U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Atlantic Ecology Division, Narragansett, RI, 02882, USA.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Gulf Ecology Division, Gulf Breeze, FL, 32561, USA.
Environ Manage. 2018 Sep;62(3):608-618. doi: 10.1007/s00267-018-1038-1. Epub 2018 Apr 10.
Accounting for ecosystem services in environmental decision making is an emerging research topic. Modern frameworks for ecosystem services assessment emphasize evaluating the social benefits of ecosystems, in terms of who benefits and by how much, to aid in comparing multiple courses of action. Structured methods that use decision analytic-approaches are emerging for the practice of ecological restoration. In this article, we combine ecosystem services assessment with structured decision making to estimate and evaluate measures of the potential benefits of ecological restoration with a case study in the Woonasquatucket River watershed, Rhode Island, USA. We partnered with a local watershed management organization to analyze dozens of candidate wetland restoration sites for their abilities to supply five ecosystem services-flood water retention, scenic landscapes, learning opportunities, recreational opportunities, and birds. We developed 22 benefit indicators related to the ecosystem services as well as indicators for social equity and reliability that benefits will sustain in the future. We applied conceptual modeling and spatial analysis to estimate indicator values for each candidate restoration site. Lastly, we developed a decision support tool to score and aggregate the values for the organization to screen the restoration sites. Results show that restoration sites in urban areas can provide greater social benefits than sites in less urban areas. Our research approach is general and can be used to investigate other restoration planning studies that perform ecosystem services assessment and fit into a decision-making process.
将生态系统服务纳入环境决策是一个新兴的研究课题。生态系统服务评估的现代框架强调评估生态系统的社会效益，即谁受益以及受益多少，以帮助比较多种行动方案。正在为生态恢复实践出现使用决策分析方法的结构化方法。在本文中，我们将生态系统服务评估与结构化决策相结合，以评估美国罗德岛州 Woonasquatucket 河流域生态恢复潜在效益的衡量标准，并进行了案例研究。我们与当地的流域管理组织合作，分析了数十个潜在的湿地恢复地点，以评估它们提供五种生态系统服务（洪水蓄水、景观、学习机会、娱乐机会和鸟类）的能力。我们开发了 22 个与生态系统服务相关的效益指标，以及社会公平和可靠性指标，以确保未来的效益能够持续。我们应用概念建模和空间分析来估算每个候选恢复地点的指标值。最后，我们开发了一个决策支持工具，以便组织对恢复地点进行评分和汇总。结果表明，城市地区的恢复地点比非城市地区的恢复地点能够提供更大的社会效益。我们的研究方法具有普遍性，可以用于调查其他进行生态系统服务评估并适合决策过程的恢复规划研究。
