Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management — Volume 11, Number 3—pp. 343–344 © 2015 SETAC

343

Get on the Ecosystem Services Bandwagon

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/ieam.1654

Ecosystem service evaluation provides a transparent and rational approach to responsible stewardship by linking biophysical processes to human well-being. This means it is inherently interdisciplinary. Quantifying the connections between the biophysical world and actual impacts to people can be difficult, however. For example, an environmental change that increased the prevalence of mosquito vectors of malaria would likely have a substantial impact on health in a densely populated area but a minor one in a region with low population or high adoption of mitigating behaviors such as the use of bed nets. In a recent review of the state of science concerning hydrologic ecosystem services (Brauman 2015), I identified 381 peer-reviewed articles that invoked ecosystem services related to water. Although the disciplinary biophysical and social science was strong, the majority of articles failed to adequately link changes in environmental conditions to human well-being, instead stopping at the point of suggesting that one was connected to the other. So there is much work to be done. Ecosystem services assessments evaluate the impacts of environmental change. Although there is some intuitive appeal for discerning the total value of an ecosystem, ecosystem services frameworks make the most sense when considering the impact of environmental changes or management actions. This is because, for example, the value of all the water flowing from a watershed might be very high, but it is difficult to imagine any ecosystem change that would cause the flow of water to cease entirely. Ecosystem services assessments are suited to evaluating whether, and how, value might increase or diminish over time as a result of one or more pressures. Ecosystem services facilitate comparisons and considerations of trade-offs among different uses and users of ecosystem processes. Because they link environmental change to changes in human well-being, it is possible to use ecosystem services to place a monetary value on changes in the environment. Monetary valuation can be useful for comparing unlike services (e.g., the value of a timber harvest compared to the cost of higher water turbidity at a drinking water intake). Monetary valuation can also support decision making that relies on policy tools such as cost-benefit analyses. However, it is the articulation and cataloging of values and the evaluation of how valued services will be affected when ecosystems change that are at the heart of ecosystem services analysis, not monetization. Because they link the environment to people, focus on evaluating environmental change, and quantify tradeoffs, the concept and language of ecosystem services has been adopted worldwide. In the United States, the language of ecosystem services is now used by several federal resource agencies. European policy directives addressing management of water, soil, and marine systems invoke ecosystem services in their management frameworks. South Africa has described its national approach to water management in the context of ecosystem services since 1995. Costa Rica has been paying landowners for ecosystem services provided by forest lands for nearly 2 decades. Interest continues to grow. At the Natural Capital Project’s 2015 Symposium, researchers gave technical presentations on the use of ecosystem services in a wide range of applications, from the design of new road infrastructure in Myanmar to improving water quality for cities in the Andes Mountains in South America.

Editorial

Ecosystem services are part of the environmental assessment and management conversation. Substantial activity focused on ecosystem services has occurred since the completion of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), a global effort organized by the United Nations to evaluate the state of the world’s ecosystems and the goods and services they provide that support human well-being. Researchers, governments, and businesses have integrated ecosystem services into their environmental management frameworks, and they are poised to continue doing so. In the context of this widespread interest, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (IEAM) introduced Ecosystem Services as a new focus topic for the journal at the beginning of this year and introduced 2 Senior Editors, myself included, to guide the collection of articles published in the journal. Together with my fellow Senior Editors, we believe IEAM readers and SETAC members are well-positioned to improve the science surrounding ecosystem services assessments and to make important contributions for improving environmental stewardship worldwide. Ecosystem services are the benefits that the environment provides to people and societies. The concept of ecosystem services derives from the idea that people depend on ecosystems, and the importance of maintaining or restoring ecosystem function can thus be quantified by the associated gains in human well-being. Well-being is defined broadly and includes constituents of health, quality of life, and happiness as well as income, meaning that ecosystem services are much more than simply a tool for economic analysis. The ecosystem services concept is perhaps best thought of as a framework for organizing the biophysical products and processes of ecosystems by their effects on people. Ecosystem services provided by a watershed might include, for example, timber production, drinking water regulation for downstream communities, and opportunities for recreation. In the context of environmental assessment and management, using an ecosystem services framework can provide broader insight on the way human well-being is likely to change when ecosystems are altered, either purposely or unintentionally. Taking advantage of one service by harvesting timber, for example, might have negative impacts on water quality downstream or on access to recreation. Consideration of ecosystem services offers a means of accounting for a range of impacts to different groups of people and different elements of well-being. This makes it possible to evaluate the net benefit or liability of management actions. Assessment and management based on ecosystem services is unique because it is interdisciplinary, it emphasizes change, and it provides the scaffolding for comparison among diverse services, including through economic valuation. IEAM readers and SETAC members are well-positioned to use and develop these elements, because we already work at the intersection of environmental impact and human well-being, incorporate diverse expertise, and understand local human and ecological context.

344

The concept of ecosystem services provides an important foundation for environmental assessment and management. However, more work is needed to improve the application of current ecosystem services frameworks (Apitz 2013) to environmental management and decision making. IEAM readers and SETAC members are a community wellpositioned to integrate scientific, business, and social considerations into research and development of new techniques and environmental practices. Let us embrace ecosystem services, strive to improve the scientific, social, and economic underpinnings, and more effectively integrate the ecosystem services concept in environmental management.

Integr Environ Assess Manag 11, 2015—KA Brauman

Kate A Brauman Senior Editor Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

REFERENCES Apitz SE. 2013. Ecosystem services and environmental decision making: Seeking order in complexity. Integr Environ Assess Manag 9:214–230. Brauman KA. 2015. Hydrologic ecosystem services: linking ecohydrologic processes to human well-being in water research and watershed management. WIREs Water Available from: DOI: 10.1002/wat2.1081 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being: Current state and trends. Washington (DC): Island Press. 917 p.

Get on the ecosystem services bandwagon.

Get on the ecosystem services bandwagon. - PDF Download Free
93KB Sizes 0 Downloads 6 Views