Identifying spatial priorities for protecting ecosystem services

Abstract

Priorities for protecting ecosystem services must be identified to ensure future human well-being. Approaches to broad-scale spatial prioritization of ecosystem services are becoming increasingly popular and are a vital precursor to identifying locations where further detailed analyses of the management of ecosystem services is required (e.g., examining trade-offs among management actions). Prioritization approaches often examine the spatial congruence between priorities for protecting ecosystem services and priorities for protecting biodiversity; therefore, the spatial prioritization method used is crucial because it will influence the alignment of service protection and conservation goals. While spatial prioritization of ecosystem services and prioritization for conservation share similarities, such as the need to document threats and costs, the former differs substantially from the latter owing to the requirement to measure the following components: supply of services; availability of human-derived alternatives to service provision; capacity to meet beneficiary demand; and site dependency in and scale of service delivery. We review studies that identify broad-scale spatial priorities for managing ecosystem services and demonstrate that researchers have used different approaches and included various measures for identifying priorities, and most studies do not consider all of the components listed above. We describe a conceptual framework for integrating each of these components into spatial prioritization of ecosystem services and illustrate our approach using a worked example for water provision. A fuller characterization of the biophysical and social context for ecosystem services that we call for should improve future prioritization and the identification of locations where ecosystem-service management is especially important or cost effective.

Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services in Costa Rica

“…Despite the limitations of our study, some implications can be drawn for policies in Costa Rica. The positive correlations between carbon, biodiversity and local services makes it possible to develop conservation policies with synergies for multiple ES, as in other countries (Chan et al 2006;Turner et al 2007;Bai et al 2011;Egoh et al 2011;Luck et al 2012). According to our results, current conservation policy mechanisms in Costa Rica contribute to the delivery of multiple ES: protected areas provide high levels of carbon and water-related services, and PES areas provide high levels of biodiversity, carbon and scenic beauty.…”

“…However the choice of the indicators was constrained by data availability, as in most ES mapping studies (Eigenbrod et al 2009;Bai et al 2011;Luck et al 2012). Biodiversity provision was derived from maps of species richness and endemism at the country scale.…”

“…Attention has been recently given to the scale of ES provision, the location of beneficiaries, and the flows of ES from ecosystems to humans, which are particularly relevant for spatially-confined ES (Locatelli et al 2011b;Bagstad et al 2013;Luck et al 2012;Schröter et al 2012). For example, Wendland et al (2010) considered the location of beneficiaries of water ES in Madagascar, as well as directional water flows in landscapes.…”

Planning for the conservation and management of ecosystem services in Central Chile

“…Targeting ecosystem services in conservation planning may achieve many biodiversity targets under an attractive easy-to-sell umbrella of services, while at the same time improving the relevance of conservation plans to human wellbeing (Luck et al 2012). However, there is a still unresolved debate about the extent to which the components of biodiversity should correspond with ecosystem services provision (Chan et al 2011, Reyers et al 2012b, Schröter et al 2014b) and about the extent to which considering ecosystem services in decision-making matches with biodiversity conservation objectives.…”

“…Schröter et al (2014a) found that including regulating and cultural ecosystem services shifts priority sites and increases the area of biodiversity conservation leading to additional conservation efforts, regarding higher opportunity costs and a larger area protected. New developments extend the practicality of spatial conservation planning tools for modeling multiple ecosystem services and optimizing potentially conflicting landuse requirements , Luck et al 2012). …”