Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne

Ecosystem service bundles for analyzing tradeoffs in diverse landscapes

A key challenge of ecosystem management is determining how to manage multiple ecosystem services across landscapes. Enhancing important provisioning ecosystem services, such as food and timber, often leads to tradeoffs between regulating and cultural ecosystem services, such as nutrient cycling, flood protection, and tourism. We developed a framework for analyzing the provision of multiple ecosystem services across landscapes and present an empirical demonstration of ecosystem service bundles, sets of services that appear together repeatedly. Ecosystem service bundles were identified by analyzing the spatial patterns of 12 ecosystem services in a mixed-use landscape consisting of 137 municipalities in Quebec, Canada. We identified six types of ecosystem service bundles and were able to link these bundles to areas on the landscape characterized by distinct social–ecological dynamics. Our results show landscape-scale tradeoffs between provisioning and almost all regulating and cultural ecosystem services, and they show that a greater diversity of ecosystem services is positively correlated with the provision of regulating ecosystem services. Ecosystem service-bundle analysis can identify areas on a landscape where ecosystem management has produced exceptionally desirable or undesirable sets of ecosystem services.

Linking futures across scales : a dialog on multiscale scenarios

Scenario analysis is a useful tool for exploring key uncertainties that may shape the future of social-ecological systems. This paper explores the methods, costs, and benefits of developing and linking scenarios of social-ecological systems across multiple spatial scales. Drawing largely on experiences in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, we suggest that the desired degree of cross-scale linkage depends on the primary aim of the scenario exercise. Loosely linked multiscale scenarios appear more appropriate when the primary aim is to engage in exploratory dialog with stakeholders. Tightly coupled cross-scale scenarios seem to work best when the main objective is to further our understanding of cross-scale interactions or to assess trade-offs between scales. The main disadvantages of tightly coupled cross-scale scenarios are that their development requires substantial time and financial resources, and that they often suffer loss of credibility at one or more scales. The reasons for developing multiscale scenarios and the expectations associated with doing so therefore need to be carefully evaluated when choosing the desired degree of cross-scale linkage in a particular scenario exercise.

Scale and ecosystem services: how do observation, management, and analysis shift with scale—lessons from Québec

Ecosystem service assessment and management are shaped by the scale at which they are conducted; however, there has been little systematic investigation of the scales associated with ecosystem serv ...

The Paradox Persists: How to Resolve It?

The environmentalists paradox refers to two apparently contra-dictory trends: declining supplies of ecosystem services and increasing human well-being. If humans are truly dependent on nature, then human well-being should deteriorate as ecosystem services are degraded. Our article (Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010) examined the evidence for and against four proposed explanations of this paradox. By evaluating multiple explanations, we aimed to contribute to a stronger science of sustainability by encouraging dialogue among the disciplines that address sustainability but emphasize different ways of explaining this paradox. In our article, we critically reviewed empirical evidence from a broad multidisciplinary literature about the relationship between human well-being and ecosystem services and identified areas for future research to address the important gaps in our understanding of this relationship. Consequently, we broadly agree with both Nelson and Duraiappah (see Viewpoints, this issue) that more research and data at multiple scales are needed to resolve the environmentalists paradox. However, our perspectives differ from theirs in terms of trends in well-being, stocks and flows of ecosystem services, and the role of technology in mediating the relationship between ecosystems and human well-being.

Principles for Building Resilience: Principle 3 –Manage slow variables and feedbacks

Many social–ecological systems can exist in different self-organizing configurations or ‘regimes’. Each of these configurations produces a different set of ecosystem services, with differing consequences for different users. Changes in controlling slow variables can cause a system to shift from one regime to another if certain thresholds are exceeded and there is a change in dominant feedback processes in the social–ecological system. Such shifts are often associated with large, rapid changes in ecosystem services, and can have substantial impacts on human societies. In other cases, feedbacks may trap a system in a regime that produces a very limited set of desired ecosystem services, and make it very difficult to shift the system to a different configuration. The importance of managing slow variables and feedbacks to maintain social–ecological regimes that produce desired bundles of ecosystem services, restore social–ecological systems to more desired configurations or transform systems to entirely new configurations is widely acknowledged in the resilience literature. However,identifying and managing key slow variables and feedbacks to avoid system thresholds or facilitate systemic transformations is often difficult in practice. Maintaining regulating ecosystem services as a proxy for managing slow variables may be one practical way forward. Other strategies focus on better understanding slow variables and feedbacks that underlie different social–ecological configurations, monitoring changes in slow variables and feedbacks, managing the strength of feedbacks and addressing missing feedbacks between drivers and impacts on ecosystem services.

A novel approach for co-producing positive scenarios that explore agency: case study from the Canadian Arctic

The planet’s social–ecological systems are expected to change in rapid and surprising ways in the coming decades, with consequences for ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human well-being. One way to support local communities and decision-makers at higher scales in addressing such surprising changes is to develop scenarios that are locally actionable and that can inform understanding of social–ecological dynamics across scales. This study focuses on three areas that require advances for developing globally relevant scenarios that support local action: (1) mobilizing Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in scenarios; (2) using scenarios to explore agency to affect the future; (3) probing a vast range of plausible positive futures. For scenarios to be relevant to communities in supporting positive change, approaches that engage with ILK to explore how human action, or agency, can shape the future are needed, as well as positive scenarios that feature a wide range of good outcomes for nature and people to inspire and guide action. We propose a novel set of methods for participatory scenario planning—developed and tested through a case study in the Canadian Arctic—designed to carefully explore what ‘positive futures’ could mean to different populations faced with growing impacts from environmental and social change, and how positive outcomes can be achieved even in light of these changing dynamics. This scenario approach provides direction to engage multiple ways of knowing in developing knowledge about future changes that can direct sustainable action.