A B S T R A C TWe are increasingly confronted with severe social and economic impacts of environmental degradation all over the world. From a valuation perspective, environmental problems and conflicts originate from trade-offs http://dx.Ecosystem Services (xxxx) xxxx-xxxx 2212-0416/ Ecosystem services Intrinsic value Benefits of nature Quality of life Participation Social and environmental justice Decision supportbetween values. The urgency and importance to integrate nature's diverse values in decisions and actions stand out more than ever.Valuation, in its broad sense of 'assigning importance', is inherently part of most decisions on natural resource and land use. Scholars from different traditions -while moving from heuristic interdisciplinary debate to applied transdisciplinary science-now acknowledge the need for combining multiple disciplines and methods to represent the diverse set of values of nature. This growing group of scientists and practitioners share the ambition to explore how combinations of ecological, socio-cultural and economic valuation tools can support real-life resource and land use decision-making.The current sustainability challenges and the ineffectiveness of single-value approaches to offer relief demonstrate that continuing along a single path is no option. We advocate for the adherence of a plural valuation culture and its establishment as a common practice, by contesting and complementing ineffective and discriminatory single-value approaches. In policy and decision contexts with a willingness to improve sustainability, integrated valuation approaches can be blended in existing processes, whereas in contexts of power asymmetries or environmental conflicts, integrated valuation can promote the inclusion of diverse values through action research and support the struggle for social and environmental justice.The special issue and this editorial synthesis paper bring together lessons from pioneer case studies and research papers, synthesizing main challenges and setting out priorities for the years to come for the field of integrated valuation.
Individuals, communities, and societies ascribe a diverse array of values to landscapes. These values are shaped by the aesthetic, cultural, and recreational benefits and services provided by those landscapes. However, across the globe, processes such as urbanization, agricultural intensification, and abandonment are threatening landscape integrity, altering the personally meaningful connections people have toward specific places. Existing methods used to study landscape values, such as social surveys, are poorly suited to capture dynamic landscape-scale processes across large geographic extents. Social media data, by comparison, can be used to indirectly measure and identify valuable features of landscapes at a regional, continental, and perhaps even worldwide scale. We evaluate the usefulness of different social media platformsPanoramio, Flickr, and Instagram-and quantify landscape values at a continental scale. We find Panoramio, Flickr, and Instagram data can be used to quantify landscape values, with features of Instagram being especially suitable due to its relatively large population of users and its functional ability of allowing users to attach personally meaningful comments and hashtags to their uploaded images. Although Panoramio, Flickr, and Instagram have different user profiles, our analysis revealed similar patterns of landscape values across Europe across the three platforms. We also found variables describing accessibility, population density, income, mountainous terrain, or proximity to water explained a significant portion of observed variation across data from the different platforms. Social media data can be used to extend our understanding of how and where individuals ascribe value to landscapes across diverse social, political, and ecological boundaries.cross-cultural analysis | volunteered geolocated content | outdoor recreation and leisure | cultural ecosystem services | European landscape
Since the 1950s, intensification and scale enlargement of agriculture have changed agricultural landscapes across Europe. The intensification and scale enlargement of farming was initially driven by the large-scale application of synthetic fertilizers, mechanization and subsidies of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Then, after the 1990s, a further intensification and scale enlargement, and land abandonment in less favored areas was caused by globalization of commodity markets and CAP reforms. The landscape changes during the past six decades have changed the flows and values of ecosystem services. Here, we have reviewed the literature on agricultural policies and management, landscape structure and composition, and the contribution of ecosystem services to regional competitiveness. The objective was to define an analytical framework to determine and assess ecosystem services at the landscape scale. In contrast to natural ecosystems, ecosystem service flows and values in agricultural landscapes are often a result of interactions between agricultural management and ecological structures. We describe how land management by farmers and other land managers relates to landscape structure and composition. We also examine the influence of commodity markets and policies on the behavior of land managers. Additionally, we studied the influence of consumer demand on flows and values of the ecosystem services that originate from the agricultural landscape.
Aesthetic enjoyment and perception are increasingly recognized as important values of cultural landscapes. The study of these values transcends mere physical attributes of the landscape and requires assessment of its social meaning. In recent years the usage of social media has gained momentum to study the aesthetic preferences and perception of the environment. However, until now the different approaches have not yet been sufficiently combined to provide more in depth understanding of what attracts people in the landscape We propose a robust methodology using social media photos from Flickr and Panoramio to estimate the correlation between landscape attributes and landscape preferences. We combine formal modeling of spatial photo distribution based on the occurrence of landscape elements with content analysis of the photos to pinpoint what it is in a landscape that attracts people. We use the Kromme Rijn Area-a peri-urban area in the center of the Netherlands and a popular recreation area-as case study area. The analysis shows that this area is appreciated by its visitors and residents for the presence of monumental buildings, small water bodies and opportunities for hikes along grasslands. The method successfully linked the structural elements of the landscape with the revealed preferences, providing a way of quantifying the appreciation of the landscape. Qualitative surveys remain essential to study motivations for outdoor recreation, but social media data can be incorporated as evidence of what elements of the landscape are valued, where people are interacting with the landscape, and how these interactions characterize a landscape.
Stated preference studies are increasingly employed to estimate the value of attributes of European agrarian landscapes and changes therein. Despite the vast amount of case studies, preferences for landscape attributes are context specific, which inhibits cross-case comparison and up-scaling. In this study, we address this problem by applying a meta-analysis of stated preference studies that focus on attributes of European agrarian landscapes (n = 345). The main objective of this study is to identify generic preferences for particular types of landscape attributes across case studies. In addition, landscape context variables that explain preference heterogeneity between different cases that address similar landscape attributes are identified. We find that landscape attributes that describe mosaic land cover, historic buildings or the presence of livestock generally receive the highest stated preferences across cases. Furthermore, we find relations between preferences for particular attributes and context variables-such as population density and GDP per capita-using a meta-regression analysis. The results of the present study provide the first cross-disciplinary and cross-case evidence on relations between preferences for landscape attributes and socioeconomic and landscape context conditions. The study is a first step toward up-scaling of landscape preferences and the development social landscape indicators that reflect the perceived value of landscapes at regional and pan-regional scales, which is increasingly important as landscape policies are progressively implemented at European level. 2.2. Search protocol and selection criteria This study analyzed empirical studies (n = 51; see S1 in the Supplementary material) that focus on stated landscape preferences for a set of landscape attributes. Every preference estimate for a landscape attribute stated by a defined group of beneficiaries in a defined case study area was treated as a unique case in the database, resulting in 345 cases. The case study areas in the database range from local to national scale and all studies were published between 1993 and 2013. The studies were retrieved by keyword search using the search engines ISI * Statistically significant at 10 ** Statistically significant at 5%.
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