Assessment and regulation of ocean health based on ecosystem services: Case study in the Laizhou Bay, China

The ecosystem-based management of nearshore waters requires integrated assessment of ocean health and scientific guidance on artificial regulations to promote sustainable development. Quantitative approaches were developed in this paper to assess present and near-term ocean health based on ecosystem services. Results of the case study in the Laizhou Bay of China showed that the index score of ocean health was 0.785 6 out of 1.0 at present and was expected to range from 0.555 1 to 0.804 1 in the near-term future depending on different intensities of artificial regulation of negative pressures. Specifically, the results of ocean health at present mainly indicated that cultural services and provisioning services performed essentially perfectly while supporting services and regulating services functioned less well. It can be concluded that this nearshore ecosystem would partially lose supporting and regulating services in the near-term future if the increasing pressures were not wellregulated but that all of these categories of ecosystem services could be slightly improved if the negative pressures were fully controlled. Additionally, it is recommended that publicity and education on ecosystem services especially on cultural services and regulating services should be further strengthened. The analytical process and resulting quantification provide flexible tools to guide future development of regulations so as to facilitate ecosystem-based management in the coastal zone.

Integrating beneficiaries into assessment of ecosystem services from managed forests at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest,USA

Background：Forests contribute to human wellbeing through the provision of important ecosystem services.Methods：In this study,we investigated how the perceived importance of ecosystem services may impact the overall benefit provided by managed watersheds at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest over a 45-year period,using standardized measures of service capacity weighted by service importance weights derived from a survey of beneficiaries.Results：The capacity of watersheds to regulate water flow and quality was high in all watersheds throughout the study period,whereas cultural services such as scenic beauty declined after harvest.Impacts on greenhouse gas regulation depended on the efficiency with which harvested biomass was used.Surveys revealed that stakeholders placed high value on all ecosystem services,with regulating and cultural services seen as more important than provisioning services.When service metrics were weighted by survey responses and aggregated into a single measure,total service provision followed the same overall trend as greenhouse gas regulation.Where biomass use was less efficient in terms of greenhouse gas emissions,harvesting resulted in an overall ＂ecosystem service debt＂;where use was more efficient,this ＂ecosystem service debt＂ was reduced.Beneficiaries＇ educational backgrounds significantly affected overall assessment of service provision.Beneficiaries with college or university degrees incurred smaller ＂ecosystem service debts＂ and were less negatively affected by harvesting overall.Conclusions：This study highlights the importance of including empirical measures of beneficiary preference when attempting to quantify overall provision of ecosystem services to human beneficiaries over time.