Trade-offs and synergies in the ecosystem service demand of urban brownfield stakeholders

Brownfield site redevelopment presents an opportunity to create urban green spaces that provide a wide range of ecosystem services. It is important, therefore, to understand which ecosystem services are demanded by stakeholders and whether there are trade-offs or synergies in this demand. We performed a quantitative survey of ecosystem service demand from brownfield sites that included all major stakeholder groups. Results showed that there was a strong trade-off between demand for services related to property development (e.g. ground strength and low flood risk) and all other services, which were linked to vegetated sites. There was a secondary, but weak, trade-off between demand for services of more ‘natural’ vegetated sites (e.g. with a biodiversity protection role) and those linked to aesthetics and recreation. Stakeholders with a strong preference for biodiversity protection formed a distinct group in their ecosystem service demands. While a ‘development’ vs ‘green space’ trade-off may be unavoidable, the general lack of strong trade-offs in demand for other services indicated that the creation of multifunctional greenspaces from former brownfield sites would be desirable to most stakeholders, as long as these are biophysically possible

The importance of forest and trees for ecosystem-based adaptation in rural landscapes

Ecosystems provide important services that can help people adapt to climate variability and change. Scientific literature provides evidence that EBA with forests and trees can reduce social vulnerability to climate hazards; however, uncertainties and knowledge gaps remain. Pilot projects under implementation also provide information on EBA and can serve as learning sites. Based on different sources of information from scientific literature and experiences on the ground, we discuss the potential of forests and trees for EBA in several cases: forests and trees providing goods to local communities facing climatic threats; trees in agricultural fields regulating water, soil, and microclimate for more resilient production; forested watersheds regulating water and protecting soils for reduced climate impacts; forests protecting coastal areas from climate-related threats; and forests regulating rainfall at the regional or continental level. We discuss uncertainties, knowledge gaps and controversies regarding EBA. We show that uncertainties are important for adaptation based on the regulating services of forests and trees for protecting watersheds and coastal areas and regulating regional rainfall. The multiple benefits of EBA for biodiversity conservation and climate change are also well recognized but trade-offs exist between ecosystem services or between their beneficiaries. Better understanding is needed of the efficiency, costs, and benefits, and trade-offs of EBA with forests and trees

Bivariate Ordered Probit Analysis of Public Attitudes Toward Multifunctionality of Agriculture in the U.S.

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Conceptualizing Multifunctional Agriculture from a Global Perspective

The notion of multifunctional agriculture has been actively researched from diverse disciplines including economics, ecology, sociology, and geography since emerged out of the Uruguay Round in the 1990s. In particular, the economics approach represents an attempt to tailor the concept of multifunctional agriculture to market-oriented WTO trade regime. The economics approach has been fundamentally troubled by the lack of concord among WTO member countries on the question of what constitutes multifunctional agriculture. Upon examining how differently the notion of multifunctional agriculture is perceived across the US, the EU, the Cairns group, the LDCs, and the developed food-importing countries (the G10), this article theorizes that multifunctional agriculture connotes different contents in different countries/regions that are determined by their particular agricultural problems, which are in turn shaped by the cultural, ecological and economic characteristics unique to each country. The theorizing undertakes to overcome the Euro-centrism that has dictated the discourse of multifunctional agriculture since the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). This article fills an important gap in the literature of social sciences concerning the concept of multifunctional agriculture by explicitly recognizing the wide diversity of contemporary agricultural problems across countries.multifunctional agriculture, global governance of agriculture, WTO, agricultural trade, International Development, International Relations/Trade,

Evaluating the Impact of Alternative Policy Scenarios on Multifunctionality: A Case Study of Finland. CEPS ENARPRI Working Papers No. 13, 1 July 2005

This paper provides first results of the sector-model approach to analysing the effects of alternative policy scenarios on the multifunctional role of Finnish agriculture. In terms of environmental non-commodity outputs, this study focuses on nutrient runoffs, landscape diversity and biodiversity. As regards other non-commodity outputs, the paper considers rural socio-economic viability. The results suggest that, on the whole, reform of the common agricultural policy is not likely to result in any drastic decline of agricultural production in Finland. The amount of green fallow will increase considerably when agricultural support payments are decoupled from production, and as a result the remaining cultivated agricultural land will become biologically richer. The agricultural labour force is likely to decrease substantially irrespective of agricultural policy. The study concludes that the credibility of the production economics and biological relationships of the economic model determine the validity of the results of the many indicators examined. Further, the economic logic of microeconomic simulation models provides a consistent assessment of the many aspects of multifunctionality

Biotic homogenization can decrease landscape-scale forest multifunctionality.

Many experiments have shown that local biodiversity loss impairs the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple ecosystem functions at high levels (multifunctionality). In contrast, the role of biodiversity in driving ecosystem multifunctionality at landscape scales remains unresolved. We used a comprehensive pan-European dataset, including 16 ecosystem functions measured in 209 forest plots across six European countries, and performed simulations to investigate how local plot-scale richness of tree species (α-diversity) and their turnover between plots (β-diversity) are related to landscape-scale multifunctionality. After accounting for variation in environmental conditions, we found that relationships between α-diversity and landscape-scale multifunctionality varied from positive to negative depending on the multifunctionality metric used. In contrast, when significant, relationships between β-diversity and landscape-scale multifunctionality were always positive, because a high spatial turnover in species composition was closely related to a high spatial turnover in functions that were supported at high levels. Our findings have major implications for forest management and indicate that biotic homogenization can have previously unrecognized and negative consequences for large-scale ecosystem multifunctionality.We thank the Hainich National Park administration as well as Felix Berthold and Carsten Beinhoff for support of this study and Gerald Kaendler and the Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut for providing access to the German National Forest Inventory data. The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement 265171.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the National Academy of Sciences via https://doi.org//10.1073/pnas.151790311

A U.S. Perspective on Multifunctionality

Agribusiness,

A pH Dependant Switch in DHP Oxidation Mechanism

Dehaloperoxidase (DHP) is a multifunctional enzyme found in Amphitrite ornata, a sediment-dwelling marine worm. This enzyme possess the structure of a traditional hemoglobin enzyme and serves as the primary oxygen carrier in A. ornata; however, it also possesses peroxidase and peroxygenase capabilities. These secondary oxidative functions provide a remarkable ability for A. ornata to resist the effects of toxic metabolites secreted by other organisms that cohabit its benthic ecosystem. This study will analyze the novel catalytic switching between peroxygenase and peroxidase oxidation mechanisms employed by DHP in response to pH changes