Intensification of land use and management over recent decades has resulted in trade-offs between food or timber production and other ecosystem services (ES). Despite an increase in scholarly publications on ES, the temporal aspects of ES trade-offs have largely been neglected to date. Here we explore how past and future land-use trajectories (pathways of change) influence ES over time, using mountain landscapes as a model. Based on a synthesis of 51 cases of temporal changes in ES within mountain landscapes, we analyze how changes in land-use intensity influence the supply of ten key services and we describe six typical examples (archetypes) of ES change. Our analysis reveals that land-use intensity is an important factor shaping these archetypes. Land-use intensification often degrades ES (eg recreation and water regulation), with the exception of services targeted by intensification (food or timber) and with differences between forest and agricultural intensification. Service degradation following intensification is not always reversed by reductions in land-use intensity (termed "extensification").
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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1470Altmetric score:
Dimensions Citation Count:
- Climate Change
- Climate change mitigation and REDD+
- Ecosystem Services
- Accelerating rates of deforestation and forest degradation
- High prevalence of degraded land and ecosystem services
- Learning from REDD+ - An Enhanced Global Comparative Analysis
- From Climate Research to Action under Multilevel Governance: Building Knowledge and Capacity at Landscape Scale (MLG)
- OPERAs (Operational Potential of Ecosystem Research Applications)
- Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
- Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety – Germany (BMU)
- European Commission (EC)
Source
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 15(3): 150-159
Publication year
2017
ISSN
1540-9309
Authors
Locatelli, B.; Lavorel, S.; Sloan, S.; Tappeiner, U.; Geneletti, D.
Topic
Research was conducted by project
Funded by
Project Leader
Christopher Martius
Bonn Hub Leader and Managing Director of CIFOR Germany
Bruno Locatelli
CIFOR Associate