Societal benefits from agricultural landscapes in Girona, Catalonia

Abstract

Taking into account the perceptions of locals as well as visitors to La Plana de l'Empordà, a region in Girona (Spain) undergoing an agricultural intensification process, this study attempts to explore the linkages between agricultural landscapes and human well-being by performing open, single-question interviews with 241 respondents. The results show a high perception of cultural ecosystem services as benefits from agricultural landscapes, although differences across respondent groups and across a rural-urban gradient suggest important trade-offs. Our results demonstrate that potential conflicts in the study area might emerge between a rural view on agricultural landscapes and a more productionoriented landscape appreciation. We consider it relevant to take into account potential social conflicts due to the new social composition in Mediterranean rural areas where different perceptions regarding the delivery of ecosystem services coexist.

Comparing Ecosystem Service Preferences between Urban and Rural Dwellers

“…Second, broadening research horizons in terms of the diversity of ecosystem types and countries is also needed to better understand the potential impacts of urbanization on the most vulnerable people and ecosystems. In particular, future research on changes in ES preferences associated with urbanization is needed in developing countries facing social, nature (López-Santiago et al 2014, Soy-Massoni et al 2016. This gap between nature and people in urban areas is sometimes referred to as a nature deficit (Louv 2005).…”

“…correlated with the perception of a larger range of ES and environmental knowledge (Martín-López et al 2012, Pan et al 2016, Soy-Massoni et al 2016 and regulating ES (Caro-Borrero et al 2015) and negatively correlated with the importance of ES for rural areas (Martín-López et al 2012, García-Llorente et al 2016. Income and affluence appeared to positively correlate with ES valuation (Orenstein and Groner 2014), with the willingness to pay for ES (Shi et al 2016), and with the positive perception of payments for ES (Caro-Borrero et al 2015).…”

“…Links between ES and well-being were made more frequently with the basic material for a good life constituent of the MA well-being definition, with income and occupation being most common, especially for rural inhabitants (e.g., Orenstein and Groner 2014). Health was mentioned as an ES in one paper (Soy-Massoni et al 2016). Finally, Pan and colleagues (2016) mentioned the importance of social interactions for rural dwellers using a river.…”

“…Our findings point to somewhat different human-nature relationships in rural and urban areas. Some papers qualified the urban dwellers' relationship to ES and nature as indirect (Pan et al 2016), disconnected (Martín-López et al 2012, García-Llorente et al 2016, more theoretical (Martín-López et al 2012, Pan et al 2016, or more bucolic (López-Santiago et al 2014, Soy-Massoni et al 2016. In contrast, rural dwellers were said to have a more direct, more connected (Racevskis andLupi 2006, Martín-López et al 2012), or more production-oriented relationship with Note: Thirteen of the 17 papers reviewed specified the most important ES category for rural and urban dwellers, whereas 16 pointed to differences between rural and urban dwellers (but not all ES categories were compared in every study and sometimes differences were found in only one ES category).…”

“…However, we often encountered a conflation of ES and well-being benefits. Well-being benefits were mentioned as an ES-for example, health (Soy-Massoni et al 2016) and occupation (Racevskis and Lupi 2006). ES well-being benefits can be examined using the MA framework or other well-being frameworks (for a review of different frameworks that can be used to study the well-being impacts of ES, see Agarwala and colleagues 2014).…”