Your search found 3 records
1 DeClerck, F. A. J.; Jones. S. K.; Attwood, S.; Bossio, D.; Girvetz, E.; Chaplin-Kramer, B.; Enfors, E.; Fremier, A. K.; Gordon, L. J.; Kizito, F.; Noriega, I. L.; Matthews, N.; McCartney, Matthew; Meacham, M.; Noble, Andrew; Quintero, M.; Remans, S.; Soppe, R.; Willemen, L.; Wood, S. L. R.; Zhang, W. 2016. Agricultural ecosystems and their services: the vanguard of sustainability? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 23:92-99. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2016.11.016]
Sustainable development ; Agriculture ; Farming systems ; Natural resources ; Ecosystem services ; Social welfare ; Environmental sustainability ; Landscape ; Biodiversity conservation ; Food security ; Food production ; Nutrition ; Farmland ; Diversification ; Social aspects
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048008)
Sustainable Development Goals offer an opportunity to improve human well-being while conserving natural resources. Ecosystem services highlight human well-being benefits ecosystems, including agricultural ecosystems, provides. Whereas agricultural systems produce the majority of our food, they drive significant environmental degradation. This tension between development and environmental conservation objectives is not an immutable outcome as agricultural systems are simultaneously dependents, and providers of ecosystem services. Recognizing this duality allows integration of environmental and development objectives and leverages agricultural ecosystem services for achieving sustainability targets. We propose a framework to operationalize ecosystem services and resilience-based interventions in agricultural landscapes and call for renewed efforts to apply resilience-based approaches to landscape management challenges and for refocusing ecosystem service research on human well-being outcomes.
2 del Rio-Mena, T.; Willemen, L.; Tesfamariam, G. T.; Beukes, O.; Nelson, A. 2020. Remote sensing for mapping ecosystem services to support evaluation of ecological restoration interventions in an arid landscape. Ecological Indicators, 113:106182. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106182]
Ecosystem services ; Ecological control ; Remote sensing ; Arid zones ; Normalized difference vegetation index ; Revegetation ; Earth observation satellites ; Geographical information systems ; Essential oils ; Biomass ; Thicket ; Forage ; Land degradation ; Erosion control ; Water flow ; Regulations ; Livestock ; Indicators ; Models / South Africa / Baviaanskloof Hartland Bawarea Conservancy
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049672)
(1.27 MB)
Considerable efforts and resources are being invested in integrated conservation and restoration interventions in rural arid areas. Empirical research for quantifying ecosystem services – nature’s benefits to people – is essential for evaluating the range of benefits of ecological restoration and to support its use in natural resource management. Satellite remote sensing (RS) can be used to monitor interventions, especially in large and remote areas. In this study we used field measurements, RS-based information from Sentinel-2 imagery together with soil and terrain data, to estimate ecosystem service supply and evaluate integrated ecological restoration interventions. We based our research on the arid, rural landscape of the Baviaanskloof Hartland Bawarea Conservancy, South Africa, where several integrated interventions have been implemented in areas where decades of small livestock farming has led to extensive land degradation. Interventions included i) long term livestock exclusion, ii) revegetating of degraded areas, iii) a combination of these two, and iv) essential oil production as alternatives to goat and sheep farming. We assessed six ecosystem services linked to the objectives of the interventions: erosion prevention, climate regulation, regulation of water flows, provision of forage, biomass for essential oil production, and the sense of place through presence of native species. We first estimated the ecosystem service supply based on field measurements. Secondly, we explored the relationships between ecosystem services quantities derived from the field measurements with 13 Sentinel-2 indices and four soil and terrain variables. We then selected the best fitting model for each ecosystem service. Finally, we compared the supply of ecosystem services between intervened and non-intervened sites. Results showed that models based on Sentinel-2 indices, combined with slope information, can estimate ecosystem services supply in the study area even when the levels of field-based ecosystem services supplies are low. The RS-based models can assess ecosystem services more accurately when their indicators mainly depend on green vegetation, such as for erosion prevention and provision of forage. The agricultural fields presented high variability between plots on the provision of ecosystem services. The use of Sentinel-2 vegetation indices and terrain data to quantify ecosystem services is a first step towards improving the monitoring and assessment of restoration interventions. Our results showed that in the study area, livestock exclusion lead to a consistent increase in most ecosystem services.
3 del Rio-Mena, T.; Willemen, L.; Vrieling, A.; Nelson, A. 2023. How remote sensing choices influence ecosystem services monitoring and evaluation results of ecological restoration interventions. Ecosystem Services, 64:101565. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2023.101565]
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H052381)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221204162300058X/pdfft?md5=116f6f50806abf95646d362c61188c07&pid=1-s2.0-S221204162300058X-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H052381.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H052381.pdf
(7.87 MB) (7.87 MB)
Large-scale ecological restorations are recognized worldwide as an effective strategy to combat environmental degradation and promote sustainability. Remote sensing (RS) imagery, such as obtained from Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellites, can provide spatial, spectral, and temporal information on ecosystem service supply to support monitoring and evaluation of restoration interventions. However, because of the abundance of satellite data and methodological analysis options, choices in data selection and processing options need to be made. This study explored the effect of RS choices on the evaluation of changes in ecosystem services as a result of ecological restoration interventions. Using the ecosystem service of forage provision for wildlife as an example, we used a before-after-control-impact (BACI) analysis to compare how the following choices affected restoration evaluation outcomes: a) different number of control pixels; b) different spatial distribution of control pixels; c) intra-annual image selection; and d) different reference periods. In addition, e) we evaluated the effect of using two different satellite sensor types, using the ecosystem service ‘erosion prevention’ as an example. We explored the effect of these five choices for restoration sites in the Baviaanskloof, South Africa. Results showed that the choice of intra-annual image selection, and the reference period describing the ‘before state’ had a strong effect on the outcomes, often leading to opposite BACI evaluation results. BACI results were less sensitive to choices related to the number of control points in the evaluation. The impact of methodological choices on the BACI outcomes was greater for the less degraded areas of our study site. Satellite sensor choice resulted in similar temporal trajectories of estimated supply. We demonstrated that RS choices have a strong effect on the evaluation results of restoration interventions. Therefore, we recommend that documenting the key RS choices results is essential when communicating restoration evaluation results in order to properly understand, manage and adapt restoration initiatives.
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