Effects of Global Household Proliferation on Ecosystem Services - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 111

The effects of household proliferation may be complex (e.g., with nonlinear
relationships and thresholds). Addressing these complexities requires new data and
novel tools. Data on household proliferation are not as readily available as pop-
ulation sizes because population sizes are more frequently sampled and widely
reported. Obtaining relevant household data is more time-consuming, more
complicated, and more costly than research using data on population dynamics.
It is encouraging, however, that new opportunities to address household pro-
liferation are also emerging. More advanced tools for collecting, analyzing, and
visualizing data are becoming available. For example, high-resolution remotely
sensed data such as QuickBird and IKONOS can help identify locations of housing
units (An et al. 2005 ). A combination of on-the-ground interviews, documents
from relevant institutions such as government agencies, and remote sensing data
will be helpful in understanding impacts of household proliferation on ecosystem
services. Dynamic and interactive web sites (e.g., blogs, social media) and citizen
science may provide new tools to understand household demand for ecosystem
services.
Current monitoring programs on ecosystem services include indicators of
ecosystem services themselves (Table 6.1 ). To more accurately predict changes in
ecosystem services and take proactive adaptive management measures, it is crucial
to monitor indicators that affect changes in ecosystem services directly and indi-
rectly, including factors that shape household dynamics. Thus, monitoring efforts
should be expanded, especially in areas with severe degradation of ecosystem
services, to indicators in human dimensions (e.g., values and attitudes toward
household formation and ecosystem services).
Household proliferation generates more complications for ecosystem service
management and policy than population growth. In fact, some payments for
ecosystem services programs stimulate the formation of new households because
the payments are implemented at the household level and dividing a household
into two can double the payments (Liu et al. 2007 ). To achieve sustainability of
ecosystem services, current management and stewardship approaches need to
adopt a new structure to fully integrate household proliferation and strive to
enhance positive and reduce negative effects of household proliferation.
6.5 Conclusions
Global household proliferation provides both challenges and opportunities for
research and governance of ecosystem services in coupled human and natural
systems across local to global levels. It is projected that household proliferation
will intensify even faster than population growth globally in the future. As
household proliferation has important implications for demand and impacts on
ecosystem services, it should be incorporated into ecosystem services research,
monitoring, and scenario analysis. Incorporating household dynamics into research
across landscapes around the world would lead to unique new insights. Such