Ecosystem services and associated concepts

Dick, Jan; Smith, R. I.; Scott, E. Marian

doi:10.1002/env.1085

Cited by 38 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…Reviews of the scientific literature on the benefits of ecosystems services to human society have reported an exponential growth in research effort (Cornell, 2010;Vihervaara et al, 2010;Dick et al, 2011a;Seppelt et al, 2011). Currently a special emphasis has been put on mapping ecosystem services (Maes et al, 2012;Reyers et al, 2009), with particular interest on the possibilities to link services with remote information on land use types (Burkhard et al, 2009;Metzger, 2006), and on management challenges related to tradeoffs between services that may cause unintentional decline of some services when the others are promoted by specific policy interventions (DEFRA, 2007;Hanson et al, 2008) that can result in substantial economic loses (de Groot, 2010;Troy, Wilson, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosytem Services: A Rapid Assessment Method Tested at 35 Sites of the LTER-Europe Network

Dick¹,

Al-Assaf²,

Andrews³

et al. 2014

Ekologia

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Vihervaara P.: Ecosystem services: a rapid assessment method tested at 35 sites of the LTER-Europe network. Ekológia (Bratislava), Vol. 33, No. 3, p. 217-231, 2014.The identification of parameters to monitor the ecosystem services delivered at a site is fundamental to the concept's adoption as a useful policy instrument at local, national and international scales. In this paper we (i) describe the process of developing a rapid comprehensive ecosystem service assessment methodology and (ii) test the applicability of the protocol at 35 long-term research (LTER) sites across 14 countries in the LTER-Europe network (www.lter-europe.net) including marine, urban, agricultural, forest, desert and conservation sites. An assessment of probability of occurrence with estimated confidence score using 83 ecosystem service parameters was tested. The parameters were either specific services like food production or proxies such as human activities which were considered surrogates for cultural diversity and economic activity. This initial test of the ecosystem service parameter list revealed that the parameters tested were relatively easy to score by site managers with a high level of certainty (92% scored as either occurring or not occu-

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosytem Services: A Rapid Assessment Method Tested at 35 Sites of the LTER-Europe Network

Dick¹,

Al-Assaf²,

Andrews³

et al. 2014

Ekologia

Self Cite

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“…Farber et al 2002;Jack et al 2008;Dick et al 2011;Braat & de Groot 2012;Milcu et al 2013;Howe et al 2014;Martinez-Harms et al 2015).…”

Section: The Ecosystem Services Conceptunclassified

“…Cultural and social values contribute to whether policy driven management actions are adopted or not (Pannell et al 2006) and value sets are not universal -individuals and groups of people perceive and value benefits differently from each other and through time (Turner & Daily 2008;Dick et al 2011). Thus, there is a need to better understand the perceived and/or experienced benefits and associated values attributable to management actions at the property scale alongside the quantification of the full range of service flow resulting from these actions.…”

Section: Quantification and Valuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, human communities, and the individuals within them, do not universally share the same value sets, and can experience different benefits from the same ecosystem services (Turner & Daily 2008;Dick et al 2011). Understanding what benefits and values (and thus 'relative advantage') may be perceived and/or experienced by particular groups of people (e.g.…”

Section: Research Overview and Thesis Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent decades there has been an increase in ecosystem services research (Fisher et al 2009;Dick et al 2011;Martinez-Harms et al 2015) and, even more recently, a growing recognition of the importance of natural capital stocks for the provision of ecosystem services (Bristow et al 2010;Dasgupta 2010;Dominati et al 2010;Bateman et al 2011;Daily et al 2011;Mace et al 2011;Robinson et al 2013;Barbier 2014). Framing the ecosystem services concept to recognise the critical role of natural capital has clarified how ecosystem services are derived and has been a crucial step in shifting ecosystem services thinking from the conceptual to the operational.…”

Section: Research Overview and Thesis Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Applying ecosystem services thinking to natural resource management and conservation decision making

Maseyk¹

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As global consumption increases, there is a growing emphasis on the production of food and the use of other resources necessary for life. Consequently, many ecosystems are stressed because their ability to produce market goods is favoured over other critical functions and services that ecosystems provide such as energy transfer, water regulation, nutrient filtering, and carbon sequestration. Capturing these benefits using ecosystem services thinking offers decision makers a methodology for considering the multiple benefits that ecosystems provide. However, gaps in our understanding of how we can make the ecosystem services concept operational remain.Recognising the relationship between natural capital stocks and the provision of ecosystem processes and services is a crucial step in operationalising ecosystem services thinking. I advance this concept by identifying that attributes of natural capital are not uniform in their amenability to change. Hence, the central tenet of this thesis is that management actions targeted at manageable attributes of natural capital stocks is effective for influencing provision of ecosystem services and benefits.I test how management practices influence natural capital stocks that contribute to the provision of required ecosystem services, using a 'provider group' approach. Provider groups are sets of species which exhibit attributes which contribute to ecosystem services and benefits. The traditionally farmed grassland system in the Southeastern Carpathians, Romania, is a good example of a multifunctional landscape providing provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services and thus a useful case study to test this approach. I assigned grassland plant species to provider groups (quality fodder, medical and aromatic compounds, honey, pollen, nitrogen fixation, and conservation concern) based on their characteristics and tested the impact of management practices (abandonment of hay meadows, grazing, and mowing) on species diversity and abundance within each group. Over three quarters (77%) of the 210 unique species sampled during this study contributed to at least one provider group and over a third (36%) contributed to more than one group. I found that different management practices favour certain provider groups over others, and thus supply of certain ecosystem services over others. A more nuanced understanding of the influence of management practices on natural capital stocks can better inform agricultural and conservation policies targeted at sustaining multifunctional landscapes.Incorporation of social data, particularly that describing human behaviour and decision making, is critical to embed the ecosystem services concept into natural resource management policy and Preface ii practice. Riparian management is a common policy option for mitigating the externalities of land use. A riparian management programme has been running in Taranaki Region, New Zealand for over 20 years providing a useful case study to elicit farmers perceptions and experiences of the pros ...

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A comparison of ecosystem services delivered by 11 long‐term monitoring sites in the UK environmental change network

et al. 2011

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The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2003) framework was applied to provide a holistic assessment and comparison of ecosystem services delivery from 11 environmental change network (ECN) sites, following a workshop of ECN site managers. A list of common variables was agreed to represent the high level categories defined by the MA. The resultant 73 variables, either direct ecosystem services or proxies, were divided into two subsets (readily accessible biogeographical data from all sites and additional site specific data). Similarity analysis of the biogeographical data indicated four site clusters: land with at least 50% forest cover, productive livestock farmland, uplands and a lowland grass/arable group. The first three clusters were also evident for both the additional data and for the larger combined dataset. The lowland grass/arable sites were a 'mixed use' cluster that was not apparent in the analysis of the additional or combined datasets indicating a mismatch between particular ecosystem services and specific landscapes/habitats. Procrustes analysis of the biogeographical data and the combined dataset suggested that the primary differences between datasets were due to variables associated with local management decisions which prevented harvesting of provisioning services or denied public access to the site. Drawing on comparable data from some of the most intensively researched and monitored ecosystems in the UK, this study demonstrates the challenges and limitations involved in attempting holistic assessments of ecosystem services at the site and inter-site level and highlights the importance of both local expert knowledge and consistent scientific measurement in contributing to the process.

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Ecosystem services and associated concepts

Cited by 38 publications

References 36 publications

Ecosytem Services: A Rapid Assessment Method Tested at 35 Sites of the LTER-Europe Network

Ecosytem Services: A Rapid Assessment Method Tested at 35 Sites of the LTER-Europe Network

Applying ecosystem services thinking to natural resource management and conservation decision making

A comparison of ecosystem services delivered by 11 long‐term monitoring sites in the UK environmental change network

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