Category: Ecosystem services
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A Web App to generate and disseminate knowledge on urban green space qualities and their accessibility
Urban green spaces (UGSs) can provide important ecosystem services for citizens and their well-being. To make use of these services according to UGS user demands, urban residents, tourists, and city administrations should know where UGSs are located, what qualities they have and how to reach them on convenient routes. A new open access paper at…
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Estimating trade-offs of land use at global scale
Land use decision involve trade-off with respect to the ecosystem service produced by the different land use systems. Agricultural use versus natural ecosystems is the main alternative for which trade-offs need to be estimated. Given the varying climatic and soil conditions this trade-off differs in space. Therefore, it is essential how agricultural land use is…
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Constraints in multi-objective optimization of land use allocation – Repair or penalize?
Land is a spare resource so it makes sense to think about how to use it most efficiently. This leads to the problem of land use allocation under consideration of trade-offs. Multi-objective optimization algorithms are a tool quantify the trade-offs by estimating the Pareto-optimal land use allocations. Often, constraints in the solution space have to…
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Mapping ecosystem services – the example of crop pollination
Pollination by animals is an important service for wild plant communities as well as for agricultural crops. The service is mainly provided by insects, especially honeybees and a wide range of wild bees but also butterflies. A large number of crops depends globally on this pollination service – examples are apples, oranges, cocoa, coffee, strawberries…
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Blindspots in ecosystem service research
Ecosystem service research is high on the policy agenda. Strategies to synthesize individual success stories and derive generalized results to provide guidance for policymakers and stakeholder is central to many science-policy initiatives, such as IPBES, ELD, WAVES and TEEB. However, to successfully transfer knowledge from ES case studies to environmental policies, it is necessary to…
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Mapping cultural ecosystem services 2.0 – using machine learning annotated photos to learn how humans perceive landscapes and ecosystems
Ecosystems provide many different services to mankind. Services provided depend on how the land is used – land use decisions lead to trade-offs that with respect to the ecosystem service provided by ecosystems and landscapes. This trade-offs vary in many situations in space and time. Therefore, it is essential to quantify and map service provisioning…