Does cadastral division of area-based ecosystem services obstruct comprehensive management?

Soil “Ecosystem” Services and Natural Capital: Critical Appraisal of Research on Uncertain Ground

“…Schouten et al (1997), for example, opine that most "life support functions" of soils "stem from activities of soil organisms, " and the literature is replete with rewordings of the same theme (e.g., Wall et al, 2004;Wall, 2012;Wall and Nielsen, 2012). From this perspective, maps of soil biodiversity are often argued to provide useful information on soil services.…”

“…Land-based ecosystems are made up of many small pieces of land, each belonging to a different landowner. As pointed out, e.g., by Vejre et al (2015), "the mismatch between legal units and ecological phenomena" causes practical difficulties when one is trying to deal with the management of many ecosystem services. In particular, if one ever got to the point of paying individual landowners directly for the services provided by their land, it would be necessary to figure out what each parcel or "cadastral unit" of land is contributing, i.e., what each owner is entitled to receive.…”

Use of ecological indicators in models

“…Their approach aims at dealing with complex systems by looking at inherent multiple causal chains and to guarantee a system's long-term functionality. Cadastral division of landscapes in relation to ecosystem service supply were analysed in three landscapes of western Denmark by Vejre et al (2015). They found that cadastral units determine ecological modelling attempts and that a large number of land owners has effects on ecosystem service management.…”

Is the Focus on “Ecosystems” a Liability in the Research on Nature's Services?

“…To make the field of nature's services relevant to these farmers, the discourse would have to be at the scale of cadastral units that is relevant to them, and would have to deal with issues, often focused on soils, about which they are directly concerned. In that context, one could argue that the "mismatch between legal units and ecological phenomena" (Vejre et al, 2015) that characterizes much of the literature in the field, may be one of the root causes of the documented slow progression from theory to practice in the economic valuation and management of ecosystem services (Laurans et al, 2013;Laurans and Mermet, 2014). That there is enormous room for improvement in this respect is underscored particularly clearly by the recently published research of Watson and Newton (2018).…”