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| Titel |
Temporal changes in potential regulating ecosystem services driven by urbanization |
| VerfasserIn |
Carla Ferreira, Inês Amorim, Evanilton Pires, Zahra Kalantari, Rory Walsh, Antonio Ferreira |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2017
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 19 (2017) |
| Datensatznummer |
250138545
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2017-1594.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Ecosystem services (ES) are understood to be the capacity of the landscape of a particular
area to provide goods and services to society. In terms of human benefits, four categories of
ES are usually considered: provisioning (e.g. seafood), regulating (e.g. climate regulation, air
quality, water purification and natural hazard protection), supporting (e.g. maintenance of
biodiversity), and cultural (e.g. recreation). The potential supply of ecosystem services has
receive increasing interest as a tool for natural resource management. Nevertheless, the
capacity to supply ES depends on biophysical conditions, as well as climate and land-use
changes, induced by human activities. This study aims to investigate the potential for
regulating ecosystem service supply of a Portuguese peri-urban catchment, and
attempts to understand the temporal changes in ES over the last decades driven by
urbanization.
The study was developed in Ribeira dos Covões catchment (6.2 km2), in Portugal. Due to
its proximity to Coimbra, a major city in the central region of Portugal, the catchment has
undergone major land-use changes over the last half-century. Since 1958, the agricultural
area, comprising mainly olives and arable land, has declined from 48% to 4%, due to
increases in urban land (from 8% to 40%) and forest (from 44% to 53%), as well as a
temporary creation of open spaces (from 0% to 3%). The nature of forest cover also changed,
from native species, such as oaks (Quercus sp.), to commercial timber plantations,
mostly of Pinus pinaster L. and Eucaliptus globulus L.. Urbanization became more
pronounced after 1973, exhibiting a discontinuous pattern until 1995, and then later
more continuous urban areas through the infilling of areas between the earlier urban
cores.
Quantification of regulating ES in the study catchment was achieved using GIS
techniques, in order to gain a spatial dimension of ES distribution (Burkhard et al., 2009).
Mapping ecosystem service capacities at a 5×5m resolution involved the use of CORINE
land cover data and aerial photographs, available for the years 1958, 1973, 1979, 1990, 1995,
2002, 2007 and 2012. The resulting land-use maps include 11 land cover classes: equipment
and infrastructure, discontinuous urban fabric, continuous urban fabric, natural areas with
shrubs and herbaceous plants, softwoods, hardwoods, mixed forest, permanent crops, arable
land, bare soil and water bodies. Quantitative assessment of regulating services of these
land-use classes was achieved based on interviews with 31 experts. Each expert prepared a
matrix using a scale from “0” to “5”, where “0” refers to the land cover as having no
capacity to provide regulating services, while 5 indicates that the land cover provides a
wide range of ecosystem services. A final matrix was prepared based on mean
values of all the experts. This matrix was then integrated with the land-use maps of
different years to generate a spatially explicit potential ecosystem service supply
model.
The results showed decreasing ecosystem regulation services over time, mainly due to
increasing urban area but also changes on forest types. The methodology used can be easily
applied to test distinct urbanization scenarios, thus, providing a valuable support for urban
planning. |
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