Communities).

The unprecedented climate change over the past decades is likely to have ubiquitous and profound impacts on ecosystems. Assessing the vegetation response and ecosystem stability to climate variability is of great importance for developing more sustainable strategies in ecosystem management. Different types of vegetation respond to climate disturbances in various ways and the insurance hypothesis states that biodiversity is able to improve ecosystem stability, so there is a compelling need to further test whether diversity of vegetation composition could increase stability at large scales. In this study, we estimated the response of stability in a comprehensive and accurate metric of the ecosystem to short-term climate anomalies by combining resistance and resilience using an autoregressive modeling method in the Taihang Mountains, an important geographical demarcation line in north China. Our results showed that ecosystem stability differed dramatically with elevations and vegetation types. Mid-elevation zones at the altitude between 500 and 2000 m were particularly stable. However, high-elevation zones (above 2000 m) and low-elevation zones (below 500 m) were comparatively vulnerable. Trade-offs between resistance and resilience were widely observed and stability was largely determined by resilience, especially for ecosystems lied below the elevation of 2000 m. Among all vegetation types, steppes and shrubs were much more stable under climate fluctuations. In contrast, broad-leaf forests had the lowest stability, which was only higher than the cultivated crops. Stability was significantly correlated with the diversity of vegetation composition, a confirmation of insurance effects at large spatial scales. This implies that the vegetation diversity at large spatial scales can enhance the ability of ecosystems to maintain stabilization under climatic fluctuations or recover quickly from climate disturbances.

Smart, real-time, low-cost, and distributed ecosystem monitoring is essential for understanding and managing rapidly changing ecosystems. However, new techniques in the big data era have rarely been introduced into operational ecosystem monitoring, particularly for fragile ecosystems in remote areas. We introduce the Internet of Things (IoT) techniques to establish a prototype ecosystem monitoring system by developing innovative smart devices and using IoT technologies for ecosystem monitoring in isolated environments. The developed smart devices include four categories: large-scale and nonintrusive instruments to measure evapotranspiration and soil moisture, in situ observing systems for CO2 and δ13C associated with soil respiration, portable and distributed devices for monitoring vegetation variables, and Bi-CMOS cameras and pressure trigger sensors for terrestrial vertebrate monitoring. These new devices outperform conventional devices and are connected to each other via wireless communication networks. The breakthroughs in the ecosystem monitoring IoT include new data loggers and long-distance wireless sensor network technology that supports the rapid transmission of data from devices to wireless networks. The applicability of this ecosystem monitoring IoT is verified in three fragile ecosystems, including a karst rocky desertification area, the National Park for Amur Tigers, and the oasis-desert ecotone in China. By integrating these devices and technologies with an ecosystem monitoring information system, a seamless data acquisition, transmission, processing, and application IoT is created. The establishment of this ecosystem monitoring IoT will serve as a new paradigm for ecosystem monitoring and therefore provide a platform for ecosystem management and decision making in the era of big data.

Ecosystem service (ES) trade-offs have been broadly recognized and studied over the past decade. However, how to coordinate the relationships among ES trade-offs to achieve win-win outcomes remains a considerable challenge for decision makers. Here, we summarize the current approaches applied to minimize ES trade-offs for win-wins and analyze the trade-offs among different ESs and their drivers. Based on a systematic review of the literature from 2005 to 2018, we identified 170 potentially relevant articles, 47 of which were selected for the review, recording 70 actual or potential trade-offs. Analysis of these case studies showed that trade-off pairs between provisioning services and regulating services/biodiversity accounted for 80% of total pairs. Furthermore, more than half of the ES trade-offs were driven by land use/land cover changes. Harvest and resource demand, natural resource management, and policy instruments were also among the main drivers. Four approaches to coordinate ES trade-offs were identified, including ecosystem, landscape-scale, multi-objective optimization, and policy intervention (and other) approaches. Based on the above, we recommend a rigorous understanding of the roles of different stakeholders, spatial scales of management, trade-off dynamics, and integrated implementation of diverse approaches to coordinate ES trade-offs in order to better achieve win-win outcomes.

Grassland afforestation strongly influences the structure and function of soil microorganisms. Yet the mechanisms of how afforestation could simultaneously alter both the soil fungal and bacterial communities and its implications for ecosystem management are poorly understood, especially in nitrogen-limited ecosystems. Using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA and ITS rRNA genes, the present study investigated the changes in soil properties and soil microorganisms after afforestation of natural grasslands with Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) on the Loess Plateau in China. Results showed that soil bacterial diversity had no significant differences among the grassland (GL), forest-grassland transition zone (TZ), and forestland (FL), while soil fungal diversity in the GL was significantly higher than that in the FL and TZ (P 0.05). The proportion of shared OTUs in the soil bacterial community was higher than that in the soil fungal community among the three land use types. The dominant bacterial phylum shifted from Proteobacteria to Actinobacteria, while the dominant fungal phylum shifted from Ascomycota to Basidiomycota after the GL conversion to the FL. The functional groups of ECM fungi increased significantly while biotrophic fungi decreased significantly after grassland afforestation. Both the soil bacterial and fungal communities in the TZ showed great similarity with those in the FL. In addition, among all examined soil properties, soil nitrogen (N) showed a more significant effect on the soil microbial communities. The reduction of soil N after grassland afforestation resulted in both the structure and function changes in soil microbial communities. Our results demonstrated simultaneously differential changes in the composition and diversity of both soil bacterial and fungal communities after afforestation from grasslands to planted forests.

Landscape ecological risk assessment is an effective tool to support sustainable ecosystem management in regions with rapid urbanization. However, the characterization method of landscape ecological risk probability needs urgent improvement. This study put forwards a comprehensive index system for risk probability characterization using the factors of terrain, artificial threats, ecological resilience, and landscape vulnerability. In addition, the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) algorithm was introduced to realize a multi-scenario simulation to facilitate different decision-making preferences. The results showed that (1) the overall landscape ecological risk probability in Shenzhen, China, was higher in the west than in the east, and the dominated probability levels were low and moderate. (2) Three decision-making scenarios were simulated: basic risk control, moderate risk control, and strict risk control. About 307.88 km2 of unstable risk probability areas were identified, of which the relationship between development and protection should be scrutinized more in the “eastward strategy” for the future. (3) As for the methodology, this index system contained multiple dimensions including ecological processes, external threats, and landscape feature patterns. It is advantageous in that it provides an ecological risk measure for the future, the characterization of spatial heterogeneity, stable and reliable results, and the definite implications of the risks.

Spatial protection measures have become ubiquitous in fisheries management and marine conservation. Implemented for diverse objectives from stock rebuilding to biodiversity protection and ecosystem management, spatial measures range from temporary fisheries closures to marine protected areas with varying levels of protection. Ecological and economic benefits from spatial protection have been demonstrated for many reef and demersal species, but remain debated and understudied for highly migratory fishes, such as tunas, billfishes, and pelagic sharks. Here we summarize the spatial extent of fisheries closures implemented by the tuna RFMOs as well as marine protected areas worldwide, which together cover ∼15% of global ocean area. We furthermore synthesize results from modeling and tagging studies as well as fisheries-dependent research to provide an overview of the efficacy and benefits of present spatial protection measures for large pelagic fishes and their associated fisheries. We conclude that (1) many species with known migration routes, aggregating behavior, and philopatry can benefit from spatial protection; but (2) spatial protection alone is insufficient and should be integrated with effective fisheries management to protect and rebuild stocks of highly migratory species. We suggest tailoring spatial protection to the biology of large pelagic fishes, including improved protection for aggregation sites and migration corridors. These features currently appear to be an important—yet overlooked— opportunity to safeguard depleted and recovering stocks and protect pelagic biodiversity. New remote-sensing tools that track pelagic fishes and fishing vessels may provide timely support for improved spatial management in waters that were previously difficult to observe.

A better understanding of regional differences in ecosystem health and its driving factors is conducive to ecosystem management and restoration. Although various studies on ecosystem health have been carried out in different regions, few studies have been devoted to the insightful exploration of the spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem health and its driving forces at a national scale. In this study, we used an evaluation framework in terms of vigor, organization, resilience, and ecosystem service functions to assess the ecosystem health level in China from 2000 to 2015. Then, spatial agglomeration and regional differences in ecosystem health were examined using the spatial autocorrelation method and K-means clustering analysis, and the factors driving the regional differences of ecosystem health were explored based on the geographical detector model. Our results showed the following: (1) the ecosystem health level in China spatially increases from the northwest to the southeast, exhibiting significant global spatial autocorrelation and local spatial agglomeration; (2) eleven zones with three types were identified to indicate the regional differences of ecosystem health; (3) In terms of the driving factors, the moisture index and land use intensity contributed 24.5% and 20.7% to the variation in ecosystem health at the national scale. The ecosystem health changes were influenced by the interaction of meteorological and socio-economic factors in most regions with high ecosystem health types. Socio-economic factors act as a bridge that linked and reinforced the other factors in most regions with low and medium ecosystem health types. Ecologically protected factors were found to exert a remarkable impact in the southwestern region and the Loess Plateau region. Our findings can provide more effective and detailed decision-making support for ecosystem conservation and management in China.

This research evaluates the contribution of nature-based solutions to urban resilience in post-disaster situations. Post-disaster recovery planning is an opportunity to ‘build back greener’ by fostering ecosystem approaches towards social and ecological resilience. Yet understanding of specific post-disaster resilience benefits which nature-based solutions provide is still emerging. This paper contributes to this field through evaluation of how ecosystem approaches bring resilience benefits in Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Content analysis is undertaken on disaster recovery plans produced by the 8 municipalities in Futaba County. The ecosystem services included in each plan are identified, as well as the extent to which municipalities are capable of assessing the services provided. This is supplemented with insights from field visits and wider documentation produced by the municipalities. The analysis shows that cultural ecosystem services feature especially strongly within the plans, and that these cultural services are critical to recovering sense of identity and pride post-disaster. However, the analysis also indicates that municipalities may lack the technical competence to assess ecosystem services, especially in a post-disaster setting where resources are stretched. One implication from the research is the need for further consideration in other empirical contexts of how cultural services – especially citizen participation – can be integrated with more technical approaches to post-disaster ecosystem management. A second implication is that whilst ecosystem approaches offer post-disaster resilience benefits, these should be an aid to recovery and not a substitute for long-term support from national governments.

The status of the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) has long been a matter of concern in Everglades National Park (ENP) due to its classification as a federal and state listed species, its recognition as a flagship species, and its function as an ecosystem indicator. Survival and recovery of American crocodiles has been linked with regional hydrological conditions, especially freshwater flow to estuaries, which affect water levels and salinities. We hypothesize that efforts to restore natural function to Everglades ecosystems by improving water delivery into estuaries within ENP will change salinities and water levels which in turn will affect relative density of crocodiles. Monitoring ecological responses of indicator species, such as crocodiles, with respect to hydrologic change is necessary to evaluate ecosystem responses to restoration projects. Our objectives were to monitor trends in crocodile relative density within ENP and to determine influences of salinity on relative density of crocodiles. We examined count data from 12 years of crocodile spotlight surveys in ENP (2004–2015) and used a hierarchical model of relative density that estimated relative density with probability of detection. The mean predicted value for relative density (λ) across all surveys was 2.9 individuals/km (95% CI: 2.0–4.2); relative density was estimated to decrease with increases in salinity. Routes in ENP’s Flamingo/Cape Sable area had greater crocodile relative density than routes in the West Lake/Cuthbert Lake area and Northeast Florida Bay areas. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that restored flow and lower salinities will result in an increase in crocodile population size and provide support for the ecosystem management recommendations for crocodiles, which currently are to restore more natural patterns of freshwater flow to Florida Bay. Thus, monitoring relative density of American crocodiles will continue to be an effective indicator of ecological response to ecosystem restoration.

A social-ecological system approach has been applied to measure the complexity of sustainable tourism development on small islands. In general, tourism development and ecosystem management have been shown to be relatively unbalanced. Tourism development attempts have not yet been accompanied by environmental management efforts. In this paper, the social-ecological status is measured to improve the sustainable development mechanism with appropriate indicators. Using the Gili Matra Islands as a case study, the social-ecological status of tourism in the region was examined using the social-ecological status index (SESI), a coupling index of the coastal waters quality index (CWQI), the coordination degree model (CCDM) and the index of information entropy weight (IEW) as tools for measuring and evaluating the social-ecological status and sustainable development of small island tourism.

Biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of our times, and it is primarily driven by losses of natural and semi-natural areas. To avoid further biodiversity losses, landscape planning and ecosystem management could benefit from a condensed measure that tracks regional and cumulative ecological degradation from past and ongoing landscape changes. The affected species communities can be described spatially explicit by biotopes. A vulnerability map of biotopes will identify areas with a high potential to be adversely affected and a low capacity to recover. These vulnerability hot spots may require specific protection and maintenance interventions to be sustained. Following the interdisciplinary vulnerability concept, an indicator set related to landscape change was developed for the biotopes of the biosphere reserve Schorfheide-Chorin (Germany), which have been mapped as vector data according to the Brandenburg mapping key. The indicator set was structured into indicators of biotope exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. It covered patch metrics, like the size, the fractal dimension, and the amount of similar patches in the surrounding of each patch, as well as class metrics, like the mesh size, the state of endangerment and the average dispersal range of each biotope type. The resulting vulnerability index covered a biotope area of around 130,000 ha, and the study area could be extended readily. European biotopes are already mapped and monitored across large areas, primarily for nature conservation purposes. The biotope vulnerability index developed within this study is intended for application at large spatial scales and has the potential for a straightforward transfer to biotope maps from other German federal states and European regions.

Revegetation, especially afforestation, has served as an important tool for controlling desertification. However, revegetation in water-limited regions will inevitably reduce the water available for socio-economic systems, which is poorly considered in decision-making on sustainable ecosystem management. This paper proposed a framework to determine the threshold of vegetation productivity (i.e., ecosystem carrying capacity), corresponding to available water resources for ecosystems (i.e., annual precipitation minus water demand for socio-economic systems) on the Loess Plateau. The average annual ecosystem carrying capacity (ECC) during 1982–2012 is 577 ± 124 g C m−2 yr−1, with spatial gradients increasing from northwest to southeast. Vegetation in rocky mountain areas has the largest value of 833 ± 200 g C m−2 yr−1. Factorial analysis suggests that changes in precipitation and human water use contributed to 55% and 45% of the multi-decadal changes in regional ECC, respectively. Meanwhile, due to revegetation, 26 counties on the Loess Plateau, mainly in the southeast and eastern parts, have exceeded the ECC threshold during the study period. An additional 138 counties have a high potential for water competition between the ecosystems and socio-economic systems. At the regional scale, there are 9 years (∼30% of the study period) during which the ECC threshold has been exceeded, especially after 1997. Considering the climate change in the future and the growing demand for water in socio-economic systems, the corresponding ECC threshold will increase by 6–36%. We believe that these findings can provide reference for policy-makers to make decisions towards ecosystem sustainability while meeting human needs for water resources.

Forty-one fire-scarred samples from two new Cedrus atlantica sites in the Ouled-Yaâgoub Forest were collected and combined with the two previous sites from the Chelia Forest reported in Slimani et al. (2014) to develop a regional analysis of fire history in the Aures Mountains, northern Algeria. Prior to 1850, cedar forests were characterized by high frequency, low-intensity surface fire regimes. Fire frequency declined after 1850 after the elimination of the Barbary lion and the enforcement of the first laws governing land and forest use in Algeria. Most of the fire events in both forests occurred in the summer season, the latter part of the growing season, or in the dormant season. We compared past fires occurrences and an October-June precipitation reconstruction. On a regional scale, precipitation was significantly reduced in the months prior to the fire occurrence. In addition, precipitation during the first year preceding the fire years was significantly above average. This study provides a baseline for planning and justifying improved ecosystem management programs.

Understanding the impact of climate change and human activity on the interactions among ecosystem services and associated characteristics is critical to improve ecosystem management and achieve regional sustainability. We respectively used Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach, Revised Wind Erosion Equation, and the integrated valuation of ecosystem services and tradeoffs (InVEST) model to evaluate the amount of net primary productivity (NPP), soil erosion by wind (SL), and soil conservation (SC), water yield (WY), and water retention (WR) from 2001 to 2014 in the Xilin Gol grassland of North China. A segmented quantile regression approach was used to extract the constraint lines, which are the upper boundaries of the scatter plots of paired ecosystem services and represent the constraint effects between them. The thresholds, slopes, and constant terms of the regression equations were used to characterize the key features of the constraint lines. Finally, we analyzed the correlation between the key features and the influential factors of climate as well as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The results showed that the patterns and the thresholds of constraint lines between ecosystem services were almost invariable with the changing of climate factors and NDVI from 2001 to 2014. However, the key features of slopes and constant terms on the constraint lines were easily impacted by the environmental factors. As precipitation is the main source of water requirements of vegetation in the arid and semiarid regions and affects the variations of NPP, SC, WY, and WR, the precipitation factors appeared to be critical to shape the constraint lines and determine the strength of constraint effects between paired ecosystem services. Understanding the changing trends of key features on the constraint lines between paired ecosystem services and their influential factors could improve the quantitative management measures of ecosystem services and promote sustainable land use planning.

A basic premise of economics is that more secure property rights reduce conflict and provide an incentive for individuals to increase the productivity of their land. This premise underlies recent theories that food production and more secure property rights, by necessity, co-evolve. The argument goes like this: Dense and predicable resources provide an incentive for more secure property rights and more secure property rights provide an incentive for individuals to modify ecosystems in ways that increase the production of food. Here, we evaluate the effect of property rights on food production among ethnographically recorded hunter-gatherers. In particular, we use path models to evaluate a recent theory for the evolution of ownership rights and ecosystem management in forager-resource systems called the Niche Construction Model of Economic Defense. We conclude that ownership has a positive effect on food production strategies that require reduced coordination between individuals (such as planting and tending patches), but potentially has a negative effect on other food production strategies such as landscape burning. Further, the coefficient of variation in rainfall and population density consistently have positive effects on the presence of food production. We discuss the implications of our results for explaining different trajectories of hunter-gatherer intensification in the archaeological record.

Tropical countries have island and continental ecosystems of great value for tourism, fisheries and also for their conservation development potential. These natural habitats, including among other beaches, seagrass beds, mangrove forests and coral reefs can dissipate wave energy acting as barriers against high waves and high water levels to eventually protect coastal infrastructure and communities. However, in recent decades, they have been subject to strong anthropic pressure and extreme events due to natural causes as well as to climate change. Therefore, the global trend is to understand the eco-systemic services that these natural environments can provide and their economic value in terms of reducing damages caused by coastal erosion and flooding. A methodological framework is presented in order to quantify the impact of natural ecosystems in coastal protection and their environmental assessment based on numerical models available in the literature. In addition to the methodology, a study of a typical Caribbean fringing coral reef and its response to different sea level rise and extreme events scenarios was conducted. The contribution of these efforts from a technological and scientific point of view, lies in the integration of different disciplines required to combine the physical properties of hydrodynamic studies with biological factors as an input to provide practical socio-economic and environmental solutions in those regions in which these ecosystems predominate. Furthermore, a numerical modeling tool to study wave energy dissipation, focusing the analysis on the impact of natural ecosystems (coral reefs) on coastal erosion and flooding was implemented. This information will help coastal managers and decision-makers understand the coastal protection services provided by nearshore habitats in order to improve and design new coastal development strategies under global change scenarios.

Vegetation distribution and growth are significantly affected by changing climate conditions. Understanding the response of vegetation to hydroclimatic disturbances such as droughts is crucial in context of climate change. The sensitivity of terrestrial ecosystem to drought is difficult to measure because of problems related to drought quantification, variable response of vegetation types and changing climate-vegetation dynamics. Since, India is hugely dependent on its vegetation and cropland, identifying the impact of droughts on vegetation is essential. In this study, we estimate the likelihood of vegetation droughts across India in changing scenarios of temperature, precipitation and soil moisture content. We also study the resilience of vegetation cover to disturbances induced by a dry condition. From the investigation, it is observed that at least half the area of 16 out of 24 major river basins is facing high chances of vegetation droughts due to lowered soil moisture levels. The croplands are most likely to be affected by drought, which is of paramount concern for country's food security. Further investigation suggests that at least one-third area of 18 river basins is non-resilient to vegetation droughts. Moreover, >50% of each vegetation type is non-resilient, which points out the fragility of country's terrestrial ecosystems. This study facilitates the understanding of vegetation drought hotspot regions, factors risking the terrestrial ecosystem and their ability to withstand such conditions. These findings provide useful insights for policy makers to develop effective strategies for vegetation drought mitigation and sustainable ecosystem management.

Development and protection are both vital human demands in ecologically vulnerable areas. An estimation of the land use/cover changes and their ecological responses could help to understand the regional ecosystem dynamics under various human demands and provide the scientific basis for managing and regulating ecosystems. In this paper, we analysed the spatial-temporal variations in land use/cover types and systematically quantified the relationships between these changes and environmental variables in the Three Gorges Reservoir area. Our results revealed that forestland coverage increased linearly to 53.48%, and that of construction land increased exponentially from 0.25% to 2.75% during 1990–2015. The land use/cover changes exhibited two distinct transformation phases: before and after impoundment. The mutual transformations among vegetation types were significant before 2000, while the forest, water and construction land coverages increased continuously by occupying cropland after 2000. The land use/cover changes were significantly correlated with environmental variables and were sensitive to three topographic variables namely, elevation, surface-height-fluctuation and slope. The vegetation dynamics were easily affected by the complex and rugged topography. Moreover, the responses of land use/cover changes varied among topographic variables. The two parameters estimated in the multiple linear regression, elevation and slope, were −0.164 and −0.268 for forestland change, −0.391 and 0.378 for water area change, and −0.068 and −0.061 for construction land change. Forest cover was so larger in the regions of higher elevation and steeper slope that afforestation occurred in the regions of moderate elevation and slope. Urbanization and impoundment mainly occurred in the regions of lower elevation, and the regions of steeper slope were more easily submerged, while urbanization mainly occurred in the regions of gentler slope. Therefore, the land use/cover changes due to ecological protection and economic development responded to the interactions among environmental variables and was targeted to different regions to reconcile the land use conflicts, providing a reference for ecosystem management in ecologically vulnerable areas.

Ecosystem service (ES) bundles can facilitate comprehensive understanding of the spatial configurations and interactions of multiple ESs across large-scale landscapes. They are critical for informing policy and improving ecosystem management. The spatial dimension of ES bundles has been addressed in recent research but little work has considered the temporal changes of ES bundles. This paper uses a case study in the Loess Plateau, the core area of vegetation restoration in China, to explore changes in ES spatial distributions, bundle types and multiple ES interactions in a period of rapid vegetation restoration between 2000 and 2015. Measurable proxies, biophysical indicators and the InVEST model were used to quantify 10 ESs. We found that (1) most of the ESs were improved, especially provisioning services and carbon sequestration. (2) There is a steady tradeoff between provisioning services and most regulating services, while the impacts of vegetation restoration on agricultural production were small. (3) The synergies among ESs were weakened, implying the presence of subtle functional ES interdependencies. (4) Changes in the bundling patterns between 2000 and 2015 revealed heightened gaps among ESs due to the upsurge of carbon sequestration and deterioration of the baseflow regulation. This research provides a new perspective for understanding the interactions between multiple ESs with regional vegetation restoration activities. Ecological restoration programmes play an important role in enhancing ESs, but they may also lead to expanded gaps between ESs. Baseflow regulation could be included as a key indicator to support a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of restoration interventions. The ES bundle framework is able to capture changes over time of the ES interactions across a large-scale landscape and facilitates informed ES management.

Driven by economic and political influences, land-use change has become a significant factor impacting ecosystem service changes. It is vital to assess how multiple ecosystem services change under different scenarios for policy decisions pertaining to land use and ecological construction, especially for fragile mountainous areas. In this study, InVEST and scenario analyses are used to assess the changes of multiple ESs in Bailongiang watershed (BLJW), a typical mountain-basin ecotone in western China. Two indexes, ecosystem service change index (ESCI) and ecosystem service tradeoff degree (ESTD), are used to contrast the ESs change and its tradeoffs and synergies under land use scenarios, including urban and rural construction land expansion (URE), Grain for Green (GFG) and Scenario of Spatial Optimization of land use and land cover (SSO). Results show that under the URE scenario, watershed soil conservation and water yield increased with its ESCI of 3.0 × 10−4 and 61.0 × 10−4, respectively; and a slight decrease of carbon storage with its ESCI of −67.0 × 10−4. Soil conservation, water yield and carbon storage increased under GFG scenario. In addition, there are some increases of soil conservation and carbon storage with the decrease of water yield in BLJW. Different tradeoffs/synergies relationships are illustrated for different land use scenarios. The service-oriented ESTD can be used to analyze the tradeoffs/synergies of multiple ESs and serve for ESs management. The SSO scenario of optimization of human activities and natural environmental systems, will be the win-win way for sustainable land use and ecosystem management in the mountain-basin area.

During the rapid development of urbanization, the urban heat island (UHI), becomes one of the major urbanization progress problems that affects the environmental, social and ecology profoundly. Analyzing the UHI can help understanding the UHI status and the physical characteristics of cities, and is significant to provide ecosystem management plans and mitigation strategies for the UHI. By utilizing the MODIS LST products, Landsat series data and the ecological regionalization data, and applying the corresponding methods to derive the NDVI, the fractional vegetation cover (Fv) and the LST normalizations results, the study conducted the spatial-temporal evolution of the UHI in Xi'an from 2006 to 2016. The main work includes analyzing the spatial evolution characters, analyzing the temporal evolution characters and exploring the relationship between LST and vegetation cover. Spatial evolution results showed that the UHI to the north of the urban land control line in 2016 became intensified and enhanced in the form of increasing the LST and the UHI zone. As for the temporal evolution, the Low Temperature Zone and Sub-low Temperature Zone had little changes and corresponded with the urban land control line, and the Medium Temperature Zone decreased on large area while the Sub-high Temperature Zone increased on large area, when compared results of 2006 with that of 2016. The relationship between LST and vegetation cover indicated that increasing vegetation cover had a certain active role for reducing LST and mitigating the UHI. The positive intervention and guidance of the government on the ecological protection can reduce the UHI, effectively.

Drought is one of the most expensive but least understood natural disasters. Remote sensing based integrated drought indices have the potential to describe drought conditions comprehensively, and multi-criteria combination analysis is increasingly used to support drought assessment. However, conventional multi-criteria combination methods and most existing integrated drought indices fail to adequately represent spatial variability. An index that can be widely used for drought monitoring across all climate regions would be of great value for ecosystem management. To this end, we proposed a framework for generating a new integrated drought index applicable across diverse climate regions. In this new framework, a local ordered weighted averaging (OWA) model was used to combine the Temperature Condition Index (TCI) from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) developed using the Vegetation Index based on Universal Pattern Decomposition method (VIUPD), the Soil Moisture Condition Index (SMCI) derived from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–Earth Observation System (AMSR-E), and the Precipitation Condition Index (PCI) derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). This new index, which we call the “Geographically Independent Integrated Drought Index (GIIDI),” was validated in diverse climate divisions across the continental United States. Results showed that GIIDI was better correlated with in-situ PDSI, Z-index, SPI-1, SPI-3 and SPEI-6 (overall r-value = 0.701, 0.794, 0.811, 0.733, 0.628; RMSE = 1.979, 0.810, 0.729, 1.049 and 1.071, respectively) when compared to the Microwave Integrated Drought Index (MIDI), Optimized Meteorological Drought Index (OMDI), Scaled Drought Condition Index (SDCI), PCI, TCI, SMCI, and VCI. GIIDI also performed well in most climate divisions for both short-term and long-term drought monitoring. Because of the superior performance of GIIDI across diverse temporal and spatial scales, GIIDI has considerable potential for improving our ability to monitor drought across a range of biomes and climates.

In recent decades, it has been observed that most forest fires in Europe were caused by people. Extreme droughts, which are more often prolonged, can increase the risk of forest fires, not only in southern Europe but also, in Central Europe. Nonetheless, catastrophic fire events are not well recognized in the Central European Lowlands (CEL), where large forest complexes are located. Knowledge of past fire activity in this part of Europe is scarce, although several fires have occurred in this area during the previous millennia. Large coniferous forest monocultures located in the CEL are highly susceptible to fires and other disturbances. Here, we present a case study from the Tuchola Pinewoods (TP; northern Poland), where large pine monocultures are present. The main aim of this study is to document the potential effects past land management has on modern day disturbance regimes using state-of-the-art paleoecological data, historical documents and cartographic materials. We then present a protocol that will help forest managers utilize long-term paleoecological records. Based on paleoecological investigations, historical documents, and cartographic materials, our results show that, in the past 300 years, the TP witnessed not only disastrous fires and but also windfalls by tornados and insect outbreaks. A change in management from Polish to Prussian/German in the 18th century led to the transformation of mixed forests into Scots pine monocultures with the purpose to allow better economic use of the forest. Those administrative decisions led to an ecosystem highly susceptible to disturbances. This article provides a critical review of past forest management as well as future research directions related to the impacts of fire risk on land management and ecosystem services: (a) habitat composition and structure (biodiversity); (b) natural water management; and (c) mitigation of climate changes. Designated forest conditions, management, and future fire risk are a controversial and highly debated topic of forest management by Forestry Units. More research will allow the gathering of reliable information pertinent to management practices with regard to the current fire risks. It is necessary to develop a dialog between scientists and managers to reduce the risk of fires in projected climate change.

Ecosystem services value has decreased rapidly caused by land use/land cover changes driven by urbanization during the past decades. Expanding urbanization not only changes the spatial distribution of areas of ecosystem service demand but it also changes the potential functions of ecosystem services. It is necessary to undertake a quantitative analysis of historical changes in land use/land cover in the context of the urban land sprawl to better understand existing relationships between ecological services and land use/land cover change. The methodology for this study was derived from an established knowledge base on the importance of land use/land cover types for the supply of each of nine identified ecosystem services extracted from a review of the literature. We selected the Pearl River Delta as the object of our study and used a land-use dataset entailing a resolution of 100 m to analyze the land use/land cover change trends and the values of ecosystem services in this region from 1990 to 2015. Furthermore, we compiled a summary of changes in the values of ecosystem services caused by changes in land use/land cover. We found that the change trend of land use/land cover in the Pearl River Delta, which is dominated by forests, reflected a highly dynamic context. Construction land increased from 2909.77 km2 to 7486.89 km2 over the study period. The total value of ecosystem services increased by 4.5 × 1021 seJ during the period 1990–2015. Individual ecosystem services that contributed the greatest value were hydrological regulation, climate regulation, and soil formation and retention. In light of our findings, we developed a matrix of ecosystem service values in relation to land use transitions and explored its policy implications for ecosystem management. This matrix can help decision makers to better understand tradeoffs between ecosystem services caused by land use/land cover changes.

A main challenge in sustainability sciences is to incorporate distributional aspects into ecosystem management and conservation. We explored and contrasted land ownership, forest cover and ecosystem services supply (ES) distribution in two municipalities of southern Chile (Panguipulli and Ancud), comprising 5,584 private properties. We relied on farm typologies data and ES indicators for forage, water regulation, and recreation opportunities. We calculated Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients to establish concentration ratios, and performed a hotspot analysis to determine ES supply distribution across properties. In both municipalities land ownership was highly concentrated: large properties (>1,000–30,000 ha) represented less than 1% of total and comprised 74.5% and 20.7% of farm area, in Panguipulli and Ancud respectively. Forest cover distribution followed the same pattern (80.5% and 58.2%, respectively). As a result, water regulation and recreation opportunities concentrated in medium and large properties, whereas forage concentrated in small and medium ones. Gini coefficients ranged from relatively equal to relatively unequal for land ownership, forests cover and ES in both study areas. These inequalities reflect a historical land ownership concentration in private lands since colonial times, a structural condition that challenges both nature conservation and development and, therefore, it should be brought to the forefront of policy design in developing countries.

In this study, a fuzzy two-stage stochastic programming model is developed for planning regional ecosystem sustainability under uncertainties. The model can not only deal with uncertainties expressed as probability distribution and fuzzy sets, but also analyze various policy scenarios related to varying degrees of economic penalty when expected targets are violated. A fuzzy function ranking method is introduced to solve the fuzzy sets, which can simplify the model’s solving process and enhance its applicability. The established model is applied to planning regional ecosystem sustainability of Wuhan (China), in which ecosystem service assessment and land trading are incorporated into the optimization process. Solutions of land allocation, ecological compensation strategies and industrial pollutants mitigation schemes can be obtained. Results show that the system benefits in schemes with land trading are all higher than that with non-trading, and the industrial pollution discharges can be greatly reduced with land trading being considered. Maintaining the regional ecosystem integrity with consideration of an enforced wastewater mitigation permit results in a lower system benefit, while a higher system benefit can be attained with more emphasis on economic benefits and implementation of a loose wastewater mitigation permit. The findings can help local policy-makers gain deep insights into the trade-off between economic development and ecosystem protection, and obtain decision alternatives on regional ecosystem management and planning.

Vegetation restoration often has a significant effect on the supply of an ecosystem service (ES). Assessment of this effect is crucial for informed decision-making in sustainable ecosystem management. In this respect, this study analyses three regulating, two provisioning, and a single cultural ES over a 30-year period (1985 to 2015, with 15 years pre-restoration and 15 years post-restoration) in the Loess Plateau, China, using data from a combination of modelling and statistical yearbooks. On applying a suite of standard statistical tools, results indicate: (1) regional scale restoration promotes the increase of vegetation cover as the coverage increased faster between 2000 and 2015 than between 1985 and 2000; (2) vegetation restoration changes the temporal trend of regulating ESs, and enhances the supply of provisioning and cultural ESs; (3) the 40 municipalities of the Loess Plateau can be divided into four ES categories where areas with poor ES delivery account for about 30% of the Loess Plateau; (4) vegetation restoration changes the interaction among ESs, resulting in synergistic relationships between provisioning and regulating ESs; (5) precipitation has a significant impact on regulating ESs, while population density is critical for provisioning and cultural ESs. This study demonstrates that ESs, their interactions and their groupings can change across both time and space following the implementation of a vegetation restoration programme, which makes understanding ES dynamics complicated. Recommendations are provided for improved and coherent ecosystem management.

Provisioning is a basic forest ecosystem service, and the balance between human usage and natural resources that provide this service is crucial for sustainability. Here, we describe a spatial mismatch between monetary-equivalent production (actual use of this service) and the estimated potential supply of edible and medicinal wild plants in Japan, and how the balance between actual use and potential supply is determined. Most regions exhibit under-use (potential > actual), especially in regions with large forest areas, presumably because of limited accessibility or abandonment. Over-use (actual > potential) is prevalent in regions with a snowy climate, which might increase plant quantity and quality by supplying enough water. Cultural legacy also affected high plant usage in snowy regions. These results demonstrate how social and climatic factors cause imbalanced human usage of ecosystem services, and provide insights for future ecosystem management, such as alarming over-use and building capacity where under-use occurs.

Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction, a concept that has recently evolved from the notion of employing ecosystem management approaches for reducing societal risks to disasters, requires active and inclusive involvement of a range of stakeholders in order to enhance the knowledge base, facilitate favourable policy mechanisms and inform suitable practices on the ground. The integration of different disciplines of knowledge, alignment of policies such as those related to natural resource management, disaster risk management and development, as well as execution of unified practices are necessary conditions in order to successfully harness the benefits of nature for protecting people from the impacts of disasters. Social learning is an iterative, collective learning process that can convene the wide range of stakeholders support co-creation of knowledge, enhance collective understanding of what action is needed as well as strengthen the willingness for joint action and advocacy. The paper explores opportunities in applying social learning for ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction, especially in light of the emerging challenges documented from early applications and in evolving literature. It also elaborates on the limitations of social learning itself and the research opportunities social learning for ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction holds.