CNH: Collaborative Research: Integrated Dynamic Modeling of Ecosystem Services, Incentive-Based Policies, Land-Use Decisions, and Ecological Outcomes

在过去的一个世纪里，人口和人类经济的快速增长改变了世界各地的面貌。这些变化导致自然栖息地减少和碎片化，导致生物多样性和许多生态系统服务的丧失。维持生物多样性和生态系统服务，同时满足人类社会对食物、纤维、燃料和其他必需品的需求，需要对土地利用和土地管理的生物和经济后果进行综合评估。这一跨学科研究项目将开发和应用一种综合的动态景观建模方法，以预测和比较替代政策激励和市场力量如何影响土地使用决策；由此产生的土地使用变化如何影响物种保护、碳储存和商品生产的价值；以及这将如何影响未来的土地使用决策。调查人员将根据观察到的土地所有者行为建立统计模型，以解决这些问题，以便根据当前的土地利用条件、公共政策和市场机会预测可能的土地利用变化。土地利用的变化对物种保护、生态系统服务和经济回报都有影响。由这些决策形成的土地利用模式将作为模型的输入，预测物种状况、生态系统服务的流动以及景观商品生产的价值。当前的土地使用决定和由此产生的一系列后果将为塑造未来政策和市场机会的未来条件奠定基础，而未来的政策和市场机会又将影响未来的土地利用变化。这种综合方法将被用来分析替代政策对土地利用变化动态的可能影响，以及由此产生的物种保护、生态系统服务和景观经济活动的轨迹。综合动态景观建模方法将应用于几个地理尺度的景观，从48个毗连的州到应用于俄勒冈州威拉米特盆地和威斯康星州北湖地区的区域分析。在同一建模方法中使用不同的分析尺度将解决两个问题：(1)增加细节和空间分辨率对分析和结果有多大影响？(2)分析是否可以嵌套在这样的意义上：人们可以使用广泛的分析来突出关注的区域和物种，然后可以使用更精细的尺度分析进行更详细的分析？在日益增长的人类经济和紧迫的当前需求中，保护生物多样性和维持人类福祉长期所需的生态系统服务，需要基于对人类选择和行动的全部后果的理解而进行仔细的规划。该项目将把经济和生态研究整合到一个连贯的框架中，以预测景观动态以及这些动态对生物多样性保护、生态系统服务和经济生产的影响。在该项目中开发的综合景观模型将提供工具和见解，可用于改善广泛的利益攸关方的决策。通过促进对整个景观中人类活动的模式、范围和强度的仔细思考，该项目可能有助于土地所有者和政策制定者实现重要的物种保护和生态系统服务目标，同时还从长期来看产生高经济回报。该项目得到了美国自然与人类耦合系统动力学(CNH)计划的支持。

Over the past century, rapid growth of human population and the human economy has transformed landscapes around the world. These transformations have reduced and fragmented natural habitat, resulting in loss of biodiversity and many ecosystem services. Maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services while meeting the needs of human society for food, fiber, fuel, and other essentials requires integrated assessment of the biological and economic consequences of land use and land management. This interdisciplinary research project will develop and apply an integrated dynamic landscape-modeling approach to predict and compare how alternative policy incentives and market forces affect land-use decisions; how resulting land-use changes affect species conservation, carbon storage, and the value of commodity production; and how this will affect future land-use decisions. The investigators will approach these questions by developing statistical models based on observed landowner behavior in order to predict likely land-use changes as a function of current land-use conditions, public policy, and market opportunities. Land-use changes have consequences for species conservation, ecosystem services, and economic returns. Land-use patterns shaped by these decisions will serve as input into models that predict the status of species, the flow of ecosystem services, and the value of commodity production from the landscape. Current land-use decisions and the resulting set of consequences will set the stage for future conditions that shape future policies and market opportunities, which, in turn, will affect future land-use changes. This integrated approach will be used to analyze the likely effect of alternative policies on land-use change dynamics, the consequent trajectory for species conservation, ecosystem services, and economic activities on the landscape. The integrated dynamic landscape modeling approach will be applied to landscapes at several geographic scales, from the 48 contiguous states to regional analysis applied to the Willamette Basin in Oregon and the Northern Lakes Region in Wisconsin. Two questions will be addressed by using different scales of analysis within the same modeling approach: (1) How much difference does inclusion of increased detail and spatial resolution make to the analysis and results?, and (2) Can analyses be nested in the sense that one can use the broad-scale analysis to highlight areas and species of concern, at which point more detailed analysis can be undertaken using finer scale analysis?Conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem services necessary for human welfare in the long-run in the midst of a growing human economy with pressing current needs requires careful planning based on an understanding of the full set of consequences of human choices and actions. This project will integrate economic and ecological research into a coherent framework to predict landscape dynamics and the effects of these dynamics on biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and economic production. The integrated landscape model developed in this project will provide tools and insights that can be used to improve decision making by a broad range of stakeholders. By facilitating careful thinking about the pattern, extent, and intensity of human activities across the landscape through time, this project may help landowners and policy makers to achieve important species conservation and ecosystem service objectives while also generating high economic returns over the long term. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.