Disentangling trade-offs and synergies around ecosystem services with the influence network framework: Illustration from a consultative process over the French Alps

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

An important aspect of sustainability is to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning while improving human well-being. For this, the ecosystem service (ES) approach has the potential to bridge the still existing gap between ecological management and social development, especially by focusing on trade-offs and synergies between ES and between their beneficiaries. Several frameworks have been proposed to account for trade-offs and synergies between ES, and between ES and other components of socialecological systems. However, to date, insufficient explicit attention has been paid to the three facets encompassed in the ES concept, namely potential supply, demand, and use, leading to incomplete descriptions of ES interactions. We expand on previous frameworks by proposing a new influence network framework (INF) based on an explicit consideration of influence relationships between these three ES facets, biodiversity, and external driving variables. We tested its ability to provide a comprehensive view of complex socialecological interactions around ES through a consultative process focused on environmental management in the French Alps. We synthetized the interactions mentioned during this consultative process and grouped variables according to their overall propensity to influence or be influenced by the system. The resulting directed sequence of influences distinguished between: (1) mostly influential variables (dynamic social variables and ecological state variables), (2) target variables (provisioning and cultural services), and (3) mostly impacted variables (regulating services and biodiversity parameters). We discussed possible reasons for the discrepancies between actual and perceived influences and proposed options to overcome them. We demonstrated that the INF holds the potential to deliver collective assessments of ES relations by: (1) including ecological as well as social aspects, (2) providing opportunities for colearning processes between stakeholder groups, and (3) supporting communication about complex social-ecological systems and consequences for environmental management.

Original languageEnglish
Article number32
JournalEcology and Society
Volume21
Issue number2
Number of pages18
ISSN1708-3087
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.01.2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by the author(s).

    Research areas

  • Cross-sectoral stakeholder consultation, Demand, Ecosystem service potential supply, French alps, Influence networks, Trade-offs and synergies, Use
  • Sustainability Science

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. New developments in extrusion of profiles with variable curvatures and cross-sections
  2. Development and application of a simplified sampling method for volatile polyfluorinated alkyl substances in indoor and environmental air
  3. Robust Decoupling Control of Contact Forces in Robotic Manipulation
  4. Pathways and mechanisms for catalyzing social impact through Orchestration: Insights from an open social innovation project
  5. Hands in Focus: Sign Language Recognition Via Top-Down Attention
  6. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning relations in European forests depend on environmental context.
  7. Embracing scale-dependence to achieve a deeper understanding of biodiversity and its change across communities
  8. Combination of a reduced order state observer and an Extended Kalman Filter for Peltier cells
  9. Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Rolling on the Localized Stress and Strain Induction for Wire + Arc Additive Manufactured Structures
  10. Do we fail to exert self-control because we lack resources or motivation? Competing theories to explain a debated phenomenon
  11. What do people do when they use the internet?
  12. Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics
  13. Collaborative modelling for active involvement of stakeholders in urban flood risk management
  14. Environmental Shareholder Value Matrix
  15. Online-Beratung für Eltern
  16. Navigating tensions in inclusive conservation
  17. Exploring the potential of using priority effects during ecological restoration to resist biological invasions in the neotropics
  18. Backward Extended Kalman Filter to Estimate and Adaptively Control a PMSM in Saturation Conditions
  19. Uncertainty, Pluralism, and the Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm
  20. ... address unknown?
  21. Toward supervised anomaly detection
  22. A comparison of the strength of biodiversity effects across multiple functions
  23. The Influence of Counterfactual Thinking about Uncontrolled Factors on Moral Judgment
  24. The 'need for speed'
  25. Perceptions of Organizational Downsizing
  26. Credit constraints, endogenous innovations, and price setting in international trade
  27. Toward a gecko-inspired, climbing soft robot
  28. CDS spreads, systemic risk and interconnectedness
  29. Foraging loads of stingless bees and utilisation of stored nectar for pollen harvesting
  30. A victim of regulatory arbitrage? Automatic exchange of information and the use of golden visas and corporate shells