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"Opdam, Paul"
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Landscape services as a bridge between landscape ecology and sustainable development
Landscape ecology is in a position to become the scientific basis for sustainable landscape development. When spatial planning policy is decentralised, local actors need to collaborate to decide on the changes that have to be made in the landscape to better accommodate their perceptions of value. This paper addresses two prerequisites that landscape ecological science has to meet for it to be effective in producing appropriate knowledge for such bottom-up landscape-development processes--it must include a valuation component, and it must be suitable for use in collaborative decision-making on a local scale. We argue that landscape ecological research needs to focus more on these issues and propose the concept of landscape services as a unifying common ground where scientists from various disciplines are encouraged to cooperate in producing a common knowledge base that can be integrated into multifunctional, actor-led landscape development. We elaborate this concept into a knowledge framework, the structure-function-value chain, and expand the current pattern-process paradigm in landscape ecology with value in this way. Subsequently, we analyse how the framework could be applied and facilitate interdisciplinary research that is applicable in transdisciplinary landscape-development processes.
Journal Article
Modelling shifts between mono- and multifunctional farming systems: the importance of social and economic drivers
Context
In Europe, policy measures are starting to emerge that promote multifunctional farming systems and delivery of ecosystem services besides food production. Effectiveness of these policy instruments have to deal with ecological, economic and social complexities and with complexities in individual decisions of local actors leading to system shifts.
Objective
The objective of this paper is to discover the most important social and/or economic drivers that cause farm systems to shift between a monofunctional (providing food) and a multifunctional state (providing food and natural pest regulation).
Methods
Using a cellular automata model, we simulated decisions of individual farmers to shift between a mono-and multifunctional state through time, based on their behaviour type and on financial and social consequences. Collaboration of multifunctional farmers at a landscape scale is a precondition to provide a reliable level of natural pest regulation.
Results
Costs of applying green infrastructure was an important driver for the size and the conversion rate of shifts between mono-and multifunctional farming systems. Shifts towards multifunctional farming were enhanced by a higher motivation of farmers to produce sustainably, while shifts (back) to a monofunctional state was enhanced by a low social cohesion between multifunctional farmers.
Conclusions
These results suggest that in order to develop a multifunctional farming system, individual farmers should act counterintuitively to their conventional farming environment. To maintain a multifunctional farming system, social cohesion between multifunctional farmers is most relevant. Financial aspects are important in both shifts.
Journal Article
Population dynamics under increasing environmental variability: implications of climate change for ecological network design criteria
There is growing evidence that climate change causes an increase in variation in conditions for plant and animal populations. This increase in variation, e.g. amplified inter-annual variability in temperature and rainfall has population dynamical consequences because it raises the variation in vital demographic rates (survival, reproduction) in these populations. In turn, this amplified environmental variability enlarges population extinction risk. This paper demonstrates that currently used nature conservation policies, principles, and generic and specific design criteria have to be adapted to these new insights. A simulation shows that an increase in variation in vital demographic rates can be compensated for by increasing patch size. A small, short-lived bird species like a warbler that is highly sensitive to environmental fluctuations needs more area for compensation than a large, long-lived bird species like a Bittern. We explore the conservation problems that would arise if patches or reserve sizes would need to be increased, e.g. doubled, in order to compensate for increase in environmental variability. This issue has serious consequences for nature policy when targets are not met, and asks for new design criteria.
Journal Article
Science for action at the local landscape scale
For landscape ecology to produce knowledge relevant to society, it must include considerations of human culture and behavior, extending beyond the natural sciences to synthesize with many other disciplines. Furthermore, it needs to be able to support landscape change processes which increasingly take the shape of deliberative and collaborative decision making by local stakeholder groups. Landscape ecology as described by Wu (Landscape Ecol 28:1–11,
2013
) therefore needs three additional topics of investigation: (1) the local landscape as a boundary object that builds communication among disciplines and between science and local communities, (2) iterative and collaborative methods for generating transdisciplinary approaches to sustainable change, and (3) the effect of scientific knowledge and tools on local landscape policy and landscape change. Collectively, these topics could empower landscape ecology to be a science for action at the local scale.
Journal Article
Adapting landscapes to climate change: examples of climate-proof ecosystem networks and priority adaptation zones
1. Climate change has been inducing range shifts for many species as they follow their suitable climate space and further shifts are projected. Whether species will be able to colonize regions where climate conditions become suitable, so-called 'new climate space', depends on species traits and habitat fragmentation. 2. By combining bioclimate envelope models with dispersal models, we identified areas where the spatial cohesion of the ecosystem pattern is expected to be insufficient to allow colonization of new climate space. 3. For each of three ecosystem types, three species were selected that showed a shift in suitable climate space and differed in habitat fragmentation sensitivity. 4. For the 2020 and 2050 time slices, the amount of climatically suitable habitat in northwest Europe diminished for all studied species. Additionally, significant portions of new suitable habitat could not be colonized because of isolation. Together, this will result in a decline in the amount of suitable habitat protected in Natura 2000 sites. 5. We develop several adaptation strategies to combat this problem: (i) link isolated habitat that is within a new suitable climate zone to the nearest climate-proof network; (ii) increase colonizing capacity in the overlap zone, the part of a network that remains suitable in successive time frames; (iii) optimize sustainable networks in climate refugia, the part of a species' range where the climate remains stable. 6. Synthesis and applications. Following the method described in this study, we can identify those sites across Europe where ecosystem patterns are not cohesive enough to accommodate species' responses to climate change. The best locations for climate corridors where improving connectivity is most urgent and potential gain is highest can then be pinpointed.
Journal Article
Does information on the interdependence of climate adaptation measures stimulate collaboration? A case study analysis
A key issue in implementing adaptation strategies at the landscape level is that landowners take measures on their land collectively. We explored the role of information in collective decision-making in a landscape planning process in the Baakse Beek region, the Netherlands. Information was provided on (a) the degree to which measures contribute to multiple purposes, (b) whether they are beneficial to stakeholders representing different sectors of land use, and (c) the need for landscape-level implementation of adaptation measures. Our analysis suggests that the negotiation process resulted in collective decisions for more collaborative adaptation measures than could be expected from individual preferences previous to the planning session. Based on the results, it is plausible that the provided information enhanced integrative agreements by leading stakeholders to realize that they were mutually interdependent, both in acquiring individual benefits as well as in implementing the measures at the landscape level. Our findings are significant in the context of the emerging insight that targeted information provision for climate adaptation of landscapes can support collaboration between the relevant stakeholders.
Journal Article
How Could Companies Engage in Sustainable Landscape Management? An Exploratory Perspective
Current concepts that aim to align economic development with sustainability, such as the circular and green economy, often consider natural systems as externalities. We extend the green economy concept by including the landscape as the provider of social, economic and environmental values. Our aim is to explore how companies could engage in creating landscape-inclusive solutions for sustainable landscapes. We propose a conceptual model of the relationship between companies and landscape services based on a demand for landscape benefits by companies, implications for wider society. We present a short overview of how scientists addressed the role of companies in landscape-inclusive solutions. We also give some examples taken from the World Wide Web to illustrate the variety of ways in which companies already invest in landscape services. Our findings suggest that the relationship between companies and landscapes is not yet strongly recognized in sustainability science. However, examples from practice show that some companies do recognize the added values of landscape services, to the extent that they invest in landscape management. We conclude that future research should provide information on the added value of landscape-inclusive solutions to companies, and increase their capacity to engage in regional social–ecological networks.
Journal Article
Navigating the space between landscape science and collective action for sustainability: identifying key factors in information processing
ContextTransitions to more sustainable landscapes require that actors change their thinking about using the landscape and act collectively to implement a shared view on the future. If landscape ecologists want their knowledge to contribute to such transitions, the information they provide need to stimulate collective decisions and action.ObjectiveTo identify key factors that determine how scientific information about landscape functioning and benefits influences actors in organizing collective action for landscape sustainability.MethodI combine a theory of knowledge management with a theory of behavioural change to construct a framework of 4 phases of interpretation and implementation of landscape information.ResultsThe 4 phases are: (1) actors accept the information as significant, (2) actors assess the saliency of the information for their case, (3) the information stimulates social network building and collective action, and (4) the information enforces the capacity to organize collaborative change. The extent to which these phases effectively develop in the interaction between scientists and practitioners depends on characteristics of the information, but to a great deal also on the process of interaction and the roles scientist play. I discuss how landscape ecologists can intervene in these phases, by providing the right information and by facilitating an interactive process of knowledge generation.ConclusionsWhether landscape information is eventually used in organizing the landscape change depends on characteristics of the information and the governance process in which the information is brought in. Knowledge from social sciences is indispensable for landscape ecology with impact.
Journal Article
Model explorations of ecological network performance under conditions of global change
Ecological networks facilitate the mobility and vitality of species populations by providing a network of habitat patches that are embedded in a traversable landscape matrix. Climate change and land-use change pose threats to biodiversity, which can potentially be overcome by ecological networks. Yet, systematic assessments of ecological network performance under conditions of climate change and land-use change are rare. In this special issue we explore and evaluate approaches to assess the functionality of ecological networks under scenarios of global change. Hereby we distinguish three research fields: dynamics in the spatial configuration of networks; changes in the abiotic conditions within networks; and population viability and mobility of species within the networks. We present novel approaches for each of these themes, as well as approaches that aim to combine them within one modelling framework. Whilst the contributions featured all show promising developments towards the goal of ecological network performance under conditions of global change, we also see challenges for future research: the need to achieve (i) better integration between the three research fields; (ii) better empirical grounding of theoretical models; and (iii) better design of scientific models in order to assist policymaking.
Journal Article