TY - JOUR

T1 - Quantifying interregional flows of multiple ecosystem services – A case study for Germany

AU - Kleemann, Janina

AU - Schröter, Matthias

AU - Bagstad, Kenneth J.

AU - Kuhlicke, Christian

AU - Kastner, Thomas

AU - Fridman, Dor

AU - Schulp, Catharina J.E.

AU - Wolff, Sarah

AU - Martínez-López, Javier

AU - Koellner, Thomas

AU - Arnhold, Sebastian

AU - Martín-López, Berta

AU - Marques, Alexandra

AU - Lopez-Hoffman, Laura

AU - Liu, Jianguo

AU - Kissinger, Meidad

AU - Guerra, Carlos Antonio

AU - Bonn, Aletta

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Authors

PY - 2020/3/1

Y1 - 2020/3/1

N2 - Despite a growing number of national-scale ecosystem service (ES) assessments, few studies consider the impacts of ES use and consumption beyond national or regional boundaries. Interregional ES flows – ecosystem services “imported” from and “exported” to other countries – are rarely analyzed and their importance for global sustainability is little known. Here, we provide a first multi-ES quantification of a nation's use of ES from abroad. We focus on ES flows that benefit the population in Germany but are supplied outside German territory. We employ a conceptual framework recently developed to systematically quantify interregional ES flows. We address four types of interregional ES flows with: (i) biophysical flows of traded goods: cocoa import for consumption; (ii) flows mediated by migratory species: migration of birds providing pest control; (iii) passive biophysical flows: flood control along transboundary watersheds; and (iv) information flows: China's giant panda loan to the Berlin Zoo. We determined that: (i) Ivory Coast and Ghana alone supply around 53% of Germany's cocoa while major negative consequences for biodiversity occurred in Cameroon and Ecuador; (ii) Africa´s humid and sub-humid climate zones are important habitats for the majority of migratory bird species that provide natural pest control services in agricultural areas in Germany; (iii) Upstream watersheds outside the country add an additional 64% flood regulation services nationally, while Germany exports 40% of flood regulation services in neighboring, downstream countries; (iv) Information flows transported by the pandas were mainly related to political aspects and - contrary to our expectations - considerably less on biological and natural aspects. We discuss the implications of these results for international resource management policy and governance.

AB - Despite a growing number of national-scale ecosystem service (ES) assessments, few studies consider the impacts of ES use and consumption beyond national or regional boundaries. Interregional ES flows – ecosystem services “imported” from and “exported” to other countries – are rarely analyzed and their importance for global sustainability is little known. Here, we provide a first multi-ES quantification of a nation's use of ES from abroad. We focus on ES flows that benefit the population in Germany but are supplied outside German territory. We employ a conceptual framework recently developed to systematically quantify interregional ES flows. We address four types of interregional ES flows with: (i) biophysical flows of traded goods: cocoa import for consumption; (ii) flows mediated by migratory species: migration of birds providing pest control; (iii) passive biophysical flows: flood control along transboundary watersheds; and (iv) information flows: China's giant panda loan to the Berlin Zoo. We determined that: (i) Ivory Coast and Ghana alone supply around 53% of Germany's cocoa while major negative consequences for biodiversity occurred in Cameroon and Ecuador; (ii) Africa´s humid and sub-humid climate zones are important habitats for the majority of migratory bird species that provide natural pest control services in agricultural areas in Germany; (iii) Upstream watersheds outside the country add an additional 64% flood regulation services nationally, while Germany exports 40% of flood regulation services in neighboring, downstream countries; (iv) Information flows transported by the pandas were mainly related to political aspects and - contrary to our expectations - considerably less on biological and natural aspects. We discuss the implications of these results for international resource management policy and governance.

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Telecoupling

KW - Interregional ecosystem

KW - Quantification

KW - Assessment

KW - Flow

KW - services

KW - Sustainability Science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85081899167&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/26de73e6-21b3-3130-92b5-c50677d1a2a1/

U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102051

DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102051

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 61

JO - Global Environmental Change

JF - Global Environmental Change

SN - 0959-3780

M1 - 102051

ER -