Assessing Ecosystem Services and Functions in rural environments with emphasis on trade-offs and tipping points in their provisioning

• Applicant: Dr. Marc Cotter
• Subject Area: Ecology of Land Use
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 404870679

The assessment of Ecosystem Services and Functions (ESS and ESF) has gained a considerable attention in both scientific studies and political decision making processes. It offers frameworks to combine economic, ecological and social concepts into further reaching assessments that can be used to communicate complex biophysical or socio-ecological interactions in a condensed and streamlined way to stakeholders. The concept of ESS is entailing strong transdisciplinary characteristics as the valuation by stakeholders, directly or indirectly affected by changes in ESF, is a crucial part of the integrative approach. Methods and models to allow for such trans- and interdisciplinary work on a sound scientific basis are currently still being developed, or in need of further development. The main goal of this proposed research work is to develop and test methods for the identification of tipping-points in the provisioning of ESS and ESF. To do so, we will analyze the provisioning of ESF using available data and scenarios and compare different modelling approaches. A valuation framework will be developed to support the step from ESF to ESS, and statistical models will be adapted and developed to finally reach our main goal.We will achieve this by implementing four consecutive work packages. 1) Developing novel methods to analyze and compare available data in order to enhance existing concepts for the assessment of trade-offs in the provisioning of ESF at different spatial and temporal scales. 2) Performing comparative analyses of available software solution and models concerning their strengths and weaknesses in assessing selected ESF on different spatial scales. 3) Designing structured approaches for the integration of transdisciplinary aspects into ESS – assessments. We want to develop and field test such a methodological framework for information transfer from stakeholders in to science and vice versa. 4) Developing novel methods to assess potential tipping points and regime shifts in the provisioning of ESS and ESF over time and/or space. This will offer researchers a tool to analyze potential critical thresholds and asses the resilience related to land use change of these provisioning systems, both ex-ante and ex-post.The combination of these work packages will improve existing methods and allow for the development of new methods for the inter- and transdisciplinary assessment of ESS, and contribute to a better scientific embedding into potential future research activities. These approaches will be developed on the basis of existing stakeholder datasets from Yunnan, China and tested with stakeholders in Nan, Thailand.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants