IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cid/wpfacu/54.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Integrating Ecosystem Services in Land Use Planning: Concepts and Applications

Author

Listed:
  • Davide Geneletti

Abstract

Despite the attention that research on ecosystem services has attracted in recent years, its use to support real-life decision-making processes is still very limited, especially at the planning level. Land use and spatial planning result in actions that may affect the distribution and quality of a wide range of ecosystem services. Hence, decisions in this sector would benefit from systematic considerations of their effects on ecosystem services. This working paper is structured in two parts. Part I aims at providing insights on why it is important to promote ecosystem service-inclusive land use planning processes, and on how to do it by taking advantages of existing procedures, such as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Possible actions to include relevant information in the various planning and SEA stages are presented. The advantages are then discussed by considering both the characteristics of ecosystem services approaches and the criteria of good-quality planning and SEA. Finally, four main challenges are identified, concerning scoping, scale issues, trade-offs and indicators, respectively. To provide a contribution to meeting these challenges, Part II presents an empirical application in land use planning. Specifically, the study aims at exploring how the implementation of different land use zoning policies can affect the future provision of a set of ecosystem services (water purification, soil conservation, habitat for species, carbon sequestration and timber production). Firstly, land use scenarios associated to different policies were constructed. Subsequently, the effects of the land use scenarios on the provision of the selected ecosystem services were assessed in a spatially explicit way, by using state-of-the-art modeling tools. Finally, a set of metrics was developed to compare scenarios and assess trade-offs. The results illustrate the importance of taking into account the spatial arrangement of land uses produced by different policies. The paper concludes by discussing the potential contribution of the approach to support spatial planning.

Suggested Citation

  • Davide Geneletti, 2012. "Integrating Ecosystem Services in Land Use Planning: Concepts and Applications," CID Working Papers 54, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/publications/fellow_graduate_student_working_papers/054.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Polasky & Erik Nelson & Derric Pennington & Kris Johnson, 2011. "The Impact of Land-Use Change on Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Returns to Landowners: A Case Study in the State of Minnesota," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 219-242, February.
    2. Hein, Lars & van Koppen, Kris & de Groot, Rudolf S. & van Ierland, Ekko C., 2006. "Spatial scales, stakeholders and the valuation of ecosystem services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 209-228, May.
    3. Bell, Earl J., 1974. "Markov analysis of land use change--an application of stochastic processes to remotely sensed data," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 311-316, December.
    4. Norman Myers & Russell A. Mittermeier & Cristina G. Mittermeier & Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca & Jennifer Kent, 2000. "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6772), pages 853-858, February.
    5. Fisher, Brendan & Turner, R. Kerry & Morling, Paul, 2009. "Defining and classifying ecosystem services for decision making," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 643-653, January.
    6. Willemen, Louise & Hein, Lars & Verburg, Peter H., 2010. "Evaluating the impact of regional development policies on future landscape services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2244-2254, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schmidt, Katja & Martín-López, Berta & Phillips, Peter M. & Julius, Eike & Makan, Neville & Walz, Ariane, 2019. "Key landscape features in the provision of ecosystem services: Insights for management," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 353-366.
    2. Han-Shen Chen & Wan-Yu Liu & Chi-Ming Hsieh, 2017. "Integrating Ecosystem Services and Eco-Security to Assess Sustainable Development in Liuqiu Island," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-14, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brendan Fisher & Stephen Polasky & Thomas Sterner, 2011. "Conservation and Human Welfare: Economic Analysis of Ecosystem Services," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 151-159, February.
    2. Valencia Torres, Angélica & Tiwari, Chetan & Atkinson, Samuel F., 2021. "Progress in ecosystem services research: A guide for scholars and practitioners," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Gulay Cetinkaya Ciftcioglu, 2018. "Revealing major terrestrial- and marine species-based provisioning ecosystem services provided by the socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes of Lefke Region in North Cyprus," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 197-221, February.
    4. Turner, Katrine Grace & Anderson, Sharolyn & Gonzales-Chang, Mauricio & Costanza, Robert & Courville, Sasha & Dalgaard, Tommy & Dominati, Estelle & Kubiszewski, Ida & Ogilvy, Sue & Porfirio, Luciana &, 2016. "A review of methods, data, and models to assess changes in the value of ecosystem services from land degradation and restoration," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 319(C), pages 190-207.
    5. Marc D. Davidson, 2017. "Equity and the Conservation of Global Ecosystem Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-15, February.
    6. Gregg C. Brill & Pippin M. L. Anderson & Patrick O’Farrell, 2022. "Relational Values of Cultural Ecosystem Services in an Urban Conservation Area: The Case of Table Mountain National Park, South Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-28, April.
    7. McVittie, Alistair & Norton, Lisa & Martin-Ortega, Julia & Siameti, Ioanna & Glenk, Klaus & Aalders, Inge, 2015. "Operationalizing an ecosystem services-based approach using Bayesian Belief Networks: An application to riparian buffer strips," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 15-27.
    8. Jiayi Zhou & Kangning Xiong & Qi Wang & Jiuhan Tang & Li Lin, 2022. "A Review of Ecological Assets and Ecological Products Supply: Implications for the Karst Rocky Desertification Control," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-20, August.
    9. Kevin Thellmann & Marc Cotter & Sabine Baumgartner & Anna Treydte & Georg Cadisch & Folkard Asch, 2018. "Tipping Points in the Supply of Ecosystem Services of a Mountainous Watershed in Southeast Asia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-15, July.
    10. Jian Zhang & Hengxing Xiang & Shizuka Hashimoto & Toshiya Okuro, 2021. "Observational Scale Matters for Ecosystem Services Interactions and Spatial Distributions: A Case Study of the Ussuri Watershed, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-16, September.
    11. Heink, Ulrich & Jax, Kurt, 2019. "Going Upstream — How the Purpose of a Conceptual Framework for Ecosystem Services Determines Its Structure," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 264-271.
    12. Heinze, Alan & Bongers, Frans & Ramírez Marcial, Neptalí & García Barrios, Luis E. & Kuyper, Thomas W., 2022. "Farm diversity and fine scales matter in the assessment of ecosystem services and land use scenarios," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    13. Hongmi Koo & Janina Kleemann & Christine Fürst, 2018. "Land Use Scenario Modeling Based on Local Knowledge for the Provision of Ecosystem Services in Northern Ghana," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-21, May.
    14. Häyhä, Tiina & Franzese, Pier Paolo & Paletto, Alessandro & Fath, Brian D., 2015. "Assessing, valuing, and mapping ecosystem services in Alpine forests," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 12-23.
    15. Sarkki, Simo & Karjalainen, Timo P., 2015. "Ecosystem service valuation in a governance debate: Practitioners' strategic argumentation on forestry in northern Finland," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 13-22.
    16. Richardson, Leslie & Loomis, John & Kroeger, Timm & Casey, Frank, 2015. "The role of benefit transfer in ecosystem service valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 51-58.
    17. Bagdon, Benjamin A. & Huang, Ching-Hsun & Dewhurst, Stephen, 2016. "Managing for ecosystem services in northern Arizona ponderosa pine forests using a novel simulation-to-optimization methodology," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 324(C), pages 11-27.
    18. Kubiszewski, Ida & Concollato, Luke & Costanza, Robert & Stern, David I., 2023. "Changes in authorship, networks, and research topics in ecosystem services," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    19. van den Belt, Marjan & Blake, Daniella, 2014. "Ecosystem services in new Zealand agro-ecosystems: A literature review," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 115-132.
    20. Ho¨lzinger, Oliver & Horst, Dan van der & Sadler, Jon, 2014. "City-wide Ecosystem Assessments—Lessons from Birmingham," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 98-105.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    spatial planning; ecosystem services; trade-offs; land use change; scenario analysis; strategic environmental assessment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • Q24 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Land

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chuck McKenney (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.