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Predicting effects of climate and land use change on human well-being via changes in ecosystem services
Citation:
Yee, S., E. Paulukonis, J. Orlando, C. Simmons, L. Harwell, M. Russell, R. Fulford, AND L. Smith. Predicting effects of climate and land use change on human well-being via changes in ecosystem services. A Community on Ecosystem Services, Jacksonville, FL, December 05 - 09, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
Communities often characterize sustainability goals, not solely in economic terms, but in terms of sustainable well-being, and predictive models linking land use to ecosystem services to human well-being provide a step forward in our ability to more fully assess alternative decision scenarios.
Description:
Landuse and climate change have affected biological systems in many parts of the world, and are projected to further adversely affect associated ecosystem goods and services, including provisioning of clean air, clean water, food, and biodiversity. Such adverse effects on ecosystem goods and services could have consequences for human well-being, with potential impacts on human health and safety, culture, and quality of life. Our ability to predict how changing landuse and climate may impact human well-being depends on our ability to 1) characterize changes in ecosystem services under a changing landscape, and 2) to link those changes in ecosystem services to quantifiable endpoints of human well-being. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recently developed a framework for characterizing the relationships between social, economic, and ecosystem services on an index of human well-being. The Human Well-Being Index (HWBI) quantifies human well-being by a suite of indicators with 8 domains of well-being, including connection to nature, cultural fulfillment, education, health, leisure time, living standards, safety and security, and social cohesion. County-level data for the United States has previously been used to develop a series of models predicting how changes in ecosystem services, such as air quality regulation, food and fiber provisioning, green space, and regulation of water quality and quantity, impact the domains of HWBI. To link HWBI to changing climate and landuse, we connected the HWBI models to a suite of ecological production function (EPF) models describing ecosystem goods and services production in the landscape. Models describing effects of changing landuse on ecosystem services (EPFs) were integrated with models linking ecosystem services to human well-being (HWBI) using the spatially explicit software tool Envision.As a proof of concept, we obtained future climate and landuse change scenario maps (FORE-SCE) for the Pensacola, Florida watershed. Ecological production functions were applied to predict changes in ecosystem goods and services production under future scenarios of landuse and precipitation. HWBI models were then applied to predict changes in human well-being as a result of changing ecosystem goods and services. Integrating the models within the software tool Envision, provides flexibility to transfer these models to other locations, as well as look at alternative kinds of landuse decisions. Communities often characterize sustainability goals, not solely in economic terms, but in terms of sustainable well-being, and predictive models linking landuse to ecosystem services to human well-being provide a step forward in our ability to more fully assess alternative decision scenarios.