Ecosystem Services and River Basin Models Martin Volk International Conference Sustainability in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus C03 Special Session:

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1 Ecosystem Services and River Basin Models Martin Volk International Conference Sustainability in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus C03 Special Session: Ecosystems and their Services in the Nexus May 19-20, 2014, Bonn, Germany

2 Ecosystem services Ecosystem services - benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems (Daily, 1997). Supporting the development of policies and instruments that integrate social, economic and ecological perspectives. Modelling to quantify various feedbacks and interactions between ecosystem functions and services. The concept has become a paradigm of ecosystem management.

3 30 Quantitative Review: Ecosystem Service Studies other no interaction interaction 0 #Studies wide variety of approaches lack of consistent methodology frequent use proxy variables observations or measurements (< 40%) secondary data (>60%) models based assessments (<25%) without considering any feedbacks (>50%) scenarios (30%) #ES considered in each Study Seppelt et al. (2011), Journal of Applied Ecology 48: Seite 3

4 Deficits of modelling ecosystem services In a nutshell, the most important deficits of modelling ecosystem services adequately are: Very diverse, heterogeneous model systems are used, covering a range from relatively simple systems to very complex models no real integration Feedbacks and trade-offs are mostly not considered and / or quantified Off-site effects are mostly not considered Stakeholders are only in a few cases actively included / involved, there is mostly no common learning process Scenario analysis is separated from explorative modelling that shows the landscape potential to provide several ecosystem services similarly at the same time.

5 WR- and ESS-Management The common ground Processes which promote the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems GWP (2000)

6 Examples: Freshwater Ecoservices Tools SWAT Soil and Water Assessment Tool VIC model Various Infiltration Capacity InVEST - Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs ARIES - Artifcial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services Source: Vigerstol and Aukema (2011)

7 Example how start with a protocol? Source: Vigerstol and Aukema (2011)

8 Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) World-wide used integrated river basin model (Gassman et al., 2007) Open-souce The objective of the SWAT Model is to predict the effect of management decisions on water, sediment, crop yield, nutrient and pesticide yields with reasonable accuracy on large river basins.

9 Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and ESS Possible: Supporting services: Nutrient cycling Provisioning: Crop yield (food, fodder, energy) Water (water quantity, water quality, enviromental flow) Regulating: Water purification, retention, erosion Climate

10 Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and ESS Not possible / or only in combination with other models: Provisioning: Wood / Lumber Regulating: Carbon sequestration

11 Exploratory modelling in dynamic systems trade-offs Landscape fulfils different functions and provides different services that have to be considered at the same time Seite 11 One can for example assess whether it is possible to produce the same agricultural yield but protect more water provision and biodiversity Functional relationships between goals, goals and policy instruments?

12 Conclusions and recommendations: Hydrological models can provide process-based information on water-related ecosystem services. SWAT can provide ecosystem services beyond purely hydrological services. There is no one and only model : Selection of model depends on question to be answered and study area model performance must be tested by criteria. Providing knowledge on trade-offs and marginal changes is a key for successful implementation of the ecosystem services concept (potential of landscape to provide ecosystem services) Scenario analysis is necessary and should be combined with exploratory modelling Modularity and reusability of model systems are necessary There is never such thing as the one and only goal - implementation of resource management strategies needs always to incorporate learning and model building in cooperation with stakeholders

13 Models and Ecosystem Services Burkhard, B. et al. (2013): Mapping and modelling ecosystem services for science, policy and practice. Ecosystem Services 4: 1-3. Cook, B.R. and C.J. Spray (2012): Ecosystem services and integrated water resource management: Different paths to the same end? Journal of Environmental Management 109: Crossman, N.D. et al. (2013): A blueprint for mapping and modelling ecosystem services. Ecosystem Services 4: Jewitt, G. (2002): Can Integrated Water Resources Management sustain the provision of ecosystem goods and services? Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 27: Nelson, E.J. and G.C. Daily (2010): Modelling ecosystem services in terrestrial systems. F1000 Biology Reports 2010, 2:53. Nelson, E. et al. (2009): Modeling Multiple Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity Conservation, Commodity Production,and Tradeoffs at Landscape Scales. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(1): Seppelt, R. et al. (2011): A quantitative review of ecosystem service studies: approaches, shortcomings and the road ahead. J. Appl. Ecol. 48: Vigerstol, K.L. and J.E. Aukema (2011): A comparison of tools for modeling freshwater ecosystem services. Journal of Environmental Management 92: Volk, M. (2014): Opinion paper: Modelling ecosystem services challenges and promising future directions. Sustainability of Water Quality and Ecology (in press).

14 Thank you for your attention Questions?