Local Regulatory Protection for Ecosystem Services: A Case Study from the Karst Region of Southeast Minnesota, USA

Human communities depend upon a myriad of ecosystem goods and services, which are produced by and depend on natural environmental processes occurring at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Land-use policy seldom recognizes the importance of these services or the environmental processes generating these services. This study examined the degree to which ecosystem services and supporting environmental processes are regulated at two United States municipal levels: city and county. Several ecosystem services but few environmental processes are regulated to some extent. We identified policy needs for environmentally sensitive karst features, aquifer recharge, groundwater quality, plant and animal populations, and flood mitigation. We propose policy instruments that could help sustain regional ecosystem goods and services and conclude with planning ideas to cover these gaps, including measures from other karst regions that could support and enhance sustainable land planning and policy development

Mental health: future challenges

The aim of the Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing(www.foresight.gov.uk) is to advise the Government on how to achieve the best possible mental development and mental wellbeing for everyone in the UK in the future. The starting point of the Project was to generate an understanding of the science of mental capital and wellbeing (MCW) and to develop a vision for how the size and nature of the challenges exposed by the Project could evolve over the next 20 years. To make this analysis tractable, the work was divided into five broad areas: ● Mental capital through life ● Learning through life ● Mental health ● Wellbeing and work, and ● Learning difficulties. This report presents the findings for “Mental health” and draws upon a comprehensive assessment of the scientific state-of-the art: overall, around 80 reviews have been commissioned across the five areas. Mental health is a term which is used in a number of different ways and which has unfortunately acquired a substantial stigma in all layers of society. While the main focus of this report is on mental ill-health, positive mental health is also vitally important and is also discussed. However, a more comprehensive consideration of positive mental health has been performed in other parts of the Project (as commissioned reviews and in the context of the future of work. This report starts by looking at the situation today, examining the prevalence of important categories of mental disorder. It then considers the risk and protective factors which influence mental ill health, and determines how its prevalence and impact could change in the future, if existing policies and expenditure remain broadly unchanged. An assessment of strategic choices and interventions to meet the future challenges of mental health (and the challenges associated with the other four areas listed above) will be documented in the final Project report which is due for publication in the autumn of 2008