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Estimating ecosystem service changes as a precursor to modeling
Citation:
BRUINS, R. J., W. E. FOSTER, P. B. WOODBURY, F. B. DANIEL, AND S. E. FRANSON. Estimating ecosystem service changes as a precursor to modeling. Presented at U.S. Society for Ecological Economics, Washington, DC, May 31 - June 04, 2009.
Impact/Purpose:
Oral presentation at the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics Meeting, Washington DC , May 31 - June 4, 2009.
Description:
EPA's Future Midwestern Landscapes Study will project changes in ecosystem services (ES) for alternative future policy scenarios in the Midwestern U.S. Doing so for detailed landscapes over large spatial scales will require serial application of economic and ecological models. We will first estimate agricultural (land use and land management) and energy-system (biofuel production and use) responses to policies, followed by modeling of ecological impacts via changes in air, water and habitat quality or quantity. These modeled impacts must then be used to construct ecological production functions or (in most cases) simple indices of human welfare change. To inform these planned computational procedures, we first estimate all expected ES changes. We use concept mapping to first describe and document the elements and linkages in the Midwest ecosystem, from global drivers and national policies to ecosystem services. For status quo ("Biofuel Targets") and conservation-focused ("Multiple Services") policies, we then construct integrated conceptual models of ecological-economic networks of influence, and we use information from the literature or best professional judgment to estimate direction and magnitude of ES changes. We then use these general conceptual models to derive a set of scenario-specific comparative models and then, from those comparisons, develop a set of testable hypotheses to inform the modeling portion of the study.