Ecosystem Services - Ecological Systems - page 86

Fig. 6.3 A framework
showing key elements for
integrating ES into
decision-making [ 16 ].
One could link any two
ovals, in any direction,
in different decision
contexts

Decisions Actions &

Scenarios

Incentives

Institutions Ecosystems

Biophysical
Models

Information

Values Services

Economic &
Cultural Models

between 2001 and 2005 with contributions from over 1,360 experts worldwide. The
key finding of this assessment was that two thirds of the world's ecosystem services
were declining [ 38 ]. This captured the attention of world leaders and emphasized
the connections between human decisions and the natural environment that feed
back to the human condition via changes in the flow of ecosystem services.
Work following the MA clarified this chain of connections ( Fig. 6.3 )[ 16 ].
Human decisions shape individuals' actions relating to the use of land, water,
oceans, and other elements of natural capital. These actions often alter the state
or functioning of ecosystems, which in turn provide altered flows of benefits (goods
or services) to people. People express different values (monetary, cultural)
associated with these altered streams of benefits and it is the expression of these
values that leads to changes in institutions that guide decisions. The following three
recent advances all concern the connections in this flow.
A suite of recent advances has greatly improved understanding of the links
between ecosystem functions and processes and the provision of ecosystem
services ( Fig. 6.3 ). For some ecosystem services, we now better understand the
key ecological system components that drive provision (e.g., [ 33 ]) and we can now
measure (e.g., [ 56 ]) and model, with uncertainty, the impacts of land use and
resource management decisions on a wider variety of ecosystem processes and
associated services. Ecological science has also advanced spatially explicit
modeling, which is essential for mapping ecosystem services and their flows to
people (e.g., [ 10 , 27 , 43 , 57 ]). Finally, we are starting to see patterns in how
multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity change in relation to each other.
Recent work has started characterizing bundles of ecosystem services, and explor-
ing their synergies and trade-offs (e.g., [ 4 , 6 , 20 , 42 , 43 ]).
Further, economic valuation methods have been applied to the spatial provision
of ecosystem services to estimate the monetary value of benefits and, in some cases,
the distribution of those benefits to various segments of society [ 42 , 45 , 52 , 64 ]. In
addition, qualitative and quantitative methods from other social sciences have been