Integrating ecosystem-service tradeoffs into land-use decisions

Abstract

Recent high-profile efforts have called for integrating ecosystemservice values into important societal decisions, but there are few demonstrations of this approach in practice. We quantified ecosystem-service values to help the largest private landowner in Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, design a land-use development plan that balances multiple private and public values on its North Shore land holdings (Island of O'ahu) of ∼10,600 ha. We used the InVEST software tool to evaluate the environmental and financial implications of seven planning scenarios encompassing contrasting land-use combinations including biofuel feedstocks, food crops, forestry, livestock, and residential development. All scenarios had positive financial return relative to the status quo of negative return. However, tradeoffs existed between carbon storage and water quality as well as between environmental improvement and financial return. Based on this analysis and community input, Kamehameha Schools is implementing a plan to support diversified agriculture and forestry. This plan generates a positive financial return ($10.9 million) and improved carbon storage (0.5% increase relative to status quo) with negative relative effects on water quality (15.4% increase in potential nitrogen export relative to status quo). The effects on water quality could be mitigated partially (reduced to a 4.9% increase in potential nitrogen export) by establishing vegetation buffers on agricultural fields. This plan contributes to policy goals for climate change mitigation, food security, and diversifying rural economic opportunities. More broadly, our approach illustrates how information can help guide local land-use decisions that involve tradeoffs between private and public interests.conservation | mapping | private lands R ecent high-profile studies (1-4) have emphasized the importance of ecosystems in providing valuable services to humanity, and recent events have provided strong evidence of the value of flood-risk mitigation (5, 6), coastal protection (7, 8), and pollination (9). Global changes in land use and climate also have highlighted the role of ecosystems in food, water, and energy security and in climate change mitigation and adaption (10

A review on trade-off analysis of ecosystem services for sustainable land-use management

“…It showed that such trade-offs varied in different scenarios, suggesting that analyzing trade-offs between ecosystem services did great favor in more effective, efficient, and defensible decision makings (Nelson et al, 2009). Goldstein et al (2012) revealed the trade-offs between carbon storage and water quality and also between environmental improvement and financial returns under seven land-use planning scenarios based on InVEST, which support the implement of the plan for diversified agriculture and forestry management. However, Jackson et al (2013) pointed out that InVEST was widely applied at large scale and with coarse resolution, in comparison, they designed the Polyscape tool, which can be used to disentangle spatially explicit ecosystem services trade-offs to support landscape management, from individual field scale through to catchments scale.…”

Comparing two tools for ecosystem service assessments regarding water resources decisions

“…These HES models are being used to make decisions [e.g., Goldman-Benner et al, 2012;Goldstein et al, 2012;Jackson et al, 2013], but the decision contexts under which they are useful have not been well-described. In addition, the accuracy of the model estimates will influence the land management contexts under which their use is justified.…”

Trade-off analyses of multiple ecosystem services by plantations along a precipitation gradient across Loess Plateau landscapes

“…It has been increasingly recognized that human activities aiming to promote certain ESs may lead to negative outcomes for other ESs (Goldstein et al 2012;Maskell et al 2013). The relative gain/loss of the ESs due to management activity also depends on the environmental conditions.…”