Analyzing riparian zone ecosystem services bundles to instruct river management

Abstract

The ecosystem service framework is now well accepted for focussing management strategies to preserve and restore ecosystems. Its implementation remains challenging, however, due to the environment's complexity and dynamics that interfere with ecosystems' ability to provide the services. Here, we question whether we can show where and how to intervene in riparian corridors to restore specific ecosystem services without endangering others. Specific hypotheses in this context are for the spatial aggregation of ecosystem services delivered by riparian corridors with respect to naturalness (1), to the existence of bundles of ecosystem services (2), and finally for the scale sensitivity of this congruence (3). Within a Geographical Information System framework, we analyse the capacity of riparian corridors to provide ecosystem services over three river basins in the Bresse region (France) based on high-resolution data of the riparian corridor hydromorphology and land use. Specifically, we compare the capacity to provide two services: in-stream water purification and riparian retention of nutrients that are critical goals for river management and rehabilitation strategies. We observe little spatial association and high spatial variability for the two emphasized ecosystem services. Surprisingly, no congruence of ecosystem services with riparian corridor naturalness is present. The absence of associations between ecosystem services and their spatial variability will oblige environmental managers to identify underpinning environmental processes and patterns at local scales. In conclusion, we plead for fine-grained multifunctional assessment of ecosystems' capacity to deliver services, especially in environments such as river corridors that exhibit high environmental heterogeneity.

A new method for assessing river ecosystem services and its application to rivers in Scotland with and without nature conservation designations

“…Unlike Large and Gilvear (), the approach did not allow scenario generation for how habitat restoration could bring about improvements to ecosystem services. Quantification of spatial variability in a small number of ecosystem system services provided by riparian zones with differing habitat characteristics at the river network scale has been achieved (Van Looy et al, ) but not specifically in relation to nature conservation designation.…”

“…Few studies have systematically quantified the ecosystem service potential of whole river ecosystems. A number have targeted only single services, such as nitrogen retention (Grizzetti, Bouraoui, & De Marsily, ; Lautenbach et al, ; Natho, Venohr, Henle, & Schulz‐Zunkel, ); water quality (Van Looy, Tormos, Souchon, & Gilvear, ); water provision (Notter, Hurni, Wiesmann, & Abbaspour, ) and flood regulation (Fu, Wang, Xu, & Yan, ; Thomas & Nisbet, ). There remains a paucity of tools to assess and quantify the ecosystem services generated by often complex river reaches and stream networks (Hanna, Tomscha, Ouellet Dallaire, & Bennett, ).…”

Assessing land use and flood management impacts on ecosystem services in a river landscape (Upper Danube, Germany)

“…Such information could provide useful information to support policy and management of rivers and floodplains regarding where and when interventions should be targeted. For assessing such relationships, recent research has begun to assess interdependencies between different ES (Keele et al, 2019; Large & Gilvear, 2015), between ES and spatial parameters, and to identify bundles of ES depending on similar conditions (Raudsepp‐Hearne, Peterson, & Bennett, 2010; van der Biest et al, 2014; Van Looy, Tormos, Souchon, & Gilvear, 2017). The effect of temporal parameters like natural periodical fluctuations or management aspects on ES in river landscapes and the challenge of integrating them into landscape planning was demonstrated by Bastian, Grunewald, and Syrbe (2012).…”

Quantifying the contribution of riparian soils to the provision of ecosystem services

“…Ecosystem service-based approaches have been increasingly used to reduce pressure on natural resources and implement better land-management practices with respect to the environment (Van Looy et al, 2017). Riparian areas, the interface between land and freshwater ecosystems, are considered to play a pivotal role in the supply of regulating, provisioning, cultural and supporting services (Jones et al, 2010;Clerici et al, 2011;Aguiar et al, 2015).…”