Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Using Ecosystem Services in Community-
Based Landscape Planning: Science is Not
Ready to Deliver
Paul Opdam
Abstract Community-based landscape governance is considered as conditional to
achieving sustainable landscape. I consider landscape governance from the point
of view of adapting landscapes to create value out of ecosystem services, using the
social-ecological system model as a theoretical framework. I advocate the use of
the term landscape services because it can serve as a common ground between
science and local communities, and between scientists from different disciplines.
Six principles for sustainable landscape change are presented, which can be
developed as a checklist in planning, and as requirements to scientific methods.
From the current literature it is obvious that ecosystem service research does not
provide the type of science that is required to support sustainable, community-
based landscape planning. Research is mainly science driven, focussed on
assessments at large spatial scale, and with policy users in mind. Active
involvement of local stakeholders is scarce. There is a strong demand for
approaches that are able to involve local governance networks and move the
ecosystem services research out of the static mapping and evaluation approaches
towards dynamic systems thinking. The chapter ends with a research agenda.
Keywords Landscape services
Criteria for sustainability
Social-ecological
system
Green infrastructure
Adaptive governance
Knowledge application
Habitat networks
Landscape change
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