Capturing a soil carbon economy

Current carbon pricing and trading mechanisms, despite their efficacy in reducing GHG emissions from industry, will not be sufficient to achieve Net Zero targets. Current mechanisms that redress emissions are largely economic disincentives, in effect financial penalties for emitters. In order to attain Net Zero futures, financial incentives for activities that sequester carbon from the atmosphere are needed. Herein, we present the environmental and economic co-benefits of soil re-carbonization and justify support for soil carbon remuneration. With increasing momentum to develop green economies, and projected increases in carbon price, growth in the global carbon market is inevitable. The establishment of a soil-based carbon economy, within this emerging financial space, has the potential to deliver a paradigm shift that will accelerate climate change mitigation, and concurrently realize net gains for soil health and the delivery of soil ecosystem services. Pivotal to the emergence of a global soil carbon economy will be a consensus on certification instruments used for long-term soil carbon storage, and the development of robust institutional agreements and processes to facilitate soil carbon trading

Customising virtual globe tours to enhance community awareness of local landscape benefits

Our wellbeing depends upon the services provided by ecosystems and their components. Despite recent advances in academic understanding of ecosystem services, and consideration in UK national environmental policy, a greater awareness is needed at community and individual levels. Dynamic features of virtual globe applications have considerable potential for helping convey the multi-dimensional context of ecosystem services and promoting general awareness. In a case study targeting residents in a small urban fringe river catchment in Norfolk, UK, representatives from local authorities and responsible agencies collaborated with scientists to produce extensive customisation of virtual globes in this context. By implementing a virtual flight over the catchment, different views and scales are traversed to set the context for landscape features and ecosystem services. Characteristic sites, e.g. supplying cultural services, are displayed and relationships with the natural environment are explained using linked on-screen text. Implementation is cost-effective and described for practitioners in ecosystem and landscape management, who may be inexperienced in landscape visualisation. Supplied as three pre-packaged virtual tours, products are made available for download and are publicised at a variety of engagement events, including teaching events with schoolchildren. The tours have attracted public interest and generated positive feedback about improving knowledge of local natural assets. Schoolchildren show confidence with the interface, but supplementary problem-based activities can improve learning opportunities. The capacity of virtual globes to support more participatory involvement of the public in local ecosystem management may increase in the future, but such visualisations can already help promote community awareness of local landscape benefits

The first United Kingdom's National Ecosystem Assessment and beyond

INTRODUCTION As water and land resources become scarcer, further conflicting demands of different uses and users will arise (Vörösmarty et al. 2000). Sustainable management is required to secure water resources for future generations. Ecosystem services-based approaches aim to ensure that the values of a broad range of benefits to humanity that are provided by our natural environment are accounted for in policy making, in order to foster sustainable development (Chapter 2). National-level incorporation of sustainable development goals has propelled interest in large-scale assessments of ecosystem services which can help address complex problems of ecosystem change (Bateman et al. 2013). The central question of this chapter is whether large-scale ecosystem services-based approaches provide an opportunity for improving water management. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK-NEA) was the first analysis of the societal benefits of the UK natural environment (UK-NEA 2011a). Moreover, it was one of the leading initiatives worldwide to assess ecosystem services at national level after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005) produced a global assessment. The first phase of the UK-NEA provided a wealth of policy-relevant information, and we use it here as a case study. UK rivers, lakes, and ponds make up around 250 000 hectares (1.1%) of the UK total surface area. These surface waters, together with unseen groundwater systems, contribute significant ecosystem services and goods to human well-being in the UK. The quality of UK freshwaters has improved over the last 50 years following direct regulatory interventions in rural and agricultural practices and EU Directives, such as the Water Framework Directive (Watson 2012). These policies have led to a reduction of point and diffuse chemical pollution and improved ecological conditions. Nonetheless, pressures from agricultural, industrial, and domestic use on water resources remains high, both in terms of quality and quantity (Watson 2012). Agricultural practices and landscape modifications, such as use of fertilisers, habitat fragmentation, and degradation, reduce the ecosystem service provision and resulting human benefits.</p

Economic Assessment of the Recreational Value of Ecosystems: Methodological Development and National and Local Application

We present a novel methodology for spatially sensitive prediction of outdoor recreation visits and values for different ecosystems. Data on outset and destination characteristics and locations are combined with survey information from over 40,000 households to yield a trip generation function (TGF) predicting visit numbers. A new meta-analysis (MA) of relevant literature is used to predict site specific per-visit values. Combining the TGF and MA models permits spatially explicit estimation of visit numbers and values under present and potential future land use. Applications to the various land use scenarios of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, as well as to a single site, are presented. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Ecosystem Services: Response

C. Obst 'et al'. provide a welcome opportunity to clarify the difference between environmental-economic cost-benefit analyses (such as ours) and environmental accounting exercises [such as the UN-SEEA initiative]. Accounting studies attempt to assess the total value of goods related to ecosystem services in a manner comparable to that used for market-priced goods in national accounts. A decline in the ecosystem services account over time signals a potential need to invest in underlying natural capital. However, such accounts do not indicate the most cost-effective form of that investment. Environmental economic analyses such as ours typically consider changes in value from the status quo that alternative investments provide, and identify those that yield higher value for money. The two approaches are complements rather than substitutes and serve differing but highly compatible elements of the decision-making process

Bringing Ecosystem Services into Economic Decision-Making: Land Use in the United Kingdom

Landscapes generate a wide range of valuable ecosystem services, yet land-use decisions often ignore the value of these services. Using the example of the United Kingdom, we show the significance of land-use change not only for agricultural production but also for emissions and sequestration of greenhouse gases, open-access recreational visits, urban green space, and wild-species diversity. We use spatially explicit models in conjunction with valuation methods to estimate comparable economic values for these services, taking account of climate change impacts. We show that, although decisions that focus solely on agriculture reduce overall ecosystem service values, highly significant value increases can be obtained from targeted planning by incorporating all potential services and their values and that this approach also conserves wild-species diversity.The UK-NEA and its Follow-On programUK DefraThe devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales, and Northern IrelandNatural Environment Research Council (NERC)Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)Social and Environmental Economic Research (SEER) projec

A review of planting principles to identify the right place for the right tree for ‘net zero plus’ woodlands : Applying a place-based natural capital framework for Sustainable, Efficient and Equitable (SEE) decisions

Acknowledgements: This paper is in part supported by the NetZeroPlus (NZ+) grant funded by UKRI-BBSRC award BB/V011588/1 and also by the Dragon Capital Chair in Biodiversity Economics. Turing-HSBC-ONS Economic Data Science Award “Learning Tools for Land Use Analysis and Decision Support Utilising Earth Observation, Natural Capital and Economic Data. [Corrections added on 19 May 2022, after first online publication: additional funding information has been added.]Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Valuing Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Agriculture: The Impact of Climate Change on Food Production in the United Kingdom

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10640-013-9663-xThis paper provides an estimate of the contribution of the ecosystem to the provisioning services generated by agriculture. This is achieved by valuing the changes in productivity generated by a marginal alteration in ecosystem inputs. As an example, we consider the variation in rainfall and temperature projected by the recent UK Climate Impacts Programme. The analysis implements a spatially explicit, econometric model of agricultural land use based on the methodology recently developed by Fezzi and Bateman (Am J Agric Econ 93:1168-1188, 2011). Land use area and livestock stocking rates are then employed to calculate farm gross margin estimates of the value of changes in provisioning ecosystem services. Findings suggest that the variation in ecosystem inputs induced by climate change will have substantial influence on agricultural productivity. Interestingly, within the UK context climate change generates mainly positive effects, although losses are forecasted for those southern areas most vulnerable to heat-stress and drought. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.UK National Ecosystem AssessmentSocial and Environmental Economic Research (SEER) into Multi-Objective Land Use Decision Making projectUK Economic and Social Research Counci