ECOPLAN-SE: Ruimtelijke analyse van ecosysteemdiensten in Vlaanderen, een Q-GIS plugin

ECOPLAN-SE is een ruimtelijk expliciete tool (QGIS) voor het beoordelen van de impact van landgebruikveranderingen op de levering van ecosysteemdiensten. De ontwikkeling van deze tool kadert in het het SBO-project “ECOPLAN” (Planning for Ecosystem Services). ECOPLAN ontwikkelt ruimtelijk expliciete informatie en instrumenten voor de beoordeling van ecosysteemdiensten. Het ontwerpt instrumenten voor de evaluatie van functionele ecosystemen als een kostenefficiënte strategie om de landgebruiksefficiëntie en milieukwaliteit te verbeteren. Het ontwikkelt open source eindproducten voor het identificeren, kwantificeren, waarderen, valideren en monitoren van ecosysteemdiensten. Deze producten kunnen door administraties en consultants worden ingezet in projectontwikkeling, kosten-baten analyses, milieueffecten rapportering, etc

Detecting ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies: a practice-oriented application in four industrialized estuaries

Estuaries connect terrestrial and marine biomes. Their ecological functioning is essential for marine matter fluxes, while their central economic role as transport hubs persists throughout history and has become ever more pronounced. Managing complex socio-ecological systems such as estuaries can benefit from an ecosystem service approach. The challenge is to combine highly complex knowledge, prone to uncertainties, to policy relevant information. This paper introduces a knowledge-based ecosystem service screening, applied in a participatory manner by including different stakeholders from four industrialized NW-European estuaries.The approach allowed to efficiently engage stakeholders from different, often opposing sectors, in order to derive a set of ecosystem services of high societal importance, link them to supply by habitats, and explore inter- and intra-estuarine variability. By introducing the notion of trade-offs and synergies and assessing these for estuaries, the interconnectedness and mutual interests for estuarine management measures were indicated. The screening is based on knowledge surveys among experts. Statistical reliability was acceptable, but to complement the assessment, quantitative validation on a local scale would be useful.Ecosystem service assessments, especially when engaging stakeholders, can inform policy on strategies for the sustainable use of ecosystem services in intensively used and ecologically fragile estuarine zones

A new technique for tidal habitat restoration: evaluation of its hydrological potentials

The inability to create an adequate tidal regime in embanked areas is a major problem for restoring estuarine habitats. The controlled reduced tide system (CRT) was previously hypothesized to overcome this constraint. As part of an estuarine management plan which combines flood protection and tidal habitat restoration, the first CRT system was implemented in the freshwater zone of the Schelde estuary (Belgium). Based on four years of high-frequency monitoring on the first CRT and the adjacent estuary, this study demonstrates the hydrological functionality of CRT. The tidal characteristics generated by this technique were suitable in the short and the long term, with a reproduction of the spring-neap tidal cycle. In both the CRT and the estuary, the spatial and temporal variability of several hydrological descriptors were comparatively analysed. In spite of some hydrological deviations from the estuarine pattern, nothing precluded a suitable ecosystem feature in CRT. The potential influences of CRT-specific hydrology on ecology and estuarine restoration are discussed. The restoration potential of the CRT system is shown to be particularly relevant for tidal marshes in early succession stage, habitats which are often lacking in embanked estuaries. Additionally, it offers a more robust and adaptable alternative to other systems. Conclusively, the CRT system should be more advocated in estuarine restoration.

Anglo-Saxon concepts of dis/ability: Placing disease at Great Chesterford in its wider context

Within Anglo-Saxon society, individuals obtained their status on the basis of their ability to undertake required and prescribed social roles. People experiencing impairment, be that as a result of disease or some other process including trauma or pregnancy, might thus have reduced ability to undertake socially required activities. These people would have been highly visible within contemporary society by their very inability to undertake all required roles. These ideas are explored using a cluster of inhumations from the early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Great Chesterford. Cemetery topography, visibility of difference, liminality, and etiology are explored in order to suggest the importance of the development of a sample-based approach to osteobiography. These might then be used to establish local understandings of disability,whereby individuals are viewed as people with focus placed on ability