Integrating Social Values and Ecosystem Services in Systematic Conservation Planning: A Case Study in Datuan Watershed

Abstract

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) deals with a delicate interplay of competing interests and has far-reaching impacts for all stakeholders and systems involved. While SCP has traditionally attempted to conserve ecosystem services that benefit ecological systems, public perceptions of conservation initiatives influence their ultimate feasibility and sustainability. In an attempt to balance ecological integrity, social utility, and urban development, this study develops a framework that applies four popular models to represent these competing factors, including two ecosystem services models-InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs) for biophysical services (BpS), and SolVES (Social Values for Ecosystem Services) for social values (SV); a land use and land cover (LULC) suitability model; and Zonation for delimiting high priority areas. We also analyze a number of conservation scenarios that consider varying levels of urban development. While BpS are distributed with considerable spatial variability, SV spatially overlap. Approximately 6% of the area was identified as having both high BpS and SV, whereas a further 24.5% of the area was identified as either high BpS low SV or vise-versa. Urban development scenarios affected the conservation area selection drastically. These results indicate tradeoffs and potential synergies between development, SV, and BpS. Our findings suggest that the information provided by the proposed framework can assist in finding solutions to social-ecological planning complexities that serve multiple stakeholders.

Landscape Conservation Planning to Sustain Ecosystem Services under Climate Change

“…Moreover, our study indicates that varied rainfall and climates induced by large typhoon systems can be considered major driving factors of disturbances. This is in part due to the fact that rainfall on sloped landscape results in flow pathways which are important factors in nitrogen retention and phosphorus retention hotspot resilience [38,61,62]. In addition, phosphorus retention hotspots could be affected by land use types such as forested lands and downstream sediment-attached phosphorus deposition ( Figure S12 in Supplementary).…”

“…Wu [28] proposed an integrated landscape sustainability science (LSS) framework for sustainable landscape management that included natural capital, ES, ecosystem valuation, disturbances, ecosystem resilience, ecological restoration, and ecosystem management. In this study, a systematic conservation approach can enhance the proposed ES-HQ conservation framework [38]. Our proposed framework, however, provides a systematic method for assessing conservation strategies and statuses specific to, and within a, Taiwan watershed affected by disturbances by identifying landscape responses to disturbances in terms of ES-HQ resilience.…”

“…LCP [33,34], however, has been widely applied to improve existing reserve networks while considering biodiversity patterns [10,[35][36][37][38][39]. Though LCP is a well-rounded approach for preserving the natural value of terrestrial [10,[36][37][38]40], marine [41,42], and freshwater [43,44] ecosystems, its main purpose is for locating, designing, and managing protected areas within a landscape [45]. Recently, interest in spatially quantitative systematic conservation approaches has been growing, as evidenced by the increased applications of computer-based software modeling tools such as Marxan [46] and Zonation [47] which both implement target-based planning algorithms as their primary planning method [48].…”

How to Detect Scale Effect of Ecosystem Services Supply? A Comprehensive Insight from Xilinhot in Inner Mongolia, China

“…The integration of the ES concept in decision-making has been increasingly promoted in the scientific literature, as well as in policy guidelines at different strategic levels [60]. Most of the previous studies have focused on how to integrate ES into social values [61], or how to include ES and human welfare into the framework of management practice [18]. However, few researchers have noticed the scale effect during evaluating the ES supply process.…”

Mapping Perceived Social Values to Support a Respondent-Defined Restoration Economy: Case Study in Southeastern Arizona, USA

“…27 The SolVES model links social values with physical properties, providing numerous outputs outlining these relationships that may be informative for natural resource managers. 27 SolVES has been used in many previous applications, including for conservation planning within watersheds, 28,29 to identify landscape and seascapes valued by different respondent subgroups in coastal areas, 30,31 to map social-ecological hotspots in combination with biophysical ES models in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, 23,32 and to explore the transfer of values between sites based on physical and social characteristics. 33,34 Various types of social surveys can be employed to determine people's preferences and incorporate socioeconomic factors in PPGIS analyses.…”