Citation:

Yee, S., G. Cicchetti, T. Dewitt, M. Harwell, S. Jackson, M. Pryor, K. Rocha, D. Santavy, L. Sharpe, AND E. Shumchenia. The Ecosystem Services Gradient: A Descriptive Model for Identifying Levels of Meaningful Change. Ecosystem-Based Management, Ecosystem Services and Aquatic Biodiversity. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, , 291-307, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45843-0_15

Impact/Purpose:

For successful implementation of Ecosystem based management (EBM), there is a specific need to bound the scope of the problem by clarifying objectives as what really matters about a decision, including explicitly articulating how they will be measured and characterizing values-based tradeoffs among them. To address this need, we propose a science-based descriptive model of ecosystem services production in response to changing environmental condition, the Ecosystem Services Gradient (ESG). Scientific tools and approaches, like the ESG, can help to operationalize EBM in the decision-making process by identifying meaningful measures, defining reference points, communicating and monitoring the relevant social and economic impacts of actions, and evaluating tradeoffs across multi-sector objectives.

Description:

Characterization of ecosystem services can be a valuable element of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) 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 introduce a descriptive model of the Ecosystem Services Gradient (ESG) that can be paired with the Biological Condition Gradient (BCG). 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 linking changes in ecosystem condition to effects on human health and well-being via changes in ecosystem goods and services. This involves identifying priority ecosystem services, defining them with metrics and indicators, and applying ecological production functions to translate levels of ecological condition to ecosystem services production. The ESG, through its structured approach to defining and enumerating potential changes in ecosystem services, allows decision makers to clearly assess and monitor the potential benefits, or related co-occurring benefits, of EBM, and significantly enhance how scientists and decision makers communicate these benefits to stakeholders.

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