Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2013 May 22;8(5):e64581. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064581. Print 2013.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) estimated that two thirds of ecosystem services on the earth have degraded or are in decline due to the unprecedented scale of human activities during recent decades. These changes will have tremendous consequences for human well-being, and offer both risks and opportunities for a wide range of stakeholders. Yet these risks and opportunities have not been well managed due in part to the lack of quantitative understanding of human dependence on ecosystem services. Here, we propose an index of dependence on ecosystem services (IDES) system to quantify human dependence on ecosystem services. We demonstrate the construction of the IDES system using household survey data. We show that the overall index and sub-indices can reflect the general pattern of households' dependences on ecosystem services, and their variations across time, space, and different forms of capital (i.e., natural, human, financial, manufactured, and social capitals). We support the proposition that the poor are more dependent on ecosystem services and further generalize this proposition by arguing that those disadvantaged groups who possess low levels of any form of capital except for natural capital are more dependent on ecosystem services than those with greater control of capital. The higher value of the overall IDES or sub-index represents the higher dependence on the corresponding ecosystem services, and thus the higher vulnerability to the degradation or decline of corresponding ecosystem services. The IDES system improves our understanding of human dependence on ecosystem services. It also provides insights into strategies for alleviating poverty, for targeting priority groups of conservation programs, and for managing risks and opportunities due to changes of ecosystem services at multiple scales.
千年生态系统评估（MA）估计，由于近几十年来人类活动规模空前，地球上三分之二的生态系统服务功能已经退化或正在下降。这些变化将对人类福祉产生巨大影响，为广泛的利益相关者带来风险和机遇。然而，由于缺乏对人类对生态系统服务依赖的定量理解，这些风险和机遇并未得到很好的管理。在这里，我们提出了一个生态系统服务依赖指数（IDES）系统来量化人类对生态系统服务的依赖。我们使用家庭调查数据来展示 IDES 系统的构建。我们表明，总体指数和子指数可以反映家庭对生态系统服务的依赖的一般模式，以及它们在时间、空间和不同形式资本（即自然资本、人力资本、金融资本、制造资本和社会资本）方面的变化。我们支持这样的观点，即贫困人口更依赖生态系统服务，并进一步提出这样的观点，即那些除自然资本外拥有任何形式资本水平较低的弱势群体比那些拥有更多资本控制权的弱势群体更依赖生态系统服务。总体 IDES 或子指数的值越高，表示对相应生态系统服务的依赖程度越高，因此对相应生态系统服务退化或下降的脆弱性也越高。IDES 系统提高了我们对人类对生态系统服务依赖的理解。它还为减轻贫困、确定保护计划的重点群体以及在多个尺度上管理生态系统服务变化带来的风险和机遇提供了思路。
