Published In

BioScience

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2006

Subjects

Ecosystem management, Ecosystem services -- Economic aspects, Human ecology

Abstract

This article outlines an approach, based on ecosystem services, for assessing the trade-offs inherent in managing humans embedded in ecological systems. Evaluating these trade-offs requires an understanding of the biophysical magnitudes of the changes in ecosystem services that result from human actions, and of the impact of these changes on human welfare.We summarize the state of the art of ecosystem services?based management and the information needs for applying it. Three case studies of Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites?coastal, urban, and agricultural? illustrate the usefulness, information needs, quantification possibilities, and methods for this approach. One example of the application of this approach, with rigorously established service changes and valuations taken from the literature, is used to illustrate the potential for full economic valuation of several agricultural landscape management options, including managing for water quality, biodiversity, and crop productivity.

Description

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. This paper is the product of a working group sponsored by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (www.nceas.ucsb.edu) in June 2004.

DOI

10.1641/0006-3568(2006)056[0121:LEAEFE]2.0.CO

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/9015

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