Synthesis of Two Decades of US EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research to Inform Environmental, Community and Sustainability Decision Making

Harwell, Matthew C.; Jackson, Craig

doi:10.3390/su13158249

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 135 publications

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“…Researchers from the EPA are identifying and quantifying ways in which natural ecosystems contribute to healthy and sustainable communities (Harwell and Jackson, 2021). An explicit goal is to provide information and tools that help decision makers and local communities sustain such contributions, known as ecosystem services, to enhance aspects of human well-being, including economic growth and prosperity, public health, stability, and resiliency.…”

Section: The Epa's Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Toolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The final ecosystem goods and services Voltron: the power of tools together

Sharpe,

Harwell,

Phifer

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Environmental decision-making benefits from considering ecosystem services to ensure that aspects of the environment that people rely upon are fully evaluated. By focusing consideration of ecosystem services on final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS), the aspects of the environment directly enjoyed, used, or consumed by humans, these analyses can be more streamlined and effective. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed a set of tools to facilitate this consideration. The central feature of FEGS is that ecosystems are viewed through the diverse ways people directly benefit from them. The National Ecosystem Services Classification System (NESCS) Plus provides a framework for describing and identifying FEGS consistently. The standardization made available by NESCS Plus allows other tools and databases to interact using the NESCS Plus architecture and taxonomy, providing diverse insights for decision makers. Here, we examine the synergy of using the following four tools together: (1) the FEGS Scoping Tool; (2) the FEGS Metrics Report; (3) the EnviroAtlas; and (4) the EcoService Models Library. The FEGS Scoping Tool helps users determine what ecosystem services are relevant to a decision by harnessing FEGS understanding to enable communities to identify the relative importance of beneficiaries relevant to a decision and biophysical aspects of the environment of direct relevance to those beneficiaries. The FEGS Metrics Report can guide which metrics to monitor or model to represent those priority services. The EnviroAtlas, a powerful tool containing geospatial data and other resources related to ecosystem services, chemical and non-chemical stressors, and human health, and the EcoService Models Library, a database of ecosystem models, are two tools that support users in mapping and modeling endpoints relevant to priority services. While each of these tools is valuable on its own, together, they provide a powerful approach to easily incorporate and operationalize ecosystem services efforts into different parts of decision-making processes across different types of decisions. We illustrate how these integrated tools can be used together with a hypothetical example of a complex environmental management case study and the combined benefit of using the FEGS tools together.

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Section: The Epa's Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Toolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The final ecosystem goods and services Voltron: the power of tools together

Sharpe,

Harwell,

Phifer

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…The soil carbon mapping of agricultural landscapes, also known as agro-ecosystems, describes the spatial distribution and variation of terrestrial carbon storage within that landscape [8]. Farming practices can directly impact soil carbon storage and release, making soil carbon models an essential tool for effective sustainable agricultural landscape management [1,[9][10][11][12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

InVEST Soil Carbon Stock Modelling of Agricultural Landscapes as an Ecosystem Service Indicator

et al. 2022

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Soil carbon storage results from interactions between ecological processes and contributes to the global chemical regulation of the atmosphere, a vital ecosystem service. Within the ecosystem services approach, measuring soil carbon stock is used as an indicator of landscapes that function as terrestrial carbon sinks and sources. Soil carbon stock models of agricultural landscapes use national carbon stock data and are used to determine environmental benchmarks and develop land-use management strategies for improved landscape-scale carbon sequestration. The InVEST Carbon Storage model has been used as a tool to map carbon stock based on these data. However, the accuracy of the national carbon inventories of Hungary is unknown. In this study, the InVEST soil carbon stock models of two agricultural landscapes in Hungary were produced based on national soil carbon stock data and in-field collected soil sample carbon stock data. Carbon stock inventories were collated and used as InVEST carbon model inputs, and the models were mapped, compared, and evaluated to determine their usefulness in the planning of maximizing soil carbon storage in sustainable land-use management and policy development. Five InVEST soil carbon stock spatial models were produced for both agricultural landscapes, which showed great variation based on the data used to develop it. Aggregate carbon stock potentially stored in the landscape-scale study areas also varied between datasets used. Integrating soil sample data along with national carbon stock data shows prospective applicability in assessing contextual landscape-scale potential soil carbon stock storage.

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Conceptual methodological framework for the resilience of biogeochemical services to heavy metals stress

Iordache¹,

Neagoe²

2023

Journal of Environmental Management

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Synthesis of Two Decades of US EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research to Inform Environmental, Community and Sustainability Decision Making

Cited by 3 publications

References 135 publications

The final ecosystem goods and services Voltron: the power of tools together

The final ecosystem goods and services Voltron: the power of tools together

InVEST Soil Carbon Stock Modelling of Agricultural Landscapes as an Ecosystem Service Indicator

Conceptual methodological framework for the resilience of biogeochemical services to heavy metals stress

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