Quantifying Trade-Offs Among Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity, and Agricultural Returns in an Agriculturally Dominated Landscape Under Future Land?Management Scenarios

摘要

Change in land use in agriculturally dominatedareas is often assumed to provide positive benefitsfor land-owners and financial agricultural returnsat the expense of biodiversity and other ecosystemservices. For an agriculturally dominated area inthe Central Valley of California we quantify thetrade-offs among ecosystem services, biodiversity,and the financial returns from agricultural lands.We do this by evaluating three different landscapemanagement scenarios projected to 2050 compared tothe current baseline: habitat restoration, urbanization,and enhanced agriculture. The restoration scenariobenefited carbon storage services and increasedlandscape suitability for birds, and also decreasedecosystem disservices (nitrous oxide emissions,nitrogen leaching), although there was a tradeoffin slightly lower financial agricultural returns.Under the urbanization scenario, carbon storage,suitability for birds, and agricultural returns werenegatively affected. A scenario which enhancedagriculture, tailored to the needs of a key speciesof conservation concern (Swainson’s Hawk, Buteoswainsoni), presented the most potential for tradeoffs.This scenario benefitted carbon storage andincreased landscape suitability for the Swainson'sHawk as well as 15 other focal bird species. However,this scenario increased ecosystem disservices. Thesespatially explicit results, generated at a scale relevantto land management decision-makers in the CentralValley, provide valuable insight into managing formultiple benefits in the landscape and an approachfor assessing future land-management decisions.