Building a Sustainable and Desirable Economy-in-Society-in-Nature

A review of methods, data, and models to assess changes in the value of ecosystem services from land degradation and restoration

“…Ecosystems contribute to human wellbeing in a number of complex ways at multiple scales of space and time (Costanza and Daly, 1992;MEA, 2005;Dasgupta, 2008;Lal, 2012;UNEP, 2012;Costanza et al, 2013). Ecosystem services, including agricultural products, clean air, fresh water, disturbance regulation, climate regulation, recreational opportunities, and fertile soils are jeopardized by the effects of land degradation, and it is a global phenomenon (Walker et al, 2002;Foley et al, 2005;MEA, 2005;UNEP, 2012;Von Braun et al, 2013).…”

“…The identification of sustainable management strategies on both farm and landscape levels could be facilitated by the development of integrated decision tools. This could be, for instance, sound cost-benefit frameworks (ELD-Initiative, 2013) accompanied by modeling and simulation techniques that enable the creation and evaluation of scenarios of alternative futures and other decision tools to address this gap Costanza et al, 2006Costanza et al, , 2013Jarchow et al, 2012).…”

“…The overall development goal of sustainable human well-being cannot be measured in the mere growth of the market economy (Costanza et al, 2013). To obtain sustainable well-being through improved land management depends on the interaction of four basic types of capital assets: built, human, social, and natural.…”

The ecological economics of land degradation: Impacts on ecosystem service values

“…Approximately 60% of that is agricultural land use (Ellis et al, 2010;Foley et al, 2011). Ecosystems, including those from agricultural land, contribute to human well-being in a number of complex ways at multiple scales of space and time (Costanza and Daly, 1992;MEA, 2005, Dasgupta, 2008Lal, 2012;UNEP, 2012;Costanza et al, 2013). Land degradation reduces the productivity of these ecosystems (Lal, 1997;MEA, 2005;DeFries et al, 2012) and results in "the reduction in the economic value of ecosystem services and goods derived from land as a result of anthropogenic activities or natural biophysical evolution" (ELD-Initiative, 2013).…”

“…However, they lack the decision-making tools to develop robust and effective solutions to the problem. Modeling and simulation techniques enable the creation and evaluation of scenarios of alternative futures and decision tools to address this gap (Farley and Costanza, 2002;Costanza et al, 2006Costanza et al, , 2013Jarchow et al, 2012).…”