National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
Sci Total Environ. 2012 Jan 15;415:39-48. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.04.041. Epub 2011 Jun 24.
Ecosystem-service indicators and related accounting units are crucial for the development of decision frameworks for sustainable land management systems. With a management concept using ecosystem services, land-use expectations can be linked to quantifiable soil features in a defendable and transparent way. A method to define a set of site-specific ecosystem services and indication system for quantification was set-up and run. First, we interviewed a wide group of land users profiting from ecosystem services of the soil at four arable farms in the polder Hoeksche Waard (S-SE of Rotterdam, the Netherlands). Subsequently, site-specific ecosystem services were defined and weighted according to land use expectations at different spatial and temporal scales. Second, a practical set of indicators was taken from 'Best Professional Judgment' and used to quantify the performance of the ecosystem services for these four farms. The indicators were derived from biotic and abiotic soil parameters. The performance of ecosystem services was related to a reference situation (MEP: maximum ecological potential) with the same land use and soil type combination (i.e., arable fields on silt loam) taken from the database of our national soil survey. In many cases, the performance of ecosystem services was relatively poor if compared to MEP. However, the performances of natural attenuation and/or climate-related services were better. In addition, the different management of these farms (i.e. conventional, intensive and organic farming) was reflected in the performance of the ecosystem services of their soils. Third, land management measures to improve the targeted ecosystem services were incorporated in the outlined method, but not worked out with illustrative field data in this study. Together with concordant data, we show opportunities for a quantification of ecosystem services to improve land-users' awareness and to assess management sustainability.
生态系统服务指标及相关核算单位对于可持续土地管理系统决策框架的制定至关重要。采用生态系统服务管理理念，可以以可防御和透明的方式将土地利用预期与可量化的土壤特征联系起来。本文建立并运行了一种定义特定于地点的生态系统服务和量化指示系统的方法。首先，我们在荷兰鹿特丹东南部 Hoeksche Waard 的四个农田中，对广泛受益于土壤生态系统服务的土地使用者进行了访谈。随后，根据不同时空尺度的土地利用预期，定义并加权了特定于地点的生态系统服务。其次，从“最佳专业判断”中选取了一套实用的指标，用于量化这四个农场的生态系统服务表现。这些指标源自生物和非生物土壤参数。生态系统服务的表现与参考情况（MEP：最大生态潜力）相关联，参考情况具有相同的土地利用和土壤类型组合（即粉砂壤土上的耕地），取自我们国家土壤调查数据库。在许多情况下，与 MEP 相比，生态系统服务的表现相对较差。然而，自然衰减和/或与气候相关的服务的表现更好。此外，这些农场的不同管理（即常规、集约和有机农业）反映在其土壤生态系统服务的表现中。第三，本文提出的方法纳入了改善目标生态系统服务的土地管理措施，但本研究未结合一致数据对其进行说明。本文展示了量化生态系统服务的机会，以提高土地使用者的认识并评估管理的可持续性。
