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Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy

Governments worldwide are recognising ecosystem services as an approach to address sustainability challenges. Decision-makers need credible and legitimate measurements of ecosystem services to evaluate decisions for trade-offs to make wise choices. Managers lack these measurements because of a data...

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Autores principales: Wong, Christina P, Jiang, Bo, Kinzig, Ann P, Lee, Kai N, Ouyang, Zhiyun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311437/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25394857
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12389
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author Wong, Christina P
Jiang, Bo
Kinzig, Ann P
Lee, Kai N
Ouyang, Zhiyun
author_facet Wong, Christina P
Jiang, Bo
Kinzig, Ann P
Lee, Kai N
Ouyang, Zhiyun
author_sort Wong, Christina P
collection PubMed
description Governments worldwide are recognising ecosystem services as an approach to address sustainability challenges. Decision-makers need credible and legitimate measurements of ecosystem services to evaluate decisions for trade-offs to make wise choices. Managers lack these measurements because of a data gap linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services. The dominant method to address the data gap is benefit transfer using ecological data from one location to estimate ecosystem services at other locations with similar land cover. However, benefit transfer is only valid once the data gap is adequately resolved. Disciplinary frames separating ecology from economics and policy have resulted in confusion on concepts and methods preventing progress on the data gap. In this study, we present a 10-step approach to unify concepts, methods and data from the disparate disciplines to offer guidance on overcoming the data gap. We suggest: (1) estimate ecosystem characteristics using biophysical models, (2) identify final ecosystem services using endpoints and (3) connect them using ecological production functions to quantify biophysical trade-offs. The guidance is strategic for public policy because analysts need to be: (1) realistic when setting priorities, (2) attentive to timelines to acquire relevant data, given resources and (3) responsive to the needs of decision-makers.
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spelling pubmed-43114372015-02-09 Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy Wong, Christina P Jiang, Bo Kinzig, Ann P Lee, Kai N Ouyang, Zhiyun Ecol Lett Reviews and Syntheses Governments worldwide are recognising ecosystem services as an approach to address sustainability challenges. Decision-makers need credible and legitimate measurements of ecosystem services to evaluate decisions for trade-offs to make wise choices. Managers lack these measurements because of a data gap linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services. The dominant method to address the data gap is benefit transfer using ecological data from one location to estimate ecosystem services at other locations with similar land cover. However, benefit transfer is only valid once the data gap is adequately resolved. Disciplinary frames separating ecology from economics and policy have resulted in confusion on concepts and methods preventing progress on the data gap. In this study, we present a 10-step approach to unify concepts, methods and data from the disparate disciplines to offer guidance on overcoming the data gap. We suggest: (1) estimate ecosystem characteristics using biophysical models, (2) identify final ecosystem services using endpoints and (3) connect them using ecological production functions to quantify biophysical trade-offs. The guidance is strategic for public policy because analysts need to be: (1) realistic when setting priorities, (2) attentive to timelines to acquire relevant data, given resources and (3) responsive to the needs of decision-makers. BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2015-01 2014-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4311437/ /pubmed/25394857 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12389 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and CNRS. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
spellingShingle Reviews and Syntheses
Wong, Christina P
Jiang, Bo
Kinzig, Ann P
Lee, Kai N
Ouyang, Zhiyun
Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
title Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
title_full Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
title_fullStr Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
title_full_unstemmed Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
title_short Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
title_sort linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy
topic Reviews and Syntheses
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311437/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25394857
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12389
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