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Sustainability
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Ecosystem Services – From Conceptual Frameworks to Policy Implementation
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Ecosystem Services – From Conceptual Frameworks to Policy Implementation

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 9789

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Rui Santos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CENSE—Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Interests: environmental policy instruments design and evaluation; economic and market-based instruments (mainly applied to biodiversity conservation and water management); sustainability assessment; circular economy
Prof. Dr. Paula Antunes

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CENSE – Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University, Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: sustainability; governance; climate change; water resources management environmental engineering; spatial planning; policy; water resources; ecosystems; ecological economics; environmental economics; ecosystem services; cost benefit analysis; sustainability research
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has gained tremendous attention in the past few years in academia and policy and business circles. Although ES have entered the policy and business discourse at all levels, and in spite of all the scientific literature published in this field, there seems to be a missing link between science and policy. In fact, the recommendations and findings of recent research efforts in this topic seem to have been ignored in many of the main documents and policy instruments applied worldwide. An example is the topic of valuation of ES: while scientific literature points to the need to adopt multiple languages to demonstrate the value of ES, policy and business circles still focus almost exclusively on monetary approaches.

This Special Issue aims to gather contributions addressing the link between science and policy in the operationalization of the ecosystem services concept. Possible topics to be addressed include the following:

  • How can we integrate ES and biodiversity science in policy formulation processes? What models, indicators, and tools should we use?
  • How can we use ES to support environmental planning and assessment processes?
  • How can we navigate the ES concept in the water–ecosystems–food nexus?
  • How can we scale up locally derived experience on policy instruments for ES and biodiversity conservation to national and transnational level policies?
  • How can we integrate diverse sources of knowledge and multiple values to improve participation in ES assessment processes?

Prof. Dr. Rui Ferreira dos Santos
Prof. Paula Antunes
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Ecosystem services
  • Modeling and valuation
  • Biodiversity conservation
  • Science and policy
  • Water–ecosystems–food nexus

 

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 642 KiB  
Article
Perceptions and Application of the Ecosystem Services Approach among Pacific Northwest National Forest Managers
by Stephen ES Crook, Arielle Levine and David Lopez-Carr
Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1259; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031259 - 26 Jan 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2375
Abstract
The ecosystem services concept has emerged as a guiding principle in natural resource management over the past two decades, and an ecosystem services approach to management is currently mandated as a core element of United States National Forest planning. However, the concept of [...] Read more.
The ecosystem services concept has emerged as a guiding principle in natural resource management over the past two decades, and an ecosystem services approach to management is currently mandated as a core element of United States National Forest planning. However, the concept of ecosystem services has been interpreted and operationalized in a variety of ways, leaving a pronounced knowledge gap regarding how it is understood and implemented in different contexts. To better understand the conceptualization and implementation of the concept within United States National Forests, semi-structured interviews with planners and managers of the Pacific Northwest Region were conducted at the region, forest, and ranger district levels, addressing the following topics: (1) how has the ecosystem services concept been perceived by managers and planners?; (2) what are the perceived key ecosystem services offered by National Forest lands?; (3) how has the concept been applied at multiple spatial scales?; and (4) what are perceived challenges or opportunities related to applying the concept in the National Forest context? Results indicate that although participants had a high level of understanding of the ecosystem services concept, there was not a clear, widely adopted approach to considering ecosystem services in management. Through qualitative analysis, three general perspectives arose: one employed the concept to fulfill regulatory requirements at the National Forest scale, a second engaged with ecosystem services to improve participatory planning at the project scale, and a third, business as usual perspective, considered ecosystem services as new language for describing longstanding National Forest priorities. These results draw attention to the challenges of implementing an ecosystem services-based approach in the United States National Forest context and the continued need for the development of management-relevant methods for describing and quantifying ecosystem services. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecosystem Services – From Conceptual Frameworks to Policy Implementation)
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25 pages, 3564 KiB  
Article
Unravelling Diverse Values of Ecosystem Services: A Socio-Cultural Valuation Using Q Methodology in Messenia, Greece
by Sofia Maniatakou, Håkan Berg, Giorgos Maneas and Tim M. Daw
Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10320; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410320 - 10 Dec 2020
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3531
Abstract
People perceive the importance of benefits from ecosystem services in different ways, depending on their values, beliefs, and needs. Acknowledging and integrating this diversity into decision-making processes can support informed natural resource management. Our empirical study unpicks the multiple ways stakeholder groups perceive [...] Read more.
People perceive the importance of benefits from ecosystem services in different ways, depending on their values, beliefs, and needs. Acknowledging and integrating this diversity into decision-making processes can support informed natural resource management. Our empirical study unpicks the multiple ways stakeholder groups perceive the benefits derived from wetland ecosystem services (WES) in the area surrounding the “Gialova” coastal wetland in Messenia, Greece. The inhabitants from this region benefit from a range of WES, and most livelihoods are closely linked to agriculture and tourism. We aim to understand the patterns in commonly held stakeholder views on WES using “Q methodology”, a participatory mixed-methods approach. We identified five distinct perspectives on WES from a sample of 32 stakeholders. Alongside diverse perceptions of the relative importance of different WES, we observed a range of explanations of why certain WES are important and analyzed these through the lens of “value pluralism”. This identified tension between relational and instrumental values. Such analyses move beyond ecosystem service identification towards an understanding of value justifications and conflicts, and can support the deliberation of conflicted views, and policy design in alignment with people’s values. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecosystem Services – From Conceptual Frameworks to Policy Implementation)
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17 pages, 3369 KiB  
Article
Trade-Offs Analysis of Ecosystem Services for the Grain for Green Program: Informing Reforestation Decisions in a Mountainous Headwater Region, Northeast China
by Xiufen Li, Yichen Tian, Tian Gao, Lei Jin, Shuangtian Li, Dan Zhao, Xiao Zheng, Lizhong Yu and Jiaojun Zhu
Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4762; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114762 - 11 Jun 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2622
Abstract
The effects of forest restoration on ecosystem services and their trade-offs are increasingly discussed by environmental managers and ecologists, but few demonstrations have analyzed ecosystem service trade-offs with a view to informing afforestation choices. Here, we examined how the Grain for Green Program [...] Read more.
The effects of forest restoration on ecosystem services and their trade-offs are increasingly discussed by environmental managers and ecologists, but few demonstrations have analyzed ecosystem service trade-offs with a view to informing afforestation choices. Here, we examined how the Grain for Green Program (GGP), an ambitious reforestation program in China, affected ecosystem services. We quantified regulating services and provisioning service in the potential scenarios, which were developed to improve ecosystem services better. The results indicated the GGP drove 14.5% of land-use/land-cover from 2000 to 2015, and all the regulating services increased. Prioritizing reforestations in steep-sloped and riparian farmlands can promote flood mitigation, water purification, and soil retention services by 62.7%, 25.5%, and 216.1% as compared with 2015 levels, respectively, suggesting that the improvements strongly depend on afforestation locations. Driven by the new GGP policy, a high proportion of economic forest increased provisioning service (272.2%), but at the expense of decreases in soil retention (−25.1%), flood mitigation (−11.4%), water purification (−36.6%), and carbon storage (−48.5%). We identified a suitable scenario that would reduce the trade-offs, which associated with afforestation types and their spatial allocation. Identifying priority areas of afforestation types can inform the GGP policy to assure sustainable and broader benefits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecosystem Services – From Conceptual Frameworks to Policy Implementation)
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