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Over half of the world's human population lives in cities, and for many, urban greenspaces are the only places where they encounter biodiversity. This is of particular concern because there is growing evidence that human well-being is enhanced by exposure to nature. However, the specific qualities of greenspaces that offer the greatest benefits remain poorly understood. One possibility is that humans respond positively to increased levels of biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate the lack of a consistent relationship between actual plant, butterfly, and bird species richness and the psychological well-being of urban greenspace visitors. Instead, well-being shows a positive relationship with the richness that the greenspace users perceived to be present. One plausible explanation for this discrepancy, which we investigate, is that people generally have poor biodiversity-identification skills. The apparent importance of perceived species richness and the mismatch between reality and perception pose a serious challenge for aligning conservation and human well-being agendas.

1. An increasing number of studies are examining the distribution and congruence of ecosystem services, often with the goal of identifying areas that will provide multiple ecosystem service ' hotspots'. However, there is a paucity of data on most ecosystem services, so proxies (e. g. estimates of a service for a particular land cover type) are frequently used to map their distribution. To date, there has been little attempt to quantify the effects of using proxies on distribution maps of ecosystem services, despite the potentially large errors associated with such data sets. 2. Here, we provide the first study examining the effects of using proxies on ecosystem service maps and the degree of spatial congruence of these maps with primary data, using England as a case study. 3. We show that land cover based proxies provide a poor fit to primary data surfaces for biodiversity, recreation and carbon storage, and that correlations between ecosystem services change depending on whether primary or proxy data are used for the analyses. 4. The poor fit of proxies to primary data was also evident when we selected hotspots of single ecosystem services, and consistency between raw and modelled surfaces was extremely low when considering the locations that were coincident hotspots for multiple services. 5. Synthesis and applications. Proxies may be suitable for identifying broad-scale trends in ecosystem services, but even relatively good proxies are likely to be unsuitable for identifying hotspots or priority areas for multiple services.

Global cropland expansion over the last century caused wide-spread habitat loss and degradation. Establishment of protected areas aims to counteract the loss of habitats and to slow species extinctions. However, many protected areas also include high levels of habitat disturbance and conversion for uses such as cropland. Understanding where and why this occurs may realign conservation priorities and inform protected area policy in light of competing priorities such as food security. Here, we use our global synthesis cropland dataset to quantify cropland in protected areas globally and assess their relationship to conservation aims and socio-environmental context. We estimate that cropland occupies 1.4 million km² or 6% of global protected area. Cropland occurs across all protected area management types, with 22% occurring in strictly protected areas. Cropland inside protected areas is more prevalent in countries with higher population density, lower income inequality, and with higher agricultural suitability of protected lands. While this phenomenon is dominant inmidnorthern latitudes, areas of cropland in protected areas of the tropics and subtropics may present greater trade-offs due to higher levels of both biodiversity and food insecurity. Although area-based targets are prominent in biodiversity goal-setting, our results show that they can mask persistent anthropogenic land uses detrimental to native ecosystem conservation. To ensure the long-term efficacy of protected areas, post-2020 goal setting must link aims for biodiversity and human health and improve monitoring of conservation outcomes in cropland-impacted protected areas.

Many decision-makers are looking to science to clarify how nature supports human well-being. Scientists’ responses have typically focused on empirical models of the provision of ecosystem services (ES) and resulting decision-support tools. Although such tools have captured some of the complexities of ES, they can be difficult to adapt to new situations. Globally useful tools that predict the provision of multiple ES under different decision scenarios have proven challenging to develop. Questions from decision-makers and limitations of existing decision-support tools indicate three crucial research frontiers for incorporating cutting-edge ES science into decision-support tools: (1) understanding the complex dynamics of ES in space and time, (2) linking ES provision to human well-being, and (3) determining the potential for technology to substitute for or enhance ES. We explore these frontiers in-depth, explaining why each is important and how existing knowledge at their cutting edges can be incorporated to improve ES decision-making tools.

Globally, governments and regulators face an ongoing trade‐off between meeting economic development needs and conserving biodiversity. Markets for biodiversity offsets are one tool which could secure biodiversity protection at lower costs to society whilst allowing some economic development to still take place. We provide a new perspective on biodiversity offset markets by focussing on what can be learnt from one of the best‐researched environmental markets: the market for tradable pollution permits. We argue there are four key design parameters in terms of how and what to trade. These design parameters likely determine the ecological effectiveness and economic efficiency of any market in biodiversity offsets. Policy Implications. Applying lessons from tradable pollution permit markets will be important if the benefits of biodiversity offset markets are to be realized more fully in future. A well‐functioning market for biodiversity offsets dually minimizes the economic costs of preventing future losses in biodiversity due to development and provides an economic incentive for landowners to invest in biodiversity conservation. The most crucial aspect of the market is what to trade (the currency in the offset market), and this has significant implications on the other key aspects of market design; the trading ratio which governs the rate of exchange between offsets at different points in space and time; the scale of the market; and how the market is regulated. We argue that markets function best where the conservation priority is a well‐defined unit of biodiversity which can be readily measured and monitored. In situations where there are already strong regulations safeguarding biodiversity, the benefit of biodiversity offset markets is in reducing the aggregate costs of conservation. We believe biodiversity offset markets will offer the highest potential in developing countries with weaker environmental protection and a greater need to reconcile economic development needs with conservation under limited funding.

Society’s most vulnerable communities bear the burdens of a multitude of environmental shocks and stressors, which are increasingly likely to occur simultaneously or in quick succession. However, our understanding of where environmental risks accumulate across the United States and how determinants of multi-hazard risk vary within the country remains incomplete. This study offers a more comprehensive understanding of the national scope and underlying drivers of compounding environmental risks from five hazards (water shortage, air pollution, wildfire, flooding, and impaired water quality) in socially vulnerable communities in the contiguous United States. By pairing census tract-level Social Vulnerability Index data from the Centers for Disease Control with hazard exposure data, we find that over 11 percent of the population—37 million people—is at high risk from multiple hazards. We find that multi-hazard risk disproportionately accumulates in the most vulnerable communities and therefore constitutes an environmental injustice. Nationally, socioeconomically vulnerable populations (e.g., low-income households and those lacking health insurance) are inequitably exposed to multiple severe hazards. However, the specific combinations of demographic and environmental drivers of risk accumulation vary across regions. While the widespread nature of environmental risk accumulation indicates that reducing multi-hazard risk will likely require comprehensive rather than piecemeal approaches, results also highlight the need for context-specific interventions.

Ecological systems are dynamic and policies to manage them need to respond to that variation. However, policy adjustments will sometimes be costly, which means that fine‐tuning a policy to track variability in the environment very tightly will only sometimes be worthwhile. We use a classic fisheries management problem, how to manage a stochastically varying population using annually varying quotas in order to maximize profit, to examine how costs of policy adjustment change optimal management recommendations. Costs of policy adjustment (changes in fishing quotas through time) could take different forms. For example, these costs may respond to the size of the change being implemented, or there could be a fixed cost any time a quota change is made. We show how different forms of policy costs have contrasting implications for optimal policies. Though it is frequently assumed that costs to adjusting policies will dampen variation in the policy, we show that certain cost structures can actually increase variation through time. We further show that failing to account for adjustment costs has a consistently worse economic impact than would assuming these costs are present when they are not.

Land-acquisition strategies employed by conservation organizations vary in their flexibility. Conservation-planning theory largely fails to reflect this by presenting models that are either extremely inflexible—parcel acquisitions are irreversible and budgets are fixed—or extremely flexible—previously acquired parcels can readily be sold. This latter approach, the selling of protected areas, is infeasible or problematic in many situations. We considered the value to conservation organizations of increasing the flexibility of their land-acquisition strategies through their approach to financing deals. Specifically, we modeled 2 acquisition-financing methods commonly used by conservation organizations: borrowing and budget carry-over. Using simulated data, we compared results from these models with those from an inflexible fixed-budget model and an extremely flexible selling model in which previous acquisitions could be sold to fund new acquisitions. We then examined 3 case studies of how conservation organizations use borrowing and budget carry-over in practice. Model comparisons showed that borrowing and budget carry-over always returned considerably higher rewards than the fixed-budget model. How they performed relative to the selling model depended on the relative conservation value of past acquisitions. Both the models and case studies showed that incorporating flexibility through borrowing or budget carry-over gives conservation organizations the ability to purchase parcels of higher conservation value than when budgets are fixed without the problems associated with the selling of protected areas. Las estrategias de adquisición de tierras empleadas por las organizaciones de conservación varían en su flexibilidad. La teoría para la planificación de la conservación fracasa enormemente en la representación de esto ya que presenta modelos que son extremadamente inflexibles - la adquisición de lotes es irreversible y los presupuestos están fijados - o extremadamente flexibles - los lotes adquiridos previamente pueden venderse de inmediato. Esta estrategia previa, la venta de áreas protegidas, es inviable o problemática en muchas situaciones. Consideramos el valor que tiene para las organizaciones de conservación incrementar la flexibilidad de sus estrategias de adquisición de suelo a través de su estrategia para los acuerdos de financiamiento. En específico, modelamos dos métodos de adquisición-financiamiento utilizados comúnmente por las organizaciones de conservación: el préstamo y el arrastre del presupuesto. Con el uso de datos simulados comparamos los resultados de estos modelos con aquellos de un modelo inflexible con presupuesto fijo y de un modelo extremadamente flexible de ventas, en el cual las adquisiciones previas podían venderse para financiar nuevas adquisiciones. Después examinamos tres estudios de caso sobre cómo las organizaciones de la conservación utilizan el préstamo y el remanente del presupuesto en la práctica. La comparación entre los modelos mostró que el préstamo y el remanente del presupuesto siempre devolvían recompensas considerablemente más altas que el modelo con el presupuesto fijo. Su desempeño en relación con el modelo de ventas dependió del valor de conservación relativo de las adquisiciones previas. Tanto los modelos como los estudios de caso mostraron que incorporar la flexibilidad por medio del préstamo o el arrastre del presupuesto otorga a las organizaciones de conservación la habilidad de comprar lotes con un valor más alto de conservación que cuando los presupuestos están fijados y sin los problemas asociados con la venta de áreas protegidas.

Conservation organizations seek to achieve multiple benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services through protected area expansion, necessitating an understanding of potential co‐benefits and trade‐offs. We use benefit functions derived from modeled and best‐available data to characterize five benefits (habitat area, total species richness, threatened species richness, carbon storage, and recreational use) and examine how trade‐off assessments are influenced by policy context, when controlling for the effect of cost and future conversion threat. We applied a pairwise correlation (broad actions) and a “best sites” approach (narrow actions) for land protection across the contiguous United States. We also considered the spatial footprint of regional and thematic policies. Nationally, we find strong potential for co‐benefits between biodiversity, habitat, and carbon storage. Scope for co‐benefits is weaker when including recreational use, an ecosystem service driven primarily by human population. Crucially, we show that the conclusions one would draw regarding scope for co‐benefits can change markedly depending on the context and spatial footprint of policy decisions.

The full or partial purchase of land has become a cornerstone of efforts to conserve biodiversity in countries with strong private property rights. Methods used to target areas for acquisition typically ignore land market dynamics. We show how conservation purchases affect land prices and generate feedbacks that can undermine conservation goals, either by displacing development toward biologically valuable areas or by accelerating its pace. The impact of these market feedbacks on the effectiveness of conservation depends on the ecological value of land outside nature reserves. Traditional, noneconomic approaches to site prioritization should perform adequately in places where land outside reserves supports little biodiversity. However, these approaches will perform poorly in locations where the countryside surrounding reserves is important for species' persistence. Conservation investments can sometimes even be counterproductive, condemning more species than they save. Conservation is most likely to be compromised in the absence of accurate information on species distributions, which provides a strong argument for improving inventories of biodiversity. Accounting for land market dynamics in conservation planning is crucial for making smart investment decisions.