Assessing the Impact of Landscape Development on Ecosystem Services Value in Tropical Watershed

Conceptual Framework of Ecosystem Services in Landscape Planning, Malaysia

“…Meanwhile, there were also studies related to ecosystem services but mainly focused on the practice of green infrastructure assessment, conceptualization, pricing (Netusil et al, 2014;Tzoulas et al, 2007;Weber et al, 2006) and management in agro-environment (Tscharntke et al, 2005). Until recently, little attention has been given to restoration and sustainable development in landscape and urban planning (Blignaut et al, 2014;De Groot et al, 2010;Foo and Hashim, 2014;Frank et al, 2012). Despite the uptrend of publications related to ecosystem goods and services in different fields, however, one domain still need more attention is the assessment and valuation of ecosystem services to ameliorate trade-offs and enhance synergy in landscape and urban planning that can contribute to future sustainable growth and development trajectories.…”

“…According to Lyytimäki and Sipilä (2009) environmental damages in developing countries are caused by the economic interests, and this phenomenon is reflected in Malaysia at the tropical region. Unrestrained development such as land conversion from forest to agriculture, infrastructures and housing has appeared to degrade the condition of ecosystem in sustaining life on Earth (Foo and Hashim, 2014). More critically, rapid development and urbanization has continually inducing changed in ecological functions and processes of natural capital (Shrestha et al, 2012).…”

“…Malaysia has shown a gradual improvement in term of education, economic growth, environment quality, social and recreation opportunity, health and safety (EPU, 2012). But there are still growing evidences such as inappropriate planning of land-use and build environment has contributed to calamity such as flood and erosion (Foo and Hashim, 2014;Tan-Soo et al, 2014) and raises in energy consumption and CO2 emission (Bari et al, 2011;Hosseini et al, 2013;Safaai et al, 2010). This means, the imperativeness of natural capital in Malaysia is still inadequate, as the benefits of ecosystems services supplied still not being widely recognized.…”

“…As asserted by previous literature and syntheses of ecosystem services, assess the ecosystem within local boundary offer better opportunity to reveal the richness of biodiversity and produce a more accurate mapping that will benefits policy maker in conservation practice and contributing to the global ecosystem (Foo and Hashim, 2014;Seidl and Moraes, 2000). Secondly, the landscape of the small towns should consist both urban and rural characteristics as suggested by Haase et al, (2014).…”