Kinga Krauze

Changes in biodiversity and trade-offs among ecosystem services, stakeholders, and components of well-being: the contribution of the International Long-Term Ecological Research network (ILTER) to Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS)

The International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network comprises > 600 scientific groups conducting site-based research within 40 countries. Its mission includes improving the understanding of global ecosystems and informs solutions to current and future environmental problems at the global scales. The ILTER network covers a wide range of social-ecological conditions and is aligned with the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) goals and approach. Our aim is to examine and develop the conceptual basis for proposed collaboration between ILTER and PECS. We describe how a coordinated effort of several contrasting LTER site-based research groups contributes to the understanding of how policies and technologies drive either toward or away from the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services. This effort is based on three tenets: transdisciplinary research; cross-scale interactions and subsequent dynamics; and an ecological stewardship orientation. The overarching goal is to design management practices taking into account trade-offs between using and conserving ecosystems toward more sustainable solutions. To that end, we propose a conceptual approach linking ecosystem integrity, ecosystem services, and stakeholder well-being, and as a way to analyze trade-offs among ecosystem services inherent in diverse management options. We also outline our methodological approach that includes: (i) monitoring and synthesis activities following spatial and temporal trends and changes on each site and by documenting cross-scale interactions; (ii) developing analytical tools for integration; (iii) promoting trans-site comparison; and (iv) developing conceptual tools to design adequate policies and management interventions to deal with trade-offs. Finally, we highlight the heterogeneity in the social-ecological setting encountered in a subset of 15 ILTER sites. These study cases are diverse enough to provide a broad cross-section of contrasting ecosystems with different policy and management drivers of ecosystem conversion; distinct trends of biodiversity change; different stakeholders’ preferences for ecosystem services; and diverse components of well-being issues.

Contributions of Landscape Sciences to the Development of Environmental Security

determinant of security, especially given the emergence of new political, economic, social, and environmental challenges since the end of the cold war. The relationship between environment and security now is a common interest among both the scientific and policymaking communities, supported by the fact that the traditional security concepts based on territorial integrity and political sovereignty have been revisited following the changes in the geopolitical landscape at the end of the last century. Security generally is related to both a perception of freedom from risk and freedom from anxiety or fear. Security aims at providing expected services, safety, and protecting valuable assets from harm, even during times of increased threat or risk. Security is achieved through both prospective (preventative) and retrospective (mitigation) actions on the part of governments, agencies, and people. Perceptions of security by individuals, communities, and societies are strongly linked to human well-being and to the satisfaction of the population. The notion of environmental security has been historically linked to inter-national conflicts caused by environmental degradation, e.g. through overuse of renewable resources, pollution, or impoverishment in the space of living (Tuchel, 2004; Herrero, 2006; Liotta, 2006). In this context, the concept of environmental security has been developed mainly by international policy researchers and has focused on the role of the scarcity of renewable resources such as cropland, forests, water, and fish stocks. Statistical data demonstrate that agriculture and natural resource availability plays an important role in many events of acute violence, which often occur in rural areas (De Soysa et al., 1999). Therefore, attention has been devoted to the theoretical analysis of possible pathways that lead to loss of environmental security, beginning with scarcity and leading to outbreaks of violence. Thus, environmental security has been discussed as a concept of international security policy (Brauch, 2006). This debate began in the late 1980s and has been quite intense. Recently, environmental security issues received increasing worldwide interest by govern-ments, scientific institutions, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovern-mental groups, calling for greater attention to the potential threats to security posed by environmental problems (Dabelko, 2004; Matthew et al., 2004, UNEP, 2004). The decrease in quantity and quality of resources, rapid global population growth, and unequal access to resources are the basic drivers behind increasing environment-related security risks. Notably renewable resources like water and land are crucial factors in security issues, especially with respect to instability and migration between and within countries or regions. Moreover, environmental degradation often results in changes in important ecological and landscape processes that can have irreversible impacts to critical renewable resources such as water, fiber, food, and clean air. This can lead to a relatively permanent loss

An ecohydrological approach for the protection and enhancement of ecosystem services

Water is the only factor linking all ecosystem services – provisional, supporting, regulatory, and cultural. For this reason water resources are highly vulnerable to human pressures and become a cause of environmental insecurity in many regions of the world. The methods of coping with water-related problems were built on the conviction that the risk of losing water driven services can be, to a great extent, anticipated and diminished by policy and technical and technological measures. However, considering the number of factors regulating accessibility and quality of water, the risks associated with water scarcity should be considered as having higher damage potential, persistency, ubiquity and irreversibility, especially under increasing climate variability, than previously assumed. Handling risk is problematic also due to high uncertainty and severe outcomes associated with rising water needs, conflicting demands, and low awareness among citizens. Many important issues affecting water management are often rooted in the past, e.g. poverty, dramatic population growth, industrialization, land transformations, inefficient policy and overengineering. Unknown risk, damages difficult to assess, and low capacity for worldwide introduction of top, but expensive technologies led back to questions concerning a potential for using natural mechanisms to maintain ecosystem resilience and to mitigate human activities, which are handicapping. A proposed ecohydrology approach scrutinizes the interrelation between components of river catchments, focusing especially on those between biota and hydrology. It suggests using these relations for increasing an adaptive capacity of ecosystems and thus the stability and security of ecosystem services.

What is socio-ecological research delivering? A literature survey across 25 international LTSER platforms

With an overarching goal of addressing global and regional sustainability challenges, Long Term Socio-Ecological Research Platforms (LTSER) aim to conduct place-based research, to collect and synthesize both environmental and socio-economic data, and to involve a broader stakeholder pool to set the research agenda. To date there have been few studies examining the output from LTSER platforms. In this study we enquire if the socio-ecological research from 25 self-selected LTSER platforms of the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network has produced research products which fulfil the aims and ambitions of the paradigm shift from ecological to socio-ecological research envisaged at the turn of the century. In total we assessed 4983 publically available publications, of which 1112 were deemed relevant to the socio-ecological objectives of the platform. A series of 22 questions were scored for each publication, assessing relevance of responses in terms of the disciplinary focus of research, consideration of human health and well-being, degree of stakeholder engagement, and other relevant variables. The results reflected the diverse origins of the individual platforms and revealed a wide range in foci, temporal periods and quantity of output from participating platforms, supporting the premise that there is a growing trend in socio-ecological research at long-term monitoring platforms. Our review highlights the challenges of realizing the top-down goal to harmonize international network activities and objectives and the need for bottom-up, self-definition for research platforms. This provides support for increasing the consistency of LTSER research while preserving the diversity of regional experiences.

Ecosytem Services: A Rapid Assessment Method Tested at 35 Sites of the LTER-Europe Network

Abstract The identification of parameters to monitor the ecosystem services delivered at a site is fundamental to the concept’s adoption as a useful policy instrument at local, national and international scales. In this paper we (i) describe the process of developing a rapid comprehensive ecosystem service assessment methodology and (ii) test the applicability of the protocol at 35 long-term research (LTER) sites across 14 countries in the LTER-Europe network (www.lter-europe.net) including marine, urban, agricultural, forest, desert and conservation sites. An assessment of probability of occurrence with estimated confidence score using 83 ecosystem service parameters was tested. The parameters were either specific services like food production or proxies such as human activities which were considered surrogates for cultural diversity and economic activity. This initial test of the ecosystem service parameter list revealed that the parameters tested were relatively easy to score by site managers with a high level of certainty (92% scored as either occurring or not occurring at the site with certainty of over 90%). Based on this assessment, we concluded that (i) this approach to operationalise the concept of ecosystem services is practical and applicable by many sectors of civil society as a first screen of the ecosystem services present at a site, (ii) this study has direct relevance to land management and policy decision makers as a transparent vehicle to focus testing scenarios and target data gathering, but (iii) further work beyond the scale investigated here is required to ensure global applicability.

Defining the risk to water and natural capital in cities with risk component analysis tool (DAPSET): Case study Łódź

Management of water resources poses a particular challenge in cities, due to the extensive degradation of the urban ecosystem and its limited self-regulatory capacity as compared to natural systems. Effective management requires an in-depth understanding of the sources (drivers) giving rise to such risk. This paper reports on a participatory identification of such factors driving the risk to urban water resources in the city of Łódź, Poland, carried out with the aim of testing a simple risk analysis tool (DAPSET - Drivers and Pressures - Strength Evaluation Tool), intended to yield the kind of complex data able to help assist city managers in decision-making processes. In the first part of the study, a number of selected public officials, students, researchers and NGO representatives were asked to rank the key socioeconomic drivers of water resources in the city. The four drivers identified as key (a low degree of environmental awareness among citizens, low law-enforcement efficiency, the citys low economic potential and land use changes) were then scrutinized in the second part of the study, which included a self-administered questionnaire designed to create a risk profile of drivers based on the DAPSET. Each of the four key drivers were analyzed with reference to eleven features. DAPSET revealed that all the key drivers share certain common features: they affect a large spatial scale, the damage they cause is persistent, and they involve either medium-high damage potential or probability of damage. The major differences between them stem from the dynamic features of the risk: societal attraction, invisibility, and availability of information. Analysis of the risk profiles so created against risk types pointed to the desirable directions of management and a need to go beyond standard actions.

Effects of Stormwater and Snowmelt Runoff on ELISA-EQ Concentrations of PCDD/PCDF and Triclosan in an Urban River.

The aim of the study was to determine the effects of stormwater and snowmelt runoff on the ELISA EQ PCDD/PCDF and triclosan concentrations in the small urban Sokołówka River (Central Poland). The obtained results demonstrate the decisive influence of hydrological conditions occurring in the river itself and its catchment on the quoted PCDD/PCDF ELISA EQ concentrations. The lowest PCDD/PCDF values of 87, 60 and 67 ng EQ L-1 in stormwater, the river and its reservoirs, respectively, were associated with the highest river flow of 0.02 m3 s-1 and high precipitation (11.2 mm) occurred five days before sampling. In turn, the highest values of 353, 567 and 343 ng EQ L-1 in stormwater, the river and its reservoirs, respectively, were observed during periods of intensive snow melting (stormwater samples) and spring rainfall preceded by a rainless phase (river and reservoir samples) followed by low and moderate river flows of 0.01 and 0.005 m3 s-1. An analogous situation was observed for triclosan, with higher ELISA EQ concentrations (444 to 499 ng EQ L-1) noted during moderate river flow and precipitation, and the lowest (232 to 288 ng EQ L-1) observed during high river flow and high precipitation preceded by violent storms. Stormwater was also found to influence PCDD/PCDF EQ concentrations of the river and reservoirs, however only during high and moderate flow, and no such effect was observed for triclosan. The study clearly demonstrates that to mitigate the high peaks of the studied pollutants associated with river hydrology, the increased in-site stormwater infiltration and purification, the development of buffering zones along river course and the systematic maintenance of reservoirs to avoid the accumulation of the studied micropollutants and their subsequent release after heavy rainfall are required.