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Desert, Desertification and Land Degradation
Published in Ajai, Rimjhim Bhatnagar, Desertification and Land Degradation, 2022
Ecosystem services also contribute significantly to global employment as well as to economic activities. If we talk about the ecosystem service in terms of food production (provided by agro-ecosystems), it contributes the most towards the economic activities and creating employment. In the year 2000, the market value of food production was 981 billion US dollars. However, it may be a much higher share of GDP within developing countries (MA 2005). For example, in that year, the agriculture including forestry and fishing represented about 24% of the total GDP in countries having a per capita income of less than 765 US dollars (defined by the World Bank as the low-income developing countries). Ecosystem services may be worth trillions of US dollars annually, but many of these ecosystem services are not traded in the market (Costanza et al. 1997). For example, forest ecosystems are home to about 300 million people around the world and about 1.3 billion people earn a living from forest resources (CBD 2010). About 70% of the world population relies on medicinal plants. More than 3 billion people are dependent on coastal and marine biodiversity for their livelihood (CBD 2010).
“Natural Capital” Concept – A New Approach to Environmental Management and Post-industrial Landscapes
Published in Artur Dyczko, Andrzej M. Jagodziński, Gabriela Woźniak, Green Scenarios: Mining Industry Responses to Environmental Challenges of the Anthropocene Epoch, 2022
Gabriela Woźniak, Agnieszka Hutniczak, Jörg Dettmar
This new environmental management should emerge by combining approaches including ecosystem services, geoinformatics modelling assisted by constant evaluation, and design of new, better solutions to obtain more secure natural capital and ecosystem services in the future (Reyers et al. 2015). For decision-makers, managers, and politicians, the process and criteria of ecosystem services validation are not always clear. Monetary valuation, market and nonmarket valuation methods known from economics are sometimes used and help to estimate ecosystem service values (Bateman et al. 2015). When considering human health or livelihoods, the monetary valuation is insufficient for robust extrapolation and is highly contested or lacks robustness for some ecosystem services (Plummer 2009; Seppelt et al. 2011). For many environmental solutions, the monetary value metrics are not relevant to make the decision. To report the outcomes in biogeochemical terms or directly in terms of impacts on human health or livelihood, we need to consider the newest scientific achievements in biogeochemical, environmental, scientific and applied knowledge (Myers et al. 2013; Guerry et al. 2015; Ruckelshaus et al. 2015).
A way forward for Building with Nature in river areas
Published in Wim Uijttewaal, Mário J. Franca, Daniel Valero, Victor Chavarrias, Clàudia Ylla Arbós, Ralph Schielen, Alessandra Crosato, River Flow 2020, 2020
M. Barciela-Rial, F. den Heijer, J. Rijke
In the present paper we define BwN as the integrated multidisciplinary design process aiming to use natural materials and work with natural processes as part of infrastructure development. Natural processes include not only natural sediment transport patters or hydrodynamics but also ecosystem services. Ecosystem services have traditionally been defined as the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. However, this definition is only restricted to direct benefits and has raised disagreement over the last decades (e.g. Barbier et al., 2011). Consequently, a more general definition was proposed by EPA (2009) as “the direct or indirect contributions that ecosystems make to the well‐being of human populations”. Herein ecosystem services fulfill supporting (e.g. nutrient cycling), provisioning (e.g. freshwater), regulating (e.g. climate regulation) or cultural (e.g. recreation) functions.
Water yield service influence by climate and land use change based on InVEST model in the monsoon hilly watershed in South China
Published in Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 2022
Xiaojun Wang, Guangxu Liu, Durui Lin, Yingbing Lin, Yi Lu, Aicun Xiang, Shumei Xiao
Ecosystem service refers to the essential environmental conditions and utility provided by the ecosystem for the maintenance of human survival and development, which are also the benefits that humans receive directly or indirectly from ecosystems (Fisher and Turner 2008; Bennett et al. 2009; Daily 2013). Water yield is an important element of ecosystem services, reflecting the amount of water resources a region can provide to humans under resource background conditions. China has only 6% of the world's freshwater resources (Bao and Fang 2012), faces with high per capita shortage, and are characterized with abundance in the south and relative scarcity in the north. China has large population. The increasing conflict between people and the environment along with quick urbanization and economic development have made China become one of the major resource consuming countries (Hubacek et al. 2009). Even in the South China, where precipitation is abundant, there are also problems such as ecological protection in mountainous hilly areas, the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water resources and the contradiction of social needs. Therefore, it is of great value to carry out water yield service assessment and identify the importance differences for coordinating the production-living-ecological spaces layout and ecosystem services.
Risk of cardiovascular disease is driven by different combinations of environmental, medical and behavioral factors: Building a conceptual model for cumulative risk assessment
Published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal, 2021
Roxolana Kashuba, Charles Menzie, Lawrence Martin
A CRA conceptual model for a health outcome can be expanded to illustrate how other components that may be of interest relate to and affect the health outcome. For example, from the perspective of environmental risk management, it is useful to understand how ecosystem services can influence an adverse health risk. Ecosystem services are benefits that humans derive from environmental processes and functions (Reid et al. 2005), such as oxygen to breathe produced by trees or flood control provided by coastal wetlands. This offers a potential way to integrate human and ecological risk assessment. Figure 4 shows the different ecosystems which provide services that improve the full suite of environmental drivers for CVD. Figure 2 and Figure 4 can be used in concert to understand the environmental risks and management options given the complicated network of CVD risk factors overall. To implement an approach for CVD risk mitigation through this ecosystem lens, suites of management actions affecting each service would need to be identified, and associated impacts of each service on cumulative risk calculated. This could involve environmental regulatory agencies responsible for setting and enforcing exposure limits for different media (air, water, land), recreational management agencies, land management agencies, and agricultural agencies charged with food production and regulation.
Using an ecosystem services approach to re-frame the management of flow constraints in a major regulated river basin
Published in Australasian Journal of Water Resources, 2021
Georgia Kahan, Matthew Colloff, Jamie Pittock
Ecosystem services can be classified as: provisioning services, which are the goods provided or produced from ecosystems, such as water for irrigation; regulating services, which are derived from regulating ecosystem processes, such as water purification though groundwater filtration, and cultural services, which are non-material benefits derived from ecosystem integrity, structure and functions, such as aesthetic appreciation, place attachment and wellbeing. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) also includes supporting services, which are processes and functions that underpin other services, such as nutrient cycling and soil formation. However, recognition of supporting services in ecosystem services assessments risks double counting if monetary valuation is involved (Boyd and Banzhaf 2006). Accordingly, we consider only the first three categories.