Land conversion and climate change are rapidly changing the provision, use, and value of ecosystem services on the rural-urban fringe landscapes. Most previous ecosystem service studies addressed the effects of either land conversion or climate change, but not both, on individual ecosystem services. Additionally most ecosystem services models have yet to be well-validated with plot-level data and observed dynamic effects. As a result, methodologies for measuring the changes in the magnitude and the spatial patterns of ecosystem services and tradeoffs among multiple ecosystem services are still being developed and tested. An interdisciplinary team of scientists, including geographers, environmental economists, ecologists, and policy analysts engaged with community partners, will use two ecosystem service assessment models (InVEST and Counting on the Environment metrics) and modern spatial analysis to quantify expected changes in ecosystem service provision, use, and value on a rapidly changing rural-urban fringe landscape in the Northern Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA. The researchers will first analyze the biophysical provision, use, and economic value of ecosystem services on the current landscape at various scales, from farm to landscape. They will assess how these levels and values of ecosystem services are expected to change in the study region due to land use/land cover and climate change, separately and jointly, at multiple spatial scales. The investigators will determine what areas, if used less intensively or conserved, would most cost-effectively prevent any expected declines in the value of ecosystem services on the landscape where cost-effectiveness is measured as ecosystem service value generated per economic opportunity cost of conservation. This project will compare the outputs of two ecosystem service models and recommend improvements when possible. The investigators will engage policy stakeholders in the analysis to explore the interaction of ecosystem service science, scale, and complex policy negotiations. In all stages of analysis this project will assess the provision and pattern of species habitat in the study area and its ability to sustain native species, such as anadromous fish.
This project will improve the ecosystem service provision and value analytical methodologies as well as advance the theory of ecosystem service modeling by testing two models with field data. This research will thus illuminate the unexplored area of tradeoffs and complementarities among multiple ecosystem services shifts and spatial targeting for land conservation to sustain ecosystem services in a rapidly growing metropolitan fringe. The integrated, spatial approach will provide an excellent model for spatial ecosystem services studies, offering opportunities for transforming the studies of integrated environmental sciences and management. This project will support provisions of the 2008 farm bill that mandates the development of tools for assessing the influence of land management on ecosystem services by guiding regional planning and site-specific assessment tools that help on-the ground implementation. The project will produce a rich collection of data and analytic tools that will directly assist the ongoing development of comprehensive ecosystem service marketplaces. An information clearinghouse will provide the range of stakeholders collaborating on the creation of the marketplace (researchers, state and federal agencies, policy makers, and NGO?s) direct access to project results and datasets for evaluating policy options. The research will provide educational opportunities for several graduate and undergraduate students and a post-doctoral scholar.
Mapping benefits from nature to people (i.e., the production and distribution of ecosystem services and their values) – and assessing ways of resolving tradeoffs among them – can help in decisions of communities, governments, and corporations. We studied two basins in Oregon under intense development pressure. We found that they respond differently to urbanization, with declines in loadings of both nutrients and sediments due to urbanization in the Yamhill basin and the opposite occurring in the Tualatin. Some activities included in management scenarios-- i.e. implementation of riparian buffer zones throughout the non-urban portions of the study site--resulted in small reductions in sediment and nutrient exports. Our results further suggest that the effects of climate change alone on water quality could severely constrain benefits from riparian management options. Factors contributing to the economic value of different land use types vary. The value of forest lands is best explained by the size of parcel, income from harvested timber, distance to river, and population size and income of the nearest city. In contrast, the value of agricultural lands is explained by size of parcel, distance to city, and population size of the city; and the value of residential lands is explained by size of parcel, population, and income. The project provided deep technical training and support for three MS students and one PhD student. In addition, results from the project, including climate and land use change scenarios, were used as part of a graduate course at OSU on climate change impacts for agriculture in the Pacific Northwest. Finally, improvements in the models and documentation for open source software tools in the InVEST modeling suite are now included in the online versions of 4 ecosystem service models in the InVEST toolbox. The study findings will help public and private decision makers make more sustainable and cost effective land use management decisions.
