Disentangling the Role of Management Practices on Ecosystem Services Delivery in Mediterranean Silvopastoral Systems: Synergies and Trade-Offs Through Expert-Based Assessment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Lecegui ◽  
Ana María Olaizola ◽  
Elsa Varela
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Silvopastoral Systems ◽  
Services Delivery ◽  
Trade Offs

scholarly journals Reviewing the interface of bioeconomy and ecosystem service research

AMBIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (12) ◽  
pp. 1878-1896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalia D’Amato ◽  
Bartosz Bartkowski ◽  
Nils Droste
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Services Delivery ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Societal Actors

Abstract The bioeconomy is currently being globally promoted as a sustainability avenue involving several societal actors. While the bioeconomy is broadly about the substitution of fossil resources with bio-based ones, three main (competing or complementary) bioeconomy visions are emerging in scientific literature: resource, biotechnology, and agroecology. The implementation of one or more of these visions into strategies implies changes to land use and thus ecosystem services delivery, with notable trade-offs. This review aims to explore the interdisciplinary space at the interface of these two concepts. We reviewed scientific publications explicitly referring to bioeconomy and ecosystem services in their title, abstract, or keywords, with 45 documents identified as relevant. The literature appeared to be emerging and fragmented but eight themes were discernible (in order of decreasing occurrence frequency in the literature): a. technical and economic feasibility of biomass extraction and use; b. potential and challenges of the bioeconomy; c. frameworks and tools; d. sustainability of bio-based processes, products, and services; e. environmental sustainability of the bioeconomy; f. governance of the bioeconomy; g. biosecurity; h. bioremediation. Approximately half of the documents aligned to a resource vision of the bioeconomy, with emphasis on biomass production. Agroecology and biotechnology visions were less frequently found, but multiple visions generally tended to occur in each document. The discussion highlights gaps in the current research on the topic and argues for communication between the ecosystem services and bioeconomy communities to forward both research areas in the context of sustainability science.

Enhancing ecosystem services with no-till

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Lal
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Soil Depth ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Water Retention Capacity ◽  
No Till ◽  
Trade Offs

AbstractEcosystem functions and services provided by soils depend on land use and management. The objective of this article is to review and synthesize relevant information on the impacts of no-till (NT) management of croplands on ecosystem functions and services. Sustainable management of soil through NT involves: (i) replacing what is removed, (ii) restoring what has been degraded, and (iii) minimizing on-site and off-site effects. Despite its merits, NT is adopted on merely ∼9% of the 1.5 billion ha of global arable land area. Soil's ecosystem services depend on the natural capital (soil organic matter and clay contents, soil depth and water retention capacity) and its management. Soil management in various agro-ecosystems to enhance food production has some trade-offs/disservices (i.e., decline in biodiversity, accelerated erosion and non-point source pollution), which must be minimized by further developing agricultural complexity to mimic natural ecosystems. However, adoption of NT accentuates many ecosystem services: carbon sequestration, biodiversity, elemental cycling, and resilience to natural and anthropogenic perturbations, all of which can affect food security. Links exist among diverse ecosystem services, such that managing one can adversely impact others. For example, increasing agronomic production can reduce biodiversity and deplete soil organic carbon (SOC), harvesting crop residues for cellulosic ethanol can reduce SOC, etc. Undervaluing ecosystem services can jeopardize finite soil resources and aggravate disservices. Adoption of recommended management practices can be promoted through payments for ecosystem services by a market-based approach so that risks of disservices and negative costs can be reduced either through direct economic incentives or as performance payments.

scholarly journals Global Importance of Indigenous and Local Communities’ Managed Lands: Building a Case for Stewardship Schemes

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 7839
Author(s):  
Kamaljit K. Sangha
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Water Regulation ◽  
Coastal Marine ◽  
Mainstream Society

The role of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in sustainably using and managing natural resources is becoming broadly recognised within some international platforms (e.g., the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). However, the support for IPLCs to continue managing their land is either completely absent or scanty. This paper presents the value of only four ecosystem services, estimated at USD 1.16 trillion per year, that are delivered from IPLCs managed lands alone (excluding coastal, marine, and other resources). These four ecosystem services (ES), i.e., carbon sequestration, biocontrol, air, and water regulation offer offsite benefits to the wider regional and global populations yet without returns to the IPLCs themselves except for facing more climate and natural disaster-related challenges mainly caused by the actions of mainstream society. It further outlines key challenges and advocates for establishing stewardship mechanisms to promote and support IPLCs land management practices that will effectively help in protecting and preserving biodiversity, water, and other natural resources on Earth to sustain and enhance human well-being.

scholarly journals Ecologically Intermediate and Economically Final: The Role of the Ecosystem Services Framework in Measuring Sustainability in Agri-Food Systems

Land ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Alessandra La Notte
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Food System ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Accounting Approaches

Ecosystem services can be defined as the ecosystem’s contribution to human activities. According to recent assessments, the agricultural sector is one of the most important economic users of ecosystem services in Europe. To assess, value, and account for ecosystem services related to the agri-food system offers the possibility to measure and investigate how agricultural management practices together with changing environmental conditions can affect ecological resilience. However, the accounting of ecosystem services’ flows needs to be carefully addressed, because the overlapping of services and benefits and the overlapping of what are considered intermediate and final services could create dangerous misunderstandings about the role and importance of ecosystem services in agriculture. This paper reports on the possible accounting approaches that can be used to assess crop provision, as well as their meanings and implications from an ecological to an economic perspective. The results demonstrate that an economic accounting-based assessment of ecosystem services needs to move from an ecological holistic view to a one-by-one disaggregation of ecosystem services in order to avoid underestimates that would ultimately affect the policy perception of the role of ecosystems with respect to the agri-food systems’ resilience.

scholarly journals Ensuring the Long-Term Provision of Heathland Ecosystem Services—The Importance of a Functional Perspective in Management Decision Frameworks

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Walmsley ◽  
Benjamin M. Delory ◽  
Isabel Alonso ◽  
Vicky M. Temperton ◽  
Werner Härdtle
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Heathland Management ◽  
Sod Cutting ◽  
Decision Frameworks

The ecosystem services framework can be used as a way of balancing economic, ecological and societal drivers in land management decision-making processes. As heathland management is typically linked directly to services, the aim of this study was to quantify trade-offs related to the effects of five common heathland management measures (grazing, mowing, burning, choppering, and sod-cutting) using quantitative data from empirical studies within a northwestern heathland in Germany. Besides important services (groundwater recharge and quality, carbon stocks and appreciation by the general public) we included ecosystem functions (balances of nitrogen, phosphorus and major cations) and the net cost of management implementation as trade-off components. We found that all management practices have advantages and disadvantages leading to unavoidable trade-offs. The effect of a management practice on the trade-off components was often closely related to the amount of biomass and/or soil removed during a management cycle (Rannual). Choppering and sod-cutting (large Rannual by involving soil removal) were very good at maintaining a low N system whilst concurrently increasing groundwater recharge, albeit at the cost of all other components considered. If the aim is to preserve heathlands and their associated ecosystem services in the long-term this trade-off is inevitable, as currently only these high-intensity measures are capable of removing enough nitrogen from the system to prevent the transition to non-heather dominated habitat types. Our study, therefore, shows that in order to maintain structural integrity and thereby the service potential a habitat provides, management decision frameworks may need to prioritize ecosystem functioning over ecosystem services. Burning and mowing (low Rannual) were best at retaining phosphorus, cations and carbon and had the lowest costs. Grazing (intermediate Rannual) provided the highest relative benefit in terms of groundwater quality and appreciation. Together these results can help identify management combinations in both space and time, which will be more beneficial for functions and services than management practices considered in isolation. Furthermore, our study assists in recognizing key areas of action for the development of novel management practices and can help raise awareness of the diversity of rare species and potential benefits to people that protected cultural landscapes provide.

scholarly journals Stakeholders’ Opinions towards Water-Related Forests Ecosystem Services in Selected Southeast European Countries (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 12001
Author(s):  
Dijana Vuletić ◽  
Silvija Krajter Ostoić ◽  
Klára Báliková ◽  
Mersudin Avdibegović ◽  
Kristina Potočki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Forest Ecosystem Services ◽  
Payment Schemes ◽  
High Level

Even though water-related forest ecosystem services are important for forestry and water management sectors, they have different definitions and are regulated differently in each sector, which makes them poorly recognized. How stakeholders from two main sectors (forestry and water management) perceive the importance of water-related forest ecosystem services, the trade-offs between ecosystem services and the effectiveness and implementation of payments schemes related to forest water ecosystem services were our areas of interest. We have conduct surveys with different groups of stakeholders from both sectors in four selected countries (the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia) with a lot of similarities and the potential to learn from each other. The results show that in spite of the spotted differences among analyzed countries, there is a high level of agreement among respondents on all investigated aspects. In addition, even though different payment schemes exist in three of four countries, stakeholders are rarely aware of their existence, or it is better to say that they do not recognize them as payment schemes for ecosystem services because of their names and definitions, which do not clearly define ecosystem services. Mostly, they use bundled services and non-voluntary payments and are designed and implemented by the states. Due to the strong role of states and the low transparency in the existing schemes, we looked at possible conditions reflected through stakeholders’ opinions for overcoming that obstacle for the development of new payment schemes. We found that there is a high level of acceptance of payments schemes as more effective than “command and control” schemes and of the involvement of other stakeholders in decision-making processes as those conditions that can positively influence development of new payment schemes in all four countries. These results give us hope that in spite of the strong role of the state in selected countries, the role of stakeholders will be more acknowledged and, by that, the future schemes will be more harmonized among the sectors and their goals and needs, contributing to its effectiveness as well.

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