Delivering multiple ecosystem service benefits in real landscapes

生态系统及其生物多样性提供食物、纤维和燃料等产品，以及气候调节、水和土壤调节、文化和娱乐服务等一系列基本服务，这些都对国家、国际和全球的人类福祉至关重要。在全球范围内，对于许多个别分区域来说，世界上大多数生态系统已经严重退化，它们继续提供商品和服务的能力受到威胁。生物多样性在调节支撑生态系统服务的生态过程（如初级生产、养分循环）方面发挥的基本作用已得到承认，但对生物多样性、生态系统功能和生态系统服务之间的关系了解甚少。面对未来的环境、人口和土地利用变化，如果我们要维持或加强我们能够从生态系统中获得的利益，我们就需要提高对这些联系的理解。BESS计划的三个目标是：(1)严格定义景观内的生物多样性如何在一系列尺度和梯度上支撑不同生态系统服务的提供；(2)确定在不同驱动因素压力情景下提供不同类型服务所需的生物多样性临界水平，以及生态系统对不同驱动因素的适应能力；(3)开发适用于跟踪和测量不同情景下生物多样性和生态系统服务的新工具和指标（BESS科学计划，2011）。BESS联盟将在四种不同的景观类型中解决这些问题：(1)低地农业多功能；(2)滨海湿地；(3)高地;(4)城市。理事会的研究活动（在本提案中详细说明）将通过建立框架和机制将这些知识和理解方面的进展转化为政策和实践来补充这一点。这将在决策和管理相关的尺度上加强生物资源管理计划的影响，以最大限度地利用我们从自然资本资源中获得的服务和利益。为了使BESS对政策和实践产生重大影响，必须明确科学与政策的相关性，特别是明确不同规模的不同政策选择对生态系统服务提供的影响。BESS中单个项目的重点将放在特定类型的景观上，但生态系统级目标的实现往往需要在更大的景观中同时管理不同的景观类型。因此，该局开展的研究将特别关注这种“整体景观”方法，以及如何将对特定景观中过程和监测生态系统服务的科学理解进展纳入实践中的“整体景观”倡议。研究的总体目标是开发和应用一个框架，将特定景观的BESS研究转化为整个景观系统。研究将有三个具体目标：1。调查管理干预措施的选择范围，以加强来自不同景观的单一和多个生态系统服务的提供，并开发适当的工具来监测其有效性、成本效益和效率。2 .在现有建模框架的基础上，对实际景观中不同生物多样性-生态系统服务相关干预措施的有效性和效率进行建模和评估。与示范景观倡议合作，展示如何利用目标1和2下的工作，为基于景观规模生态系统的管理方法的开发、实施和评估提供信息。

Ecosystems and their biodiversity deliver products such as food, fibre and fuel, as well as a range of essential services such as climate regulation, water and soil regulation and cultural and recreational services, which are all important for human well-being nationally, internationally and globally. Globally, and for many individual sub-regions, the majority of the world's ecosystems have become severely degraded, and their continued ability to provide goods and services is under threat. The fundamental role that biodiversity plays in regulating the ecological processes (e.g. primary production, nutrient recycling) that underpin ecosystem services is acknowledged, but understanding of the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services is poor. We need to improve our understanding of these links if we are sustain or enhance the benefits we are able to obtain from ecosystems in the face of future environmental, demographic and land use change. The three goals of the BESS programme are: (1) to rigorously define how biodiversity within landscapes underpins the delivery of different ecosystem services at a range of scales and across gradients; (2) to establish whether there are critical levels of biodiversity required to deliver different kinds of services under different driver-pressure scenarios, as well as which enhance the resilience of ecosystems to those different drivers; and (3) to develop novel tools and indicators appropriate for tracking and measuring biodiversity and ecosystem services under those different scenarios (BESS Science Plan, 2011). BESS consortia will address these questions within four different landscape types: (1) lowland agricultural multifunctional; (2) coastal wetlands; (3) uplands; and (4) urban. The Directorate's research activities (detailed in this proposal) will complement this by establishing frameworks and mechanisms through which these advances in knowledge and understanding can be translated into policy and practice. This will enhance the impact of the BESS programme at both decision-making and management-relevant scales in relation to maximising the services and benefits that we obtain from our natural capital resource.In order for BESS to make a significant impact on policy and practice, it is essential that the relevance of the science to policy is made explicit, and in particular that the effects of different policy options at different scales on ecosystem service provision are clear. The focus of the individual projects within BESS will be on specific types of landscapes, but the delivery of ecosystem-level objectives frequently requires the simultaneous management of different landscape types within a much larger landscape. The research conducted by the Directorate will therefore specifically focus on such 'whole landscape' approaches, and how progress in scientific understanding of process and monitoring ecosystem services in specific landscapes can be integrated into 'whole landscape' initiatives in practice. The overall aim of the research is to develop and apply a framework for translating the landscape-specific BESS research to a whole landscape system. The research will have three specific objectives: 1. To investigate the range of options for management interventions to enhance the delivery of single and multiple ecosystems services from different landscapes, and to develop appropriate tools for monitoring their effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and efficiency.2. To build on an existing modelling framework to model and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of different biodiversity-ecosystem service related interventions in real landscapes.3. To work in collaboration with exemplar landscape initiatives to demonstrate how the work under objectives 1 and 2 can be used to inform the development, implementation and evaluation of landscape-scale ecosystem-based approaches to management.