Quantifying and monitoring ecosystem services: The role of remote sensing in the development of SMART indicators.

摘要

Ecosystem services are those goods and services that are provided by the natural environment that are fundamental to human well being, for example, food provisioning, water purification, climate regulation and crop pollination services amongst many others. However, recent evidence has highlighted that many ecosystems are being degraded through increasing anthropogenic pressures, such as pollution, deforestation and land conversion with subsequent diminishing of important ecosystem goods and services that society depends upon. These impacts, indirectly caused by population and economic growth at local to global scales, will require careful monitoring and intervention to avoid ecosystem services failure. Ecosystem assessment and monitoring requires the development and application of indicators that need to be (i) reliable and capable of simplifying complex relationships, (ii) quantifiable and transparent for comparability across different ecosystems and to enable communication, and (iii) fit for the purpose of indication. This paper examines the potential of remote sensing in helping to provide a suite of indicators that support the SMART Criteria, which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-sensitive, that enable policy-makers and natural resource managers to monitor ecosystem services and take action in a timely fashion to ensure sustainable use of our natural environment.