1 Modelling Ecosystem Services at the Landscape Scale: A case study of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Spreewald Department of Ecosystems and Environmental.

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Modelling Ecosystem Services at the Landscape Scale: A case study of the UNESCO Biosphere

Reserve Spreewald

Department of Ecosystems and Environmental Informatics

by Ernest Fongwa, Albrecht Gnauck

Contents

• Introduction

• Methodology

• Application to UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Spreewald

• Discussion

• Conclusions

Introduction

• Ecosystem Services are the benefits that human derive from the natural ecosystem

• They are spread over the landscape depending on the water catchment area and also from rural to urban areas or from one administrative unit to another

• However, they can be find everywhere, but their capacity differ with landscape characteristics

• They are classified under 5 types

Provisioning Services

Type of ES Examples

Food Crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture, wild foods

Water Fresh water, rivers, sea and oceans etc.

Fibre Timber, cotton, hemp, silk

Energy

Biomass, photosynthesis, solar-rays, oil plants, hydrothermal, geothermal, tidal wave energy, hydro-carbons, fuel wood

Bio-chemicals

Biomedical plants, bio-remediation compounds, herbs, aromatics, chemical substances from plant , animals, insects and bees such as honey from bee wax, snake oil

Regulating Services

Type of ES Examples

Air quality regulation

Climate regulation: sequestration like CO2, evapo-transpiration (precipitation)

Filtering dust particles in air

Regulation of air pollutant like NOx, SOx

Water quality regulation (Surface and ground water)

Water purification, water softening

Pests and diseases regulation Regulation against : parasite, fungi and bacteria invasion of human, plant and animals, air and water born diseases, exposure to poisonous substances

Regulating Services

Type of ES Examples

Regulation of soil and erosion

Regulate soil depletion through soil

buffering, removal of impurities in

soil through soil shrinking, control

of wind and water erosion

Natural hazards regulation

Storm and flood control, control of tectonic movement in soil to reduce earthquakes and volcanic explosion

Supporting Services

Type of ES Examples

Nutrient cycling and soil formation

Nutrient balancing by micro-organisms, soil formation by decomposition of dead plants and animals

Crop pollination Pollination by bees, insects and other micro-organisms etc.

Support the earth surface Life on earth, platform for houses, farming, roads and highways

Preserving Services

Type of ES Examples

Biodiversity Habitat for plant and animal species, noise reduction

Development and maintenance of genetic resource against uncertainty (extinction)

Richness/abundance of genetic species, bio-refugia, hybridisation of species

Cultural services

Type of ES Examples

Spiritual and religious values

Social relations (indigenous culture), sense of place (cultural identity), Secret and inspirations places like churches

Recreational and ecotourism

Aesthetic values, monuments, sanctuaries, natural parks, natural and cultural tourism, heritage sites

Methodology

• Typical service units for studying ecosystem services can be defined and constructed by Petri nets

• A Petri net is a graphical and mathematical technique for modelling flow system and have been used in many fields such like fresh water ecology, molecular biology, business, transport and logistic etc.

• It can be used for continuous, discrete, stochastic and hybrid modelling and simulation

• That is continuous, time, stochastic, hybrid, place /transition and high level nets like coloured Petri net, which may be discrete, continuous or stochastic and even hybrid Petri nets

• Data are collected in the UNESCO biophere reserve Spreewald based on observation and scaling by give rank values that are aggregated for simulation of the model

Petri Net Modelling Framework

An ecosystem example of algae growth

Conceptual Model Building with Petri Nets

Description of relationships

• N= (S,T,W)

• Petri net is defined as N and described as a triple (S, T, W)

• S= {s1, s2, s3, s4}

• T= {t1, t2, t3, t4, t5, t6, t7, t8}

• W- Flow rate

• Each Set in S contain markings with tokens

Definition of Coloursets

• Markings and their set of tokens are differentiated by colours

• Markings: Comp = {Comp1, Comp2, Comp3}

• Tokens: ES= {ES1, ES2, …, ES5}

• Coloursets:

Colours =

53...331352...221251...2111

ESCompESCompESCompESCompESCompESCompESCompESCompESComp

Execution

Verification of Net Properties

Properties Results

Net Class Asymmetric

Liveness Cannot decide

Boundedness Yes

Conservative Yes

Repetitiveness Yes

Consistent Yes

Data Sampling Strategy

• Data Collection is based on cross-sectional field observation in the UNESCO biosphere reserve Spreewald

• The data source comprises of landscape components associated with ES, activities that lead to their balance, improvement and deficit and indicators

• They are quantified by qualitative value judgement based on ranking them to a scale of 0 to 5

• 0 (no relevant capacity), 1 (very low relevant capacity), 2 (low relevant capacity), 3 (medium relevant capacity), 4 (high relevant capacity) and 5 (very high relevant capacity)

Data Sampling Strategy

• Preparatory Set Up for Data Collection

• Data Collection

• Data Aggregation Procedures

• Quality Assurance of Data

- Estimators: Unbias and Consistency

Data Conversion

Ranking Scale

Conversion % (1500)

Meaning

0 0 Not relevant capacity

1 20 (300) Very low relevant capacity

2 40 (600) Low relevant capacity

3 60 (900) Medium relevant capacity

4 80 (1200) High relevant capacity

5 100 (1500) Very high relevant capacity

Parameter for EstimatingEcosystem Services

If :

ΣSt - old stock of ES in a particular region

Then:

ΣSt ± ΔΣSt- current stock (phase transition)

For environmental balancing for preserve ES:

ΔΣSt 0 or ΔΣSt = 0

For environmental improvement for preserving:

ΔΣSt > 0

For environmental deficit for preserving ES:

ΔΣSt < 0

Application in UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Spreewald

Landscape Identification

Land Use from 1991- 2010

Ecosystem Services

Petri Net Simulation Framework

• Data conversion

• Encoding data in the Petri net

• Specification of initial marking based on data set

• Simulation

• Show case and scenarios

Discussion

Conclusions

• MES can encourage the preservation of ES with market for certification scheme already growing in Spreewald region, but there are no markets for permit and conservation credit/banking.

• These markets for ecosystem services need to be encourage by increasing measures for preservation of ecosystem services.

• However, there are current discussion on the legal system on pools for balancing landscape problems, this may favour the growth of MES and community-based financial participation.

• Therefore data management systems are essential for analysis and structuring strategic measures for preserving ES, which has been realised in the modelling and data sampling framework.

Thanks for your attention