Search

Agricultural and environmental policies are being fundamentally reviewed and redesigned in the UK following its exit from the European Union. The UK government and the Devolved Administrations recognise that current land use is not sustainable and that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to define a better land strategy that responds fully to the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable development. This paper presents evidence from three pathways (current trends, sustainable medium ambition, and sustainable high ambition) to mid-century that were co-created with UK policymakers. The pathways were applied to a national integrated food and land-use model (the FABLE calculator) to explore potential synergies and trade-offs between achieving multiple sustainability targets under limited land availability and constraints to balance food supply and demand at national and global levels. Results show that under the Current Trends pathway all unprotected open natural land would be converted to urban, agriculture and afforested land, with the consequence that from 2030 onwards tree planting targets could not be met. In contrast, the two sustainable pathways illustrate how dietary change, agricultural productivity improvements and waste reduction can free up land for nature recovery and carbon sequestration. This enables a transition to a sustainable food and land-use system that provides a net carbon sink with up to 44% of land able to support biodiversity conservation. We highlight key trade-offs and synergies, which are important to consider for designing and implementing emerging national policies. These include the strong dependence of climate, food and biodiversity targets on dietary shifts, sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity, improved land-use design for protecting and restoring nature, and rapid reductions in food loss and waste.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-022-01242-8.

To halt further destruction of the biosphere, most people and societies around the globe need to transform their relationships with nature. The internationally agreed vision under the Convention of Biological Diversity—Living in harmony with nature—is that “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”. In this context, there are a variety of debates between alternative perspectives on how to achieve this vision. Yet, scenarios and models that are able to explore these debates in the context of “living in harmony with nature” have not been widely developed. To address this gap, the Nature Futures Framework has been developed to catalyse the development of new scenarios and models that embrace a plurality of perspectives on desirable futures for nature and people. In this paper, members of the IPBES task force on scenarios and models provide an example of how the Nature Futures Framework can be implemented for the development of illustrative narratives representing a diversity of desirable nature futures: information that can be used to assess and develop scenarios and models whilst acknowledging the underpinning value perspectives on nature. Here, the term illustrative reflects the multiple ways in which desired nature futures can be captured by these narratives. In addition, to explore the interdependence between narratives, and therefore their potential to be translated into scenarios and models, the six narratives developed here were assessed around three areas of the transformative change debate, specifically, (1) land sparing vs. land sharing, (2) Half Earth vs. Whole Earth conservation, and (3) green growth vs. post-growth economic development. The paper concludes with an assessment of how the Nature Futures Framework could be used to assist in developing and articulating transformative pathways towards desirable nature futures.

Humanity is challenged with making progress toward global biodiversity, freshwater, and climate goals, while providing food and nutritional security for everyone. Our current food and land-use systems are incompatible with this ambition making them unsustainable. Papers in this special feature introduce a participatory, integrated modeling approach applied to provide insights on how to transform food and land-use systems to sustainable trajectories in 12 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Finland, India, Mexico, Rwanda, Sweden, the UK, and USA. Papers are based on work completed by members of the Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-use, and Energy (FABLE) initiative, a network of in-country research teams engaging policymakers and other local stakeholders to co-develop future food and land-use scenarios and modeling their national and global sustainability impacts. Here, we discuss the key leverage points, methodological advances, and multi-sector engagement strategies presented and applied in this collection of work to set countries and our planet on course for achieving food security, biodiversity, freshwater, and climate targets by 2050.

Projecting the distribution of population is critical in supporting analysis of the impacts and risks associated with climate change. In this paper, we apply a computational algorithm parameterised for the UK Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (UK-SSP) narratives to create 1-km gridded urban land use and population projections for the UK to the end of the twenty-first century. Using a unimodal neighbourhood function, we model heterogeneity in urban sprawl patterns. The urban land use maps are used as weights to create downscaled population projections. We undertake a model uncertainty analysis using 500 simulations with varying parameter settings per UK-SSP. Results illustrate how sprawl can emerge from scenario conditions even when population numbers decline, and irrespective of socio-economic wellbeing. To avoid negative environmental externalities associated with uncontrolled sprawl, such as in UK-SSP5 and UK-SSP3, planning policies will be vital. Uncertainties about future population development in the UK are higher in rural areas than in urban areas. This has an effect on the competition for land and influences confidence in projections of broader land system change.

Understanding uncertainties and risks can be considered to be the main motivation behind environmental scenario studies to assess potential economic, environmental, social or technical developments and their expected consequences for society and environment. The scenario study presented in this paper was designed to contribute to the question of how natural capital and ecosystem services may evolve in Europe under different socio-environmental conditions. The study was conducted as part of OpenNESS, an on-going EU FP7 research project. We present the iterative participatory scenario process, the storylines and drivers, examples for regional applications, as well as initial feedback from stakeholders. In a participatory iterative approach four scenarios were developed for the period to 2050, involving regional and EU-level users and stakeholders. Subsequently, scenarios were successfully contextualised and applied in regional place-based studies under widely differing socio-environmental conditions. Regional teams used different approaches to adapt storylines and drivers to the regional contexts. In an internal evaluation process among regional stakeholders some participants expressed concerns about the scenario method. Suggestions are made how to overcome these limitations. However, most participants approved the scenario method, especially in terms of provoking discussions, and confirmed the usefulness and applicability of the approach.

Trichostatin A (TSA) has been shown to prevent fibrosis in vitro and in vivo. The present study aimed at investigating the role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging by TSA on transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β)-induced myofibroblast differentiation of corneal fibroblasts in vitro. Human immortalized corneal fibroblasts were treated with TGF-β in the presence of TSA, the NAD(P)H oxidase inhibitor diphenyleneiodonium (DPI), the antioxidant N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), the NF-E2–related factor 2-antioxidant response element (Nrf2-ARE) activator sulforaphane, or small interfering RNA. Myofibroblast differentiation was assessed by α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression, F-actin bundle formation, and collagen gel contraction. ROS, H2O2, intracellular glutathione (GSH) level, cellular total antioxidant capacity, and the activation of Nrf2-ARE signaling were determined with various assays. Treatment with TSA and the Nrf2-ARE activator resulted in increased inhibition of the TGF-β–induced myofibroblast differentiation as compared with treatment with DPI or NAC. Furthermore, TSA also decreased cellular ROS and H2O2 accumulation induced by TGF-β, whereas it elevated intracellular GSH level and cellular total antioxidant capacity. In addition, TSA induced Nrf2 nuclear translocation and up-regulated the expression of Nrf2-ARE downstream antioxidant genes, whereas Nrf2 knockdown by RNA interference blocked the inhibition of TSA on myofibroblast differentiation. In conclusion, this study provides the first evidence implicating that TSA inhibits TGF-β–induced ROS accumulation and myofibroblast differentiation via enhanced Nrf2-ARE signaling.

International concern to develop sustainably challenges us to act upon the inherent links between our economy, society and environment, and is leading to increasing acknowledgement of biodiversity’s importance. This Review discusses the breadth of ways in which biodiversity can support sustainable development. It uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a basis for exploring scientific evidence of the benefits delivered by biodiversity. It focuses on papers that provide examples of how biodiversity components (that is, ecosystems, species and genes) directly deliver benefits that may contribute to the achievement of individual SDGs. It also considers how biodiversity’s direct contributions to fulfilling some SDGs may indirectly support the achievement of other SDGs to which biodiversity does not contribute directly. How the attributes (for example, diversity, abundance or composition) of biodiversity components influence the benefits delivered is also presented, where described by the papers reviewed. While acknowledging potential negative impacts and trade-offs between different benefits, the study concludes that biodiversity may contribute to fulfilment of all SDGs. Sustainability is a function of environmental, economic and social integration. This Review synthesizes knowledge on the many ways biodiversity can support sustainable development.

Assessing the combined impacts of future climate and socio-economic change at the country level is vital for supporting national adaptation policies. Here, we use a novel modelling approach to study the systemic impacts of climate and socio-economic changes on the Czech Republic, taking account of cross-sectoral interactions between agriculture, water, forestry, land-use and biodiversity, and, for the first time, trans-national interactions. We evaluate the national-level baseline results, scenario-neutral model sensitivities, and climate and socio-economic scenario impacts using a European-scale integrated modelling tool. Consistently across most climate and socio-economic scenarios, the Czech Republic is projected to have increasing importance as a crop-growing region in Europe, due to an increased competitive advantage within the continent. Arable land in the Czech Republic expands, at the expense of livestock farming and forestry, with associated impacts of increased water scarcity and reduced biodiversity for the country. Accounting for trans-national interactions in national-scale assessments provides more realistic assessments of impacts and helps to identify the changing role of the country within its regional and continental domain. Such improved understanding can support policy-makers in developing national adaptation actions that reduce adverse impacts and realise opportunities.

Scenarios have been recognised as a useful tool for planning, which have resulted in a strong increase in the number of (multi-scale) scenarios in climate change research. This paper addresses the need for methodological progress and testing of conceptual considerations, by extending the global shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). We present a set of four European SSPs until 2100 and a novel method to develop qualitative stories for Europe equivalent to the global SSPs starting from an existing set of European scenarios. Similar to the global SSPs, the set includes a sustainable future with global cooperation and less intensive lifestyles (We are the World; Eur-SSP1); a future in which countries struggle to maintain living standards in a high-carbon intensive Europe (Icarus; Eur-SSP3); a world in which power becomes concentrated in a small elite and where Europe becomes an important player (Riders on the Storm; Eur-SSP4); and one where a lack of environmental concern leads to the over-exploitation of fossil fuel resources addressed by technological solutions (Fossil-fuelled Development; Eur-SSP5). We conclude that the global SSPs are a good starting point for developing equivalent continental scale scenarios that, in turn, can serve multiple purposes. There are, however, methodological challenges related to the choice for equivalence and the exact methods by which scenarios are constructed that need to be tested further.

As the pressure to take action against global warming is growing in urgency, scenarios that incorporate multiple social, economic and environmental drivers become increasingly critical to support governments and other stakeholders in planning climate change mitigation or adaptation actions. This has led to the recent explosion of future scenario analyses at multiple scales, further accelerated since the development of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) research community Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). While RCPs have been widely applied to climate models to produce climate scenarios at multiple scales for investigating climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities (CCIAV), SSPs are only recently being scaled for different geographical and sectoral applications. This is seen in the UK where significant investment has produced the RCP-based UK Climate Projections (UKCP18), but no equivalent UK version of the SSPs exists. We address this need by developing a set of multi-driver qualitative and quantitative UK-SSPs, following a state-of-the-art scenario methodology that integrates national stakeholder knowledge on locally-relevant drivers and indicators with higher level information from European and global SSPs. This was achieved through an intensive participatory process that facilitated the combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches to develop a set of UK-specific SSPs that are locally comprehensive, yet consistent with the global and European SSPs. The resulting scenarios balance the importance of consistency and legitimacy, demonstrating that divergence is not necessarily the result of inconsistency, nor comes as a choice to contextualise narratives at the appropriate scale.

Current estimates suggest that the world is on track for ~3°C of heating relative to pre-industrial levels by 2100. This is likely to bring great disruption to earth systems, leading to increased natural hazard risks, crop failures, civil unrest and population migration. There is, however, a high degree of uncertainty about the impacts that such events may have on land use and ecosystems in individual countries. Integrated assessment modelling (IAM) of scenarios like the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) offers one way to address this uncertainty, allowing outcomes such as the relative land cover under food production or forestry to be compared for each scenario. However, global and continental-scale IAMs need to be complemented by landscape scale spatial modelling to inform national and regional policy making. In this paper, we demonstrate impacts and trade-offs of future land cover change in Scotland, a UK region with a high degree of political autonomy, using downscaled SSPs from Europe to the national and finally the regional level. Our methods integrate participatory knowledge co-construction approaches with land-use modelling. Firstly, a stakeholder workshop held in November 2018 led to the development of detailed narratives for 5 UK SSPs. Two contrasting UK SSPs, SSP1 (Sustainability), and SSP5 (Fossil-Fuelled Development) were then adapted to the case of Scotland and simulated to the year 2040 using a land use change model (APoLUS). Land use demands for each scenario were quantified based on historical tendencies, narrative information derived from the workshop, and future Scottish Government targets. Results highlight trade-offs between forest cover, grasslands, natural areas including marginal peatlands important for carbon sequestration, and cropland for food production and the drinks industry. We discuss these preliminary findings, highlight key areas of uncertainty and present pathways for future work.

Climate and socio-economic change impacts are likely to cross traditional sectoral and regional boundaries with cascading indirect, and potentially far-reaching, repercussions. This is particularly important for the food-water-land-ecosystems (FWLE) nexus, which is fundamental for the achievement of at least six of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A holistic understanding of the FWLE nexus interactions and how and to what extent various exogenous drivers of change affect them is therefore central to cross-sectoral adaptation planning. Here, we present such an integrated assessment for Europe applying a regional Integrated Assessment Platform (IAP). The study explores a wide range of future climate and socio-economic scenarios using more than 900 model simulations. The results show that food production is likely to be the main driver of Europe's future landscape change dynamics (with or without climate change). Agriculture and land use allocation is often driven by complex cross-sectoral interactions with cascading effects on other sectors such as forestry, biodiversity, and water under the various scenarios. The modelling also highlighted that while sustaining current levels of food production at the European level could be achievable under most climate and socio-economic scenarios, there are significant regional differences with winners and losers. The analysis raises the question of whether current production and consumption policies are sustainable in the long-term. Such systematic integrated model-based analysis plays a crucial role in informing development of cross-sectoral policies that maximise synergies and minimise trade-offs across nexus sectors, regions, and scenarios. This is essential to achieve the SDGs.

Choosing appropriate scales for remotely sensed image classification is extremely important yet still an open question in relation to deep convolutional neural networks (CNN), due to the impact of spatial scale (i.e., input patch size) on the recognition of ground objects. Currently, the optimal scale selection processes are extremely cumbersome and time-consuming requiring repetitive experiments involving trial-and-error procedures, which significantly reduce the practical utility of the corresponding classification methods. This issue is crucial when trying to classify large-scale land use (LU) and land cover (LC) jointly (Zhang et al., 2019). In this paper, a simple and parsimonious Scale Sequence Joint Deep Learning (SS-JDL) method is proposed for joint LU and LC classification, in which a sequence of scales is embedded in the iterative process of fitting the joint distribution implicit in the joint deep learning (JDL) method, thus, replacing the previous paradigm of scale selection. The sequence of scales, derived autonomously and used to define the CNN input patch sizes, provides consecutive information transmission from small-scale features to large-scale representations, and from simple LC states to complex LU characterisations. The effectiveness of the novel SS-JDL method was tested on aerial digital photography of three complex and heterogeneous landscapes, two in Southern England (Bournemouth and Southampton) and one in North West England (Manchester). Benchmark comparisons were provided in the form of a range of LU and LC methods, including the state-of-the-art joint deep learning (JDL) method. The experimental results demonstrated that the SS-JDL consistently outperformed all of the state-of-the-art baselines in terms of both LU and LC classification accuracies, as well as computational efficiency. The proposed SS-JDL method, therefore, represents a fast and effective implementation of the state-of-the-art JDL method. By creating a single, unifying joint distribution framework for classifying higher order feature representations, including LU, the SS-JDL method has the potential to transform the classification paradigm in remote sensing, and in machine learning more generally.

In this chapter, we present how climate action that fosters transformations to sustainability and resilience in European societies can be developed in the context of high-end climate change. The chapter builds from the IMPRESSIONS inter- and transdisciplinary research project work on high-end climate change. It brings a unique perspective on long-term horizons (until 2100) and extreme climate change and socio-economic scenarios and uncertainties, as well as how to co-develop transformative adaptation and mitigation pathways with stakeholders to build capacities for responding to such scenarios. The chapter responds to the very fundamental question: ‘what is high-end climate change and why it is relevant for science and policy?’

Projections of future changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) are of increasing importance to inform policy and decision-making on options for conservation and sustainable use of BES. Scenario-based modelling is a powerful tool to assess these future changes. This study assesses the consequences for BES in Europe under four socio-environmental scenarios designed from a BES perspective. We evaluated these scenarios using two integrated assessment models (IMAGE-GLOBIO and CLIMSAVE IAP, respectively). Our results showed that (i) climate and land use change will continue to pose significant threats to biodiversity and some ecosystem services, even in the most optimistic scenario; (ii) none of the four scenarios achieved overall preservation of BES in Europe; and (iii) targeted policies (e.g. on climate change, biodiversity conservation and sustainable land management) and behavioural change (e.g. reducing meat consumption, water-saving behaviour) reduced the magnitude of BES loss. These findings stress the necessity of more ambitious policies and actions if BES in Europe are to be safeguarded. We further found that the multi-modelling approach was critical to account for complementary BES dimensions and highlighted different sources of uncertainties (e.g. related to land use allocation, driving forces behind BES changes, trade assumptions), which facilitated nuanced and contextualised insights with respect to possible BES futures.

Transition management has been applied in different governance contexts over the past 15 years, showing its modularity and also its ability to facilitate participatory strategic planning and agenda setting. This book chapter presents the operational framework of transition management as developed to guide the design of a three-series workshop in four case studies in Europe. What is unique in this contribution is a well-developed operational framework to explain how every phase and every step of transition management can be applied and tailored to climate change discussions and agenda setting. Another unique point is the introduction of climate scenarios as the context for developing transition pathways and acknowledging deep uncertainty in future actions. For each step, we elaborate on the lessons learnt and provide suggestions for future development and applications from the realisation of the transition management workshops in all four case studies.

In a post-Paris Agreement world, where global warming has been limited to 1.5 or 2 °C, adaptation is still needed to address the impacts of climate change. To reinforce the links between such climate actions and sustainable development, adaptation responses should be aligned with goals of environmental conservation, economic development and societal wellbeing. This paper uses a multi-sectoral integrated modelling platform to evaluate the impacts of a + 1.5 °C world to the end of the 21st century under alternative Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) for Europe. It evaluates the ability of adaptation strategies to concurrently improve a range of indicators, relating to sustainable development, under the constraints imposed by the contrasting SSPs. The spatial synergies and trade-offs between sustainable development indicators (SDIs) are also evaluated across Europe. We find that considerable impacts are present even under low-end climate change, affecting especially biodiversity. Even when the SDIs improve with adaptation, residual impacts of climate change affect all the SDIs, apart from sustainable production. All but one of the adaptation strategies have unintended consequences on one or multiple SDIs, although these differ substantially between strategies, regions and socio-economic scenarios. The exception was the strategy to increase social and human capital. Other strategies that lead to successful adaptation with limited unintended consequences are those aiming at adoption of sustainable behaviours and implementation of sustainable water management. This work stresses the continuing importance of adaptation even under 1.5 °C or 2 °C of global warming. Further, it demonstrates the need for policy-makers to develop holistic adaptation strategies that take account of the synergies and trade-offs between sectoral adaptation strategies, sectors and regions, and are also constrained by scenario context to avoid over-optimistic assessments.

The Paris Agreement established the 1.5 and 2 °C targets based on the recognition “that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”. We tested this assertion by comparing impacts at the regional scale between low-end (< 2 °C; RCP2.6) and high-end (> 4 °C; RCP8.5) climate change scenarios accounting for interactions across six sectors (agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, water, coasts and urban) using an integrated assessment model. Results show that there are only minor differences in most impact indicators for the 2020s time slice, but impacts are considerably greater under high-end than low-end climate change in the 2050s and 2080s. For example, for the 2080s, mitigation consistent with the Paris Agreement would reduce aggregate Europe-wide impacts on the area of intensive agriculture by 21% (on average across climate models), on the area of managed forests by 34%, on water stress by 14%, on people flooded by 10% and on biodiversity vulnerability by 16%. Including socio-economic scenarios (SSPs 1, 3, 4, 5) results in considerably greater variation in the magnitude, range and direction of change of the majority of impact indicators than climate change alone. In particular, socio-economic factors much more strongly drive changes in land use and food production than changes in climate, sometimes overriding the differences due to low-end and high-end climate change. Such impacts pose significant challenges for adaptation and highlight the importance of searching for synergies between adaptation and mitigation and linking them to sustainable development goals.

The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research. EEA Santa Cruz Fil: Saarikoski, Heli. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Primmer, Eeva. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Saarela, Sanna-Riikka. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Antunes, Paula. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research; Portugal Fil: Baró, Francesc. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology; España. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute; España Fil: Berry, Pam. University of Oxford. Environmental Change Institute; Gran Bretaña Fil: Garcia Blanko, Gemma. Fundación Tecnalia Research & Innovation. Energy and Environment Division. Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia; España Fil: Gómez-Baggethun, Erik. Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Department of International Environment and Development Studies; Noruega. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA); Noruega Fil: Carvalho, Lawrence. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Dick, Jan. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Dunford, Robert. University of Oxford. Environmental Change Institute; Gran Bretaña. Lancaster Environment Centre. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Hanzu, Mihail. Romanian National Institute for Research and Development in Silviculture; Rumania Fil: Harrison, Paula A. Lancaster Environment Centre. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Izakovicova, Zita. Slovak Academy of Science. Institute of Landscape Ecology; Eslovaquia Fil: Kertész, Miklós. Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Centre for Ecological Research. Institute of Ecology and Botany; Hungría Fil: Kopperoinen, Leena. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Köhler, Berit. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA); Noruega Fil: Langemeyer, Johannes. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institute of Environmental Science and Technology; España. Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute. Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability; España Fil: Lapola, David. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Center for Meteorological and Climatic Studies Applied to Agriculture (CEPAGRI); Brasil Fil: Liquete, Camino. Joint Research Centre (JRC). European Commission; Italia Fil: Luque, Sandra. National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture; Francia Fil: Mederly, Peter. Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Eslovaquia Fil: Niemelä, Jari. University of Helsinki. Department of Environmental Sciences; Finlandia Fil: Palomo, Ignacio. University of the Basque Country. Basque Centre for Climate Change; España. Fil: Martínez Pastur, Guillermo José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientificas; Argentina Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina Fil: Preda, Elena. University of Bucharest. Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability; Rumania Fil: Priess, Joerg A. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research; Alemania Fil: Santos, Rui Ferreira Dos. Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research; Portugal Fil: Schleyer, Christian. Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt. Institute of Social Ecology; Austria. University of Kassel. Section of International Agricultural Policy and Environmental Governance; Alemania Fil: Turkelboom, Francis. Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Bélgica Fil: Vadineanu, Angheluta. University of Bucharest. Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability; Rumania Fil: Verheyden, Wim. Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Bélgica Fil: Vikström, Suvi. Finnish Environment Institute; Finlandia Fil: Young, Juliette. Center for Ecology and Hydrology; Gran Bretaña Fil: Aszalós, Réka. Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research; Hungría

Making a strong case for biodiversity protection is central to meeting the biodiversity targets in international agreements such as the CBD and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Effective arguments are needed to convince diverse actors that protection is worthwhile, and can play a crucial role in closing the implementation gap between biodiversity policy targets and outcomes. Drawing on a database of arguments from 11 European case studies, along with additional interview and case study material from all 13 case studies of the BESAFE project, we analysed relationships between potential and observed effectiveness of arguments. Our results show that strong logic, robustness, and timing of arguments are necessary but not sufficient conditions for arguments to be effective. We find that use of multiple and diverse arguments can enhance effectiveness by broadening the appeal to wider audiences, especially when arguments are repeated and refined through constructive dialogue. We discuss the role of framing, bundling and tailoring arguments to audiences in increasing effectiveness. Our results provide further support for the current shift towards recognition of value pluralism in biodiversity science and decision-making. We hope our results will help to demonstrate more convincingly the value of biodiversity to stakeholders in decision processes and thus build better cases for its conservation.

The concept of ecosystem services is widely used in the scientific literature and increasingly also in policy and practice. Nevertheless, operationalising the concept, i.e. putting it into practice, is still a challenge. We describe the approach of the EU-project OpenNESS (Operationalisation of Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital), which was created in response to this challenge to critically evaluate the concept when applied to real world problems at different scales and in different policy sectors. General requirements for operationalization, the relevance of conceptual frameworks and lessons learnt from 27 case study applications are synthesized in a set of guiding principles. We also briefly describe some integrative tools as developed in OpenNESS which support the implementation of the principles. The guiding principles are grouped under three major headlines: “Defining the problem and opening up the problem space”, “Considering ethical issues” and “Assessing alternative methods, tools and actions”. Real world problems are often “wicked” problems, which at first are seldom clear-cut and well-defined, but often rather complex and subject to differing interpretations and interests. We take account of that complexity and emphasise that there is not one simple and straightforward way to approach real world problems involving ecosystem services. The principles and tools presented are meant to provide some guidance for tackling this complexity by means of a transdisciplinary methodology that facilitates the operationalisation of the ecosystem services concept.

Individual decision-makers at different governance levels operate in social contexts, which means that they sometimes need to compromise their personal values. Yet, this dissonance is rarely the direct target of empirical analyses of environmental decision-making. We undertake a Q-analysis of decision-makers' personal perspectives and the perspectives they perceive to dominate in their decision-making contexts. Our empirical analysis addresses biodiversity conservation, which has traditionally been justified with intrinsic value- and science-based arguments. The arguments have recently been broadened with the concept of ecosystem services, highlighting human benefits and values. This evolving context is interesting because of the new rise of anthropocentric values, which can lead to decision-makers experiencing dissonance. Our analysis of interviews with 43 biodiversity conservation decision-makers from nine European countries reveals four personally held perspectives that highlight different, yet partly overlapping, values – intrinsic, human benefit, conservation and connection – as well as three perspectives perceived to dominate in decision-making – utilitarian, insurance and knowledge values. The comparison of personally held and perceived dominant perspectives points to one major conflict: those decision-makers who personally associate with intrinsic values and perceive utilitarian values to dominate in decision-making experience dissonance. By contrast, personally held human benefit values are accommodated well in decision-making contexts and decision-makers who perceive insurance values to dominate experience the least conflict with personally held values. These findings demonstrate the potential of arguments stressing long-term benefits for easing tension and conflicts in conservation decision-making, and the usefulness of empirically testing of the coincidence of individual and social values.

Scenarios are a useful tool to explore possible futures of social-ecological systems. The number of scenarios has increased dramatically over recent decades, with a large diversity in temporal and spatial scales, purposes, themes, development methods, and content. Scenario archetypes generically describe future developments and can be useful in meaningfully classifying scenarios, structuring and summarizing the overwhelming amount of information, and enabling scientific outputs to more effectively interface with decision-making frameworks. The Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) faced this challenge and used scenario archetypes in its assessment of future interactions between nature and society. We describe the use of scenario archetypes in the IPBES Regional Assessment of Europe and Central Asia. Six scenario archetypes for the region are described in terms of their driver assumptions and impacts on nature (including biodiversity) and its contributions to people (including ecosystem services): Business-as-usual, economic optimism, regional competition, regional sustainability, global sustainable development, and inequality. The analysis shows that trade-offs between nature’s contributions to people are projected under different scenario archetypes. However, the means of resolving these trade-offs depend on differing political and societal value judgements within each scenario archetype. Scenarios that include proactive decision making on environmental issues, environmental management approaches that support multifunctionality, and mainstreaming environmental issues across sectors, are generally more successful in mitigating tradeoffs than isolated environmental policies. Furthermore, those scenario archetypes that focus on achieving a balanced supply of nature’s contributions to people and that incorporate a diversity of values are estimated to achieve more policy goals and targets, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi targets. The scenario archetypes approach is shown to be helpful in supporting science-policy dialogue for proactive decision making that anticipates change, mitigates undesirable trade-offs, and fosters societal transformation in pursuit of sustainable development, The authors are grateful to the IPBES Europe and Central Asia Expert Group and Technical Support Unit for all their input support, and collaboration over the past three years. Paula Harrison and Ian Holman acknowledge financial support from the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the EUfunded IMPRESSIONS project (Grant Agreement 603416). Martin Schlaepfer received support from ENVIROSPACE, University of Geneva. Antoine Guisan acknowledges additional funding from the University of Lausanne to support Anthony Sonrel's contribution to the assessment

Scenario-based approaches provide decision makers with accessible storylines of potential future changes. The parameterisation of such storylines as input variables for integrated assessment models allows using models as a test bed for assessing the effects of alternative land use policy options in different scenarios. However, the potential of this kind of policy-screening analysis can be further improved by assessing the institutional compatibility of the policy options under review. The aim of this paper is to explore the added value of combining institutions-oriented policy analyses with scenario-modelling approaches for improved assessments of EU land use policy options. We describe an expert-based, stepwise process to combine four scenario storylines and two integrated assessment model approaches (CLIMSAVE & IMAGE-GLOBIO) with a procedure for institutional compatibility assessment. Among the subsidies we assessed were those for technology-driven intensification of agricultural production, which would contribute to decreasing demand for cropland across a range of scenarios. In regionalised policy designs, they also contribute to ecological effectiveness, and higher costs of governing. Subsidies to promote biomass production can have negative effects on ecosystems including land conversion, conversion of grassland into cropland as well as conversion of natural forests into managed forests. These effects can to some extent be mitigated by careful policy design which considers the institutional context and features cross-sectoral coordination. An integrated Ecosystem Services Framework policy could accommodate regionalised policy designs and cross-sectoral coordination, however, it can operate only under specific circumstances and needs particular efforts. Rural development approaches are another alternative which feature expansion of cropland by means of a large-scale, bottom-up transformation based on voluntary changes in behaviour, flexibility, participation, and local and regional collaboration. Apart from a vast number of interdisciplinary lessons learned, we also gained insights from the science-policy interface. A weak EU appeared as a plausible scenario from a scientific perspective, given the current political environment. However, it appreaded to be unacceptable at EU level policy making. We decided to maintain scientific independence and looked at policy options also in the context of a weak EU yielding environmentally beneficial opportunities for regional decision making at the expense of relevance of our scenarios to EU level policy makers.

Climate change adaptation is a complex human process, framed by uncertainties and constraints, which is difficult to capture in existing assessment models. Attempts to improve model representations are hampered by a shortage of systematic descriptions of adaptation processes and their relevance to models. This paper reviews the scientific literature to investigate conceptualisations and models of climate change adaptation, and the ways in which representation of adaptation in models can be improved. The review shows that real-world adaptive responses can be differentiated along a number of dimensions including intent or purpose, timescale, spatial scale, beneficiaries and providers, type of action, and sector. However, models of climate change consequences for land use and water management currently provide poor coverage of these dimensions, instead modelling adaptation in an artificial and subjective manner. While different modelling approaches do capture distinct aspects of the adaptive process, they have done so in relative isolation, without producing improved unified representations. Furthermore, adaptation is often assumed to be objective, effective and consistent through time, with only a minority of models taking account of the human decisions underpinning the choice of adaptation measures (14%), the triggers that motivate actions (38%) or the time-lags and constraints that may limit their uptake and effectiveness (14%). No models included adaptation to take advantage of beneficial opportunities of climate change. Based on these insights, transferable recommendations are made on directions for future model development that may enhance realism within models, while also advancing our understanding of the processes and effectiveness of adaptation to a changing climate. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10113-018-1328-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Scenario analyses have been used in multiple science-policy assessments to better understand complex plausible futures. Scenario archetype approaches are based on the fact that many future scenarios have similar underlying storylines, assumptions, and trends in drivers of change, which allows for grouping of scenarios into typologies, or archetypes, facilitating comparisons between a large range of studies. The use of scenario archetypes in environmental assessments foregrounds important policy questions and can be used to codesign interventions tackling future sustainability issues. Recently, scenario archetypes were used in four regional assessments and one ongoing global assessment within the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The aim of these assessments was to provide decision makers with policy-relevant knowledge about the state of biodiversity, ecosystems, and the contributions they provide to people. This paper reflects on the usefulness of the scenario archetype approach within science-policy processes, drawing on the experience from the IPBES assessments. Using a thematic analysis of (a) survey data collected from experts involved in the archetype analyses across IPBES assessments, (b) notes from IPBES workshops, and (c) regional assessment chapter texts, we synthesize the benefits, challenges, and frontiers of applying the scenario archetype approach in a science-policy process. Scenario archetypes were perceived to allow syntheses of large amounts of information for scientific, practice-, and policy-related purposes, streamline key messages from multiple scenario studies, and facilitate communication of them to end users. In terms of challenges, they were perceived as subjective in their interpretation, oversimplifying information, having a limited applicability across scales, and concealing contextual information and novel narratives. Finally, our results highlight what methodologies, applications, and frontiers in archetype-based research should be explored in the future. These advances can assist the design of future large-scale sustainability-related assessment processes, aiming to better support decisions and interventions for equitable and sustainable futures. © 2019 by the author(s). Nadia Sitas, Ryan Blanchard, and Patrick O'Farrell were supported by SwedBio at Stockholm Resilience Centre funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Zuzana Harm??kov? and Reinette Biggs were supported by the GRAID programme funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). Reinette Biggs was also supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) (grant 98766) and the Swedish Research Council (grant 621-2014-5137). Eefje den Belder was funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands. Support to Paula A. Harrison was provided by UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the EU-funded IMPRESSIONS project (Grant Agreement 603416).

The complex interactions of drivers represented in scenarios and climate change impacts across scales have led to the development of multiscale scenarios. Since the recent development of global shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), which have started being downscaled to lower scales, the potential of scenarios to be relevant for decision making and facilitate appreciation and inclusion of different perspectives has been increasing, compared with a single-scale global scenario set. However, in practice, quantitative downscaling of global scenarios results in narratives that are compressed from the global level to fit the local context to enhance consistency between global and local scales. We brought forward the concept of scenario archetypes to analyze multiscale SSP scenario narratives and highlight important diverging assumptions within the same archetype. Our methodology applied scenario archetypes both as typologies, to allocate specific cases of scenarios into existing scenario archetypes, and building blocks, conceptualized with worldviews from cultural theory. Although global SSPs generally match existing archetypes and tend to be well defined, the socially unequal SSPs at subglobal scales are more nuanced, and dominant worldviews are much less straighforward to interpret than in global scenarios. The closest match was the great transition–sustainability (SSP1) archetype, whereas the most divergent was the market forces– fossil fuel development (SSP5) archetype. Overall, our results highlight the need to improve uptake of bottom-up approaches in global scenarios to improve appreciation of different perspectives as sought after in multiscale scenarios.

New European Union level scenarios have been developed in the FP7 project OpenNESS to fill a thematic gap in existing broad-scale environmental scenarios to assess the uncertainties and risks of different drivers of change for natural capital and ecosystem service provision. The scenarios are aiming at applicability for science and policy-making at different scales, including the European level and regional and local scales. The scenarios are going beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios, making broader assumptions in covering different types of ecosystem services, and different pathways of ecosystem services provision, including risks of ecosystem service losses. The main research question is addressing uncertainties and risks related to land-use change, exemplified via impacts on a provisioning and a regulating service. The approach is based on participatory scenario development and integrated modelling with the CLIMSAVE modelling framework. Four scenarios were developed (WealthBeing, UnitedWeStand, EcoCentre, RuralRevival). Simulations of the combinations of driving forces caused land-use changes up to +65% for forest, or −37% for grassland, both in UnitedWeStand. The most extreme changes highlighted here for scenario UnitedWeStand can mainly be attributed to the highest increase in irrigation efficiency (+58%) and crop yields (+50%), an almost constant human population in Europe (+1%), moderate increases in meat demands (+10%) and increasing food imports (+10%). In terms of ecosystem services provision, no clear winners and losers could be identified in the four scenarios, but rather different mixes of trade-offs and synergies. Thus, drivers within Europe as well as trade with land-intensive commodities and the policies steering them contribute to lower or increased pressures and risks of ecosystem services loss, e.g., on agricultural land in Europe and the countries of trading partners.

Editorial. The world is not yet on track to meet the Paris Agreement climate change target of keeping global average temperature rise within 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Current greenhouse gas emission trends point to much more substantial warming, with possible increases of 4 °C or more in the long-term. This Special Issue describes findings from the IMPRESSIONS project which advanced the understanding of impacts of high-end climate change (defined as global mean temperatures > 2 °C above pre-industrial levels) and potential solutions for reducing these impacts through adaptation, mitigation and transformative actions. With stakeholders, the project developed a set of integrated climate and socio-economic scenarios and applied these to multi-sectoral impact models in five case studies: Hungary, Scotland, Iberia, Europe as a whole and Central Asia. This showed that benefits in some regions and sectors, such as increasing forest productivity in northern Europe, are offset by detrimental effects in others, such as severe water scarcity, heat stress and loss of productivity in southern Europe and parts of central and eastern Europe, and widespread flood damage. Adaptation and mitigation pathways were generated with stakeholders to address these impacts and identify integrated and transformative solutions. These highlighted the importance of shifting to sustainable lifestyles, good governance for sustainability and climate resilience, and new forms of integrated and sustainable resource management. The stakeholder-led approach of IMPRESSIONS ensured that the research was driven by the priorities of decision-makers, enabling significant co-learning and the identification of robust, innovative and effective solutions for addressing high-end climate change.

The complex challenges arising from climate change that exceeds the +2 °C target (termed ‘high-end climate change’) in Europe require new integrative responses to support transformations to a more sustainable future. We present a novel methodology that combines transition management and high-end climate and socioeconomic change scenarios to identify pathways and move Europe closer to sustainability. Eighteen pathways have been co-created with stakeholders through a participatory process. The pathways support Europe in moving towards a desirable future vision, through top-down and bottom-up actions that lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce impacts of and vulnerabilities to climate and socioeconomic changes and enhance well-being. Analysis shows that the pathways that are robust to future scenario uncertainty are those that shift Europe towards sustainable lifestyles, support and strengthen good governance for sustainability and promote adaptive resource management for water, agriculture and energy. The methodology can support the design of the urgent actions needed to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement and to transform Europe, in preparation for an uncertain future.

Background: Debates over whether climate change could lead to the amplification of Lyme disease (LD) risk in the future have received much attention. Although recent large-scale disease mapping studies project an overall increase in Lyme disease risk as the climate warms, such conclusions are based on climate-driven models in which other drivers of change, such as land-use/cover and host population distribution, are less considered. Objectives: The main objectives were to project the likely future ecological risk patterns of LD in Europe under different assumptions about future socioeconomic and climate conditions and to explore similarity and uncertainty in the projected risks. Methods: An integrative, spatially explicit modeling study of the ecological risk patterns of LD in Europe was conducted by applying recent advances in process-based modeling of tick-borne diseases, species distribution mapping, and scenarios of land-use/cover change. We drove the model with stakeholder-driven, integrated scenarios of plausible future socioeconomic and climate change [the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSPs) combined with the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)]. Results: The model projections suggest that future temperature increases may not always amplify LD risk: Low emissions scenarios (RCP2.6) combined with a sustainability socioeconomic scenario (SSP1) resulted in reduced LD risk. The greatest increase in risk was projected under intermediate (RCP4.5) rather than high-end (RCP8.5) climate change scenarios. Climate and land-use change were projected to have different roles in shaping the future regional dynamics of risk, with climate warming being likely to cause risk expansion in northern Europe and conversion of forest to agriculture being likely to limit risk in southern Europe. Conclusions: Projected regional differences in LD risk resulted from mixed effects of temperature, land use, and host distributions, suggesting region-specific and cross-sectoral foci for LD risk management policy. The integrated model provides an improved explanatory tool for the system mechanisms of LD pathogen transmission and how pathogen transmission could respond to combined socioeconomic and climate changes. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP4615.

Uncertainties in our understanding of current and future climate change projections, impacts and vulnerabilities are structured by scientists using scenarios, which are generally in qualitative (narrative) and quantitative (numerical) forms. Although conceptually strong, qualitative and quantitative scenarios have limited complementarity due to the lack of a fundamental bridge between two different concepts of uncertainty: linguistic and epistemic. Epistemic uncertainty is represented by the range of scenarios and linguistic variables within them, while linguistic uncertainty is represented by the translation of those linguistic variables via the fuzzy set approach. Both are therefore incorporated in the models that utilise the final quantifications. The application of this method is demonstrated in a stakeholder-led development of socioeconomic scenarios. The socio-economic scenarios include several vague elements due to heterogeneous linguistic interpretations of future change on the part of stakeholders. We apply the so-called ‘Centre of Gravity’ (CoG) operator to defuzzify the quantifications of linguistic values provided by stakeholders. The results suggest that, in these cases, uniform distributions provide a close fit to the membership functions derived from ranges of values provided by stakeholders. As a result, the 90% or 95% intervals of the probability density functions are similar to the 0.1 or 0.05 degrees of membership of the linguistic values of linguistic variables. By bridging different uncertainty concepts (linguistic and epistemic uncertainties), this study offers a substantial step towards linking qualitative and quantitative scenarios.

In the version of this Perspective originally published, the footnote of Table 1 incorrectly described the meanings of symbols in the table, and the tick marks paired with obeli symbols should have been + signs. The symbols have been amended, as has the footnote, which now reads “Tick marks indicate recommendations made to address the issue in the indicated column; + signs indicate benefits to additional issues”. The online versions of the Perspective have been corrected.

Given the concern about biodiversity loss, there are a number of arguments used for biodiversity conservation ranging from those emphasising the intrinsic value of biodiversity to those on the direct use value of ecosystems. Yet arguing the case for biodiversity conservation effectively requires an understanding of why people value biodiversity. We used Q methodology to explore and understand how different conservation practitioners (social and natural science researchers, environmental non-Governmental organisations and decision-makers) in nine European countries argue for conservation. We found that there was a plurality of views about biodiversity and its conservation. A moral argument and some arguments around the intrinsic and ecological value of biodiversity were held by all stakeholder groups. They also shared the view that species valuation does not justify the destruction of nature. However, there were also some differences within and between the groups, which primarily reflected the espousal of either ecocentric or anthropocentric viewpoints. Our findings suggest that moral arguments and those around biodiversity’s intrinsic and ecological value could potentially serve as a starting point for building consensus among conservation practitioners.

Climate change impact assessments often apply models of individual sectors such as agriculture, forestry and water use without considering interactions between these sectors. This is likely to lead to misrepresentation of impacts, and consequently to poor decisions about climate adaptation. However, no published research assesses the differences between impacts simulated by single-sector and integrated models. Here we compare 14 indicators derived from a set of impact models run within single-sector and integrated frameworks across a range of climate and socio-economic scenarios in Europe. We show that single-sector studies misrepresent the spatial pattern, direction and magnitude of most impacts because they omit the complex interdependencies within human and environmental systems. The discrepancies are particularly pronounced for indicators such as food production and water exploitation, which are highly influenced by other sectors through changes in demand, land suitability and resource competition. Furthermore, the discrepancies are greater under different socio-economic scenarios than different climate scenarios, and at the sub-regional rather than Europe-wide scale.

To prevent further loss of our vital ecosystem services we must understand the linkages to their supporting natural capital attributes. Systematic literature reviews synthesise evidence of natural capital attribute to ecosystem service (NC-ES) linkages. However, such reviews rarely account for the context dependency of evidence that is derived from individual studies undertaken for a particular purpose, at a specific spatial scale or geographic location. To address this deficiency, we developed the LiNCAGES (Linking Natural Capital Attribute Groups to Ecosystem Services) platform for investigating the context dependency of literature-based evidence for NC-ES linkages. We demonstrate the application of the LiNCAGES platform using the OpenNESS systematic literature review of NC-ES linkages. A hypothetical use case scenario of a small-scale European forest manager is described. We find evidence for many NC-ES linkages, and trade-offs and synergies between services, is severely diminished or non-existent under certain contexts, such as larger spatial scales and European study location. The LiNCAGES platform provides a flexible tool that researchers can use to support collation, exploration and synthesis of literature-based evidence on NC-ES linkages. This is vital for providing credible and salient evidence to stakeholders on important NC-ES linkages that occur under their context, to guide effective management strategies.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T16:50:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-02-01 The Ecosystem Services (ES) concept highlights the varied contributions the environment provides to humans and there are a wide range of methods/tools available to assess ES. However, in real-world decision contexts a single tool is rarely sufficient and methods must be combined to meet practitioner needs. Here, results from the OpenNESS project are presented to illustrate the methods selected to meet the needs of 24 real-world case studies and better understand why and how methods are combined to meet practical needs. Results showed that within the cases methods were combined to: i) address a range of ES; ii) assess both supply and demand of ES; iii) assess a range of value types; iv) reach different stakeholder groups v) cover weaknesses in other methods used and vi) to meet specific decision context needs. Methods were linked in a variety of ways: i) as input–output chains of methods; ii) through learning; iii) through method development and iv) through comparison/triangulation of results. The paper synthesises these case study-based experiences to provide insight to others working in practical contexts as to where, and in what contexts, different methods can be combined and how this can add value to case study analyses. Environmental Change Institute, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford Centre for Ecology and Hydrology Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bush Estate Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Gaustadalléen 21 Leuphana University of Lüneburg Faculty of Sustainability Institute of Ethics and Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research, Scharnhorststraβe 1 Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG Ltd.), Rómer Flóris u. 38. Department of Decision Sciences Corvinus University of Budapest, Fővám tér 8. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Kliniekstraat 25 Finnish Environment Institute, P.O. Box 140 Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Permoserstraße 15 CoKnow Consulting – Coproducing Knowledge for Sustainability CENSE – Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa Institute of Ecology and Botany Centre for Ecological Research Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Alkotmány u. 2-4 National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry “Marin Dracea”, Eroilor Blvd 128 Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Edifici Z (ICTA-ICP), Carrer de les Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, 57 rue Cuvier, Paris Cedex 05 Urban Environment and Territorial Sustainability Area Energy and Environment Dividision Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia C/Geldo, Edificio 700 University of Bucharest – Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability, Splaiul Independentei 91-95 Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), P.O. Box 5003 European Commission – Joint Research Centre (JRC), Via E. Fermi 2749 Institute of Landscape Ecology Slovak Academy of Sciences, Štefánikova 3 IRSTEA National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture UMR TETIS, 500 rue JF Breton UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista Ecology Department – LabTerra, Av.24-A, 1515 CEP Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC CONICET), Houssay 200, Ushuaia (9140) IBRAD (Indian Institute of Bio Social Research and Development), VIP Road, Kestopur, Prafulla Kanan Department of Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 65, FI-00014 University of Helsinki Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI), P.O.Box 20412-0200 Basque Centre for Climate Change, Alameda de Urquijo 4 INCLINE – Interdisciplinary Climate Change Research Group Instituto de Astronomia e Geofísica USP – Universidade de São Paulo, R. do Matão, 1226 – Butantã Wageningen University & Research – Marine (WUR), P.O.Box 57 IRIDRA, Via La Marmora Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) PRBB, Carrer Doctor Aiguader 88 UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista Ecology Department – LabTerra, Av.24-A, 1515 CEP

Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T17:17:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-02-01 The operational challenges of integrated ecosystem service (ES) appraisals are determined by study purpose, system complexity and uncertainty, decision-makers’ requirements for reliability and accuracy of methods, and approaches to stakeholder–science interaction in different decision contexts. To explore these factors we defined an information gap hypothesis, based on a theory of cumulative uncertainty in ES appraisals. When decision context requirements for accuracy and reliability increase, and the expected uncertainty of the ES appraisal methods also increases, the likelihood of methods being used is expected to drop, creating a potential information gap in governance. In order to test this information gap hypothesis, we evaluate 26 case studies and 80 ecosystem services appraisals in a large integrated EU research project. We find some support for a decreasing likelihood of ES appraisal methods coinciding with increasing accuracy and reliability requirements of the decision-support context, and with increasing uncertainty. We do not find that information costs are the explanation for this information gap, but rather that the research project interacted mostly with stakeholders outside the most decision-relevant contexts. The paper discusses how alternative definitions of integrated valuation can lead to different interpretations of decision-support information, and different governance approaches to dealing with uncertainty. Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Gaustadalléen 21 Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG Ltd.), Rómer Flóris u.38 Department of Decision Sciences Corvinus University of Budapest, Fővám tér 8 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bush Estate, Penicuik Leuphana University of Lüneburg Faculty of Sustainability Institute of Ethics and Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research, Scharnhorststraβe 1 Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), P.O. Box 5003, N-1432 Ås Research Group Nature and Society Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Kliniekstraat 25 Wageningen University and Research Environmental Research (Alterra), P.O. Box 47 ENVS Aarhus University Department of Applied Research and Agricultural Extension Madrid Institute for Rural Agricultural and Food Research and Development (IMIDRA) Ctra. Madrid-Barcelona (N-II), KM. 38.200, 28802 Alcalá de Henares Finnish Environment Institute, P.O. Box 140 Environmental Change Institute, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Postboks 5685 Torgarden Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) Scientific Campus of the University of the Basque Country, Sede Building 1, 1st Floor Department of Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 65, FI-00014 University of Helsinki Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Edifici Z (ICTA-ICP), Carrer de les Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès Wageningen University and Research Marine Research (IMARES), P.O. Box 57, 1780 AB, Den Helder, Wageningen Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Tr. A. Hlinku 1 Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Permoserstraße 15 National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture IRSTEA UMR TETIS, 500 rue JF BRETON CENSE – Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI), P.O. Box 20412-0200 Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC CONICET), Houssay 200, Ushuaia (9140) Tierra del Fuego Fundación Tecnalia Research & Innovation Energy and Environment Division Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia C/Geldo, Edificio 700 National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry “Marin Dracea”, Eroilor Blvd 128 Institute of Ecology and Botany MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Alkotmány u. 2-4. IRIDRA Srl, Via La Marmora, 51 University of Bucharest – Research Center in Systems Ecology and Sustainability, Splaiul Independentei 91-95 IBRAD (Indian Institute of Bio Social Research and Development), VIP Road, Kestopur, Prafulla Kanan UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista Ecology Department – LabTerra, Av.24-A, 1515 CEP, 13506-900 UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista Ecology Department – LabTerra, Av.24-A, 1515 CEP, 13506-900

Controlling tick bites on farmers is important to the management of tick‐borne diseases and occupational health risks in agriculture. Based on an extensive household survey conducted between June and August 2015 with 219 farmers from western Hungary where tick‐borne diseases are endemic, we analysed the pattern of farmers' self‐reported contacts with ticks and investigated the potential interactions between farmers, landscape and the risk of exposure to tick bites. We developed a lifestyle typology based on farmers' socioeconomic profiles, farming objectives and time use patterns, and a habitat typology describing different configurations of tick habitats and agricultural areas in place of farming. We found no relationship between tick exposure risk and self‐prevention. The lifestyle typology could be used to classify the risk of tick bites and the adoption of prevention measures into different levels, the difference between which could further be modified by the habitat typology. Our results suggest that (i) farmers who are frequently engaged in outdoor recreations and (ii) part‐time and inexperienced farmers who have lower rate of preventive actions are likely to experience greater exposure to tick bites either in less cultivated, semi‐natural habitats or in agricultural landscape with highly diverse land uses. Future disease prevention practices should take into consideration the interaction of lifestyle and habitat and the need to associate different farmer groups with different landscape configurations.

A range of methods are available for assessing ecosystem services. Methods differ in their aims; from mapping and modelling the supply and demand of ecosystem services to appraising their economic and non-economic importance through valuation techniques. Comprehensive guidance for the selection of appropriate ecosystem service assessment methods that address the requirements of different decision-making contexts is lacking. This paper tackles this gap using the experience from 27 case studies which applied different biophysical, socio-cultural and monetary valuation methods to operationalise the ecosystem service concept towards sustainable land, water and urban management. A survey of the reasons why the case study teams selected particular methods revealed that stakeholder-oriented reasons, such as stakeholder participation, inclusion of local knowledge and ease of communication, and decision-oriented reasons, such as the purpose of the case study and the ecosystem services at stake, were key considerations in selecting a method. Pragmatic reasons such as available data, resources and expertise were also important factors. This information was used to develop a set of linked decision trees, which aim to provide guidance to researchers and practitioners in choosing ecosystem service assessment methods that are suitable for their context.