Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
Environ Manage. 2009 Dec;44(6):1099-120. doi: 10.1007/s00267-009-9384-7. Epub 2009 Oct 24.
We examine the advantages and disadvantages of a methodological framework designed to analyze the poorly understood relationships between the ecosystem properties of large portions of land, and their capacities (stocks) to provide goods and services (flows). These capacities (stocks) are referred to as landscape functions. The core of our assessment is a set of expert- and literature-driven binary links, expressing whether specific land uses or other environmental properties have a supportive or neutral role for given landscape functions. The binary links were applied to the environmental properties of 581 administrative units of Europe with widely differing environmental conditions and this resulted in a spatially explicit landscape function assessment. To check under what circumstances the binary links are able to replace complex interrelations, we compared the landscape function maps with independently generated continent-wide assessments (maps of ecosystem services or environmental parameters/indicators). This rigorous testing revealed that for 9 out of 15 functions the straightforward binary links work satisfactorily and generate plausible geographical patterns. This conclusion holds primarily for production functions. The sensitivity of the nine landscape functions to changes in land use was assessed with four land use scenarios (IPCC SRES). It was found that most European regions maintain their capacity to provide the selected services under any of the four scenarios, although in some cases at other locations within the region. At the proposed continental scale, the selected input parameters are thus valid proxies which can be used to assess the mid-term potential of landscapes to provide goods and services.
我们研究了一种方法框架的优缺点，该框架旨在分析大片土地的生态系统特性与其提供商品和服务的能力（存量）之间关系。这些能力（存量）被称为景观功能。我们评估的核心是一组专家和文献驱动的二进制链接，表达特定的土地利用或其他环境特性对特定景观功能具有支持或中性作用。这些二进制链接应用于欧洲 581 个行政单位的环境特性，这些行政单位具有广泛不同的环境条件，这导致了空间明确的景观功能评估。为了检查在什么情况下二进制链接能够替代复杂的相互关系，我们将景观功能图与独立生成的全大陆评估（生态系统服务或环境参数/指标图）进行了比较。这种严格的测试表明，对于 15 个功能中的 9 个，简单的二进制链接工作令人满意，并生成了合理的地理模式。这一结论主要适用于生产功能。使用四个土地利用情景（IPCC SRES）评估了九个景观功能对土地利用变化的敏感性。结果发现，大多数欧洲地区在任何四个情景下都能保持其提供选定服务的能力，尽管在某些情况下是在该地区的其他地方。在提出的大陆范围内，选定的输入参数是有效的替代指标，可以用来评估景观在中期内提供商品和服务的潜力。
