Assessing Ecosystem Services and Functions in rural environments with emphasis on trade-offs and tipping points in their provisioning

生态系统服务和功能评估在科学研究和政治决策过程中都受到了相当大的关注。它提供了将经济、生态和社会概念结合到进一步影响评估中的框架，可用于以浓缩和精简的方式向利益攸关方传达复杂的生物物理或社会生态相互作用。可持续社会效益的概念具有很强的跨学科特征，因为直接或间接受可持续社会效益变化影响的利益相关者的评估是综合方法的关键部分。目前仍在发展或需要进一步发展在健全的科学基础上进行这种跨部门和跨学科工作的方法和模式。这项研究工作的主要目标是开发和测试方法，以确定ESS和ESF供应中的临界点。为此，我们将使用可用的数据和场景分析ESF的供应，并比较不同的建模方法。我们将开发一个评估框架，以支持从ESF到ESS的步骤，并将调整和开发统计模型，以最终实现我们的主要目标。为此，我们将连续实施四个工作包。1)开发新的方法来分析和比较现有的数据，以加强现有的概念，以评估在不同时空尺度上提供ESF的权衡。2)在不同空间尺度上，对所选ESF评估的现有软件解决方案和模型的优缺点进行对比分析。3)设计结构化方法，将跨学科方面整合到ESS评估中。我们希望开发和实地测试这样一个从利益相关者到科学的信息传递的方法框架，反之亦然。4)开发新的方法来评估ESS和ESF供应随时间和/或空间的潜在临界点和制度转变。这将为研究人员提供一种工具来分析潜在的临界阈值，并评估这些供应系统在事前和事后与土地利用变化相关的复原力。这些工作包的结合将改进现有的方法，并允许开发新的方法来进行跨学科和跨学科的ESS评估，并有助于更好地科学地融入潜在的未来研究活动。这些方法将在中国云南现有的利益相关者数据集的基础上开发，并在泰国南的利益相关者中进行测试。

The assessment of Ecosystem Services and Functions (ESS and ESF) has gained a considerable attention in both scientific studies and political decision making processes. It offers frameworks to combine economic, ecological and social concepts into further reaching assessments that can be used to communicate complex biophysical or socio-ecological interactions in a condensed and streamlined way to stakeholders. The concept of ESS is entailing strong transdisciplinary characteristics as the valuation by stakeholders, directly or indirectly affected by changes in ESF, is a crucial part of the integrative approach. Methods and models to allow for such trans- and interdisciplinary work on a sound scientific basis are currently still being developed, or in need of further development. The main goal of this proposed research work is to develop and test methods for the identification of tipping-points in the provisioning of ESS and ESF. To do so, we will analyze the provisioning of ESF using available data and scenarios and compare different modelling approaches. A valuation framework will be developed to support the step from ESF to ESS, and statistical models will be adapted and developed to finally reach our main goal.We will achieve this by implementing four consecutive work packages. 1) Developing novel methods to analyze and compare available data in order to enhance existing concepts for the assessment of trade-offs in the provisioning of ESF at different spatial and temporal scales. 2) Performing comparative analyses of available software solution and models concerning their strengths and weaknesses in assessing selected ESF on different spatial scales. 3) Designing structured approaches for the integration of transdisciplinary aspects into ESS – assessments. We want to develop and field test such a methodological framework for information transfer from stakeholders in to science and vice versa. 4) Developing novel methods to assess potential tipping points and regime shifts in the provisioning of ESS and ESF over time and/or space. This will offer researchers a tool to analyze potential critical thresholds and asses the resilience related to land use change of these provisioning systems, both ex-ante and ex-post.The combination of these work packages will improve existing methods and allow for the development of new methods for the inter- and transdisciplinary assessment of ESS, and contribute to a better scientific embedding into potential future research activities. These approaches will be developed on the basis of existing stakeholder datasets from Yunnan, China and tested with stakeholders in Nan, Thailand.