Citation:

Cicchetti, G., Ted DeWitt, M. Harwell, S. Jackson, M. Pryor, K. Rocha, Debbie Santavy, L. Sharpe, E. Shumchenia, AND S. Yee. THE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES GRADIENT AND THE BIOLOGICAL CONDITION GRADIENT LINK CHANGES IN BENEFITS AND BIOLOGY TO INCREASING STRESS IN AQUATIC SYSTEMS. A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES), Washington, DC, December 03 - 06, 2018.

Impact/Purpose:

This presentation addresses the problem of communicating both environmental and economic issues to the public in managing coastal waterbodies. The work merges two approaches: the Biological Condition Gradient (BCG) and the Ecosystem Services Gradient (ESG). The BCG is a framework that allows scientists and managers to characterize changes in natural biological or ecological condition caused by increasing stress on a disturbance gradient that might include nutrient pollution, habitat destruction, and other problems. The ESG is a framework that characterizes the value of Ecosystem Goods and Services - the benefits that nature provides to humans - on the same disturbance gradient. This creates a bridge between people who care more about nature for its own sake (e.g., natural saltmarshes) and people who care more about nature for what it provides them (e.g., fish for anglers in saltmarshes). By organizing and presenting both views on the same disturbance gradient, managers have an effective combined approach that can be used to communicate with a broader range of people and thus better inform decisions. This approach would be of interest to environmental managers, environmental scientists, and economists.

Description:

Characterization of ecosystem services can be a valuable element of Ecosystem Based Management in identifying meaningful measures of ecosystem change, understanding the natural resource gains or losses associated with changing ecosystem conditions, and communicating those benefits and tradeoffs to stakeholders in an intuitive way. Here, we present a descriptive model of the Ecosystem Services Gradient (ESG), an analog to the Biological Condition Gradient (BCG). Originally designed to support Clean Water Act programs such as water quality standards, monitoring and assessment, non point source and point source, the BCG is a conceptual framework that allows scientists and managers to characterize the status of an aquatic ecosystem along an anthropogenic disturbance gradient by describing and quantifying changes in biological or ecological condition with increasing levels of stressors. The ESG descriptive model builds upon the BCG approach by more clearly defining concepts of final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS) - those ecosystem goods and services that are actually used by and have direct effects on human beneficiaries. We present an overview of the ESG concept which covers the basic steps in development together with several potential applications. The core ESG approach improves environmental decision making by linking changes in ecosystem condition to direct effects on human health and well-being. This involves identifying and prioritizing ecosystem services (including both FEGS and beneficiaries), defining specific FEGS indicators, and applying ecological production functions to translate levels of ecological condition to FEGS metrics. Overlaying a BCG assessment with relevant ESG elements can help communicate changing levels of ecological condition together with potential changes in natural resource use (e.g., fishing, recreation). A focus on ESG elements helps decision makers understand how different actions may affect ecosystem components of primary interest to people, and thus evaluate potential tradeoffs or co-benefits of those actions. Incorporating ESG elements can significantly enhance how scientists and decision makers communicate these direct benefits to people, and thereby improve stakeholder engagement and communication in Ecosystem Based Management.

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