Undesirable landscape changes, especially from large infrastructure projects, may give rise to large welfare losses due to degraded landscape experiences. These losses are largely unaccounted for in Nordic countries’ planning processes. There is a need to develop practical methods of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making. The project aims to explore how the ecosystem service approach and values of landscape experiences can be better incorporated in actual cases. The project developed a two-step approach to assess, value and incorporate landscape impacts and tested these in case studies based on EIA documentation. We found that despite the lack of information generated in the EIAs, the step-wise method significantly improved upon evidence and conclusions of how people are impacted due to landscape changes.
Nature provides us with a multitude of goods like food and fiber, drinking water, protection against floods and storms, carbon storage and recreational services like swimming and bird watching. Our welfare and well-being depend on these goods and services – often called ecosystem services, defined as “the benefit people directly and indirectly obtain from nature”. We often distinguish between four categories of ecosystem services; supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services. This report aims to sum up and show some examples of the results of the ecosystem services projects carried out for NCM. It illustrates which ecosystem services we receive from Nordic nature and the importance of these. It also shows examples of how the ecosystem services approach has been and can be used in management of nature in the Nordic countries, and to point out some knowledge gaps.
Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014–15.
Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people's preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014-15.
The Nordic countries continue to experience growth of urban areas, which provides benefits like economic growth, but also imposes economic costs in terms of reduced ecosystem services. This report focuses on urban nature recreation and highlights economic methods and data that can help capture the associated nonmarket welfare benefits. The study stresses the need to collect user data to better understand visitation patterns, which can be combined with valuation methods to provide evidence of economic benefits associated with e.g., hiking, cycling, skiing, paddling and other recreation activities. Once these benefits are visible, decision-makers will have a better basis to balance economic growth with the environmental costs it imposes on urban ecosystem services.
This report describes the status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Nordic region, the drivers and pressures affecting them, interactions and effects on people and society, and options for governance. The main report consists of two volumes. Volume 1 The general overview (this report) and Volume 2 The geographical case studies. This study has been inspired by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES). It departs from case studies (Volume 2, the geographical case studies) from ten geographical areas in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and the autonomous areas of Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland. The aim was to describe status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Nordic region, including the drivers and pressures affecting these ecosystems, the effects on people and society and options for governance. The Nordic study is structured as closely as possible to the framework for the regional assessments currently being finalized within IPBES. The report highlights environmental differences and similarities in the Nordic coastal areas, like the inhabitants´ relation to nature and the environment as well as similarities in social and policy instruments between the Nordic countries. This study provides background material for decision-making and it is shown that Nordic cooperation is of great importance for sustainable coastal management and should be strengthened in future work.
Human well-being depends in many ways on maintaining the stock of natural resources which deliver the services from which human’s benefit. However, these resources and flows of services are increasingly threatened by unsustainable and competing land uses. Particular threats exist to those public goods whose values are not well-represented in markets or whose deterioration will only affect future generations. As market forces alone are not sufficient, effective means for local and regional planning are needed in order to safeguard scarce natural resources, coordinate land uses and create sustainable landscape structures. This book argues that a solution to such challenges in Europe can be found by merging the landscape planning tradition with ecosystem services concepts. Landscape planning has strengths in recognition of public benefits and implementation mechanisms, while the ecosystem services approach makes the connection between the status of natural assets and human well-being more explicit. It can also provide an economic perspective, focused on individual preferences and benefits, which helps validate the acceptability of environmental planning goals. Thus linking landscape planning and ecosystem services provides a two-way benefit, creating a usable science to meet the needs of local and regional decision making. The book is structured around the Driving forces-Pressures-States-Impacts-Responses framework, providing an introduction to relevant concepts, methodologies and techniques. It presents a new, ecosystem services-informed, approach to landscape planning that constitutes both a framework and toolbox for students and practitioners to address the environmental and landscape challenges of 21st century Europe.
This edited volume examines how to develop a planning and design process with green infrastructure that creates technical answers to the social and ecological function of the city’s climate change adaptations demands. In this context, it proposes a process that engage the values linked to the art and culture of the place, capable of generating adoption by the population and promoting the right to landscape. Since the nineteenth century, many theoretical and practical experiences have integrated urban and environmental issues, revising the understanding of nature as an object and thinking of nature and culture in conjunction. However, consensus of the methodological strategies needed to guide the development of multi-scale landscape planning and design capable of responding to the climate emergency, heritage, water, biodiversity and social inclusion, among other issues has not been achieved. Green infrastructure has emerged as a tool to link considerations of the planning and design process to examine the impact urban nature can have at a global and a local scale. The book gathers together authors from different parts of the world and disciplines to showcase conceptual thinking, best practices and methodological strategies relating to landscape planning and design with green infrastructure adapted to climate change. The topic of this book is particularly relevant to scholars, practitioners and developers around the world who have an interest in planning and environmental management, landscape architecture, and socio-cultural understandings of landscape.
Advances in Energy, Environment and Chemical Engineering collects papers resulting from the conference on Energy, Environment and Chemical Engineering (AEECE 2022), Dali, China, 24-26 June, 2022. The primary goal is to promote research and developmental activities in energy technology, environment engineering and chemical engineering. Moreover, it aims to promote scientific information interchange between scholars from the top universities, business associations, research centers and high-tech enterprises working all around the world. The conference conducts in-depth exchanges and discussions on relevant topics such as energy engineering, environment technology and advanced chemical technology, aiming to provide an academic and technical communication platform for scholars and engineers engaged in scientific research and engineering practice in the field of saving technologies, environmental chemistry, clean production and so on. By sharing the research status of scientific research achievements and cutting-edge technologies, it helps scholars and engineers all over the world comprehend the academic development trend and broaden research ideas. So as to strengthen international academic research, academic topics exchange and discussion, and promote the industrialization cooperation of academic achievements.
The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 15, namely "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss" and contains the description of a range of terms, which allow a better understanding and foster knowledge. Concretely, the defined targets are: Ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements Promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally Combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world Ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species Promote fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and promote appropriate access to such resources, as internationally agreed Take urgent action to end poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna and address both demand and supply of illegal wildlife products Introduce measures to prevent the introduction and significantly Reduce the impact of invasive alien species on land and water ecosystems and control or eradicate the priority species Integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts Mobilize and significantly increase financial resources from all sources to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and ecosystems Mobilize significant resources from all sources and at all levels to finance sustainable forest management and provide adequate incentives to developing countries to advance such management, including for conservation and reforestation Enhance global support for efforts to combat poaching and trafficking of protected species, including by increasing the capacity of local communities to pursue sustainable livelihood opportunities Editorial Board Alexandra Aragão, Desalegn Yayeh Ayal, Ayansina Ayanlade, Anabela Marisa Azul, Adriana Consorte-McCrea, Muhammad Farooq, Ana Catarina Luz, María P. Martín, Sharif A. Mukul, Nandhivarman Muthu, Robert Russell Monteith Paterson, Isabel Ruiz-Mallén
