Putting the Ecosystem Services idea at work: Applications on impact assessment and territorial planning

South America is experiencing profound land use and land cover changes. Their consequences on the Ecosystem Services (ES) supply and human well-being need to be diagnosed and monitored in order to support informed decisions both in management and territorial planning. The ES concept provides a key framework to evaluate human impacts on nature. The use of spatially explicit indicators able to characterize ES supply can turn operative the ES framework, enabling for sustainability assessment. The Ecosystem Services Supply Index (ESSI) is a synoptic indicator that estimates and maps supporting and regulating ES related to water and carbon dynamics from data provided by remote sensors of free access and wide spatial coverage. The ESSI merges two attributes of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) annual dynamics: the annual average (NDVIMEAN, a proxy of total C gains) and the intra-annual coefficient of variation (NDVICV, an indicator of seasonality). In this article we proposed two objectives: 1) to describe the conceptual foundation of the ESSI and to gather the empirical support that shows its ability to explain the spatial-temporal variation in different ES, and to present a new case of empirical ESSI assessment, and 2) to synthesize the contribution of the ESSI in socio ecosystem diagnosis, monitoring and territorial planning stages in 8 existing cases of application. We also explored the links to the decision-making process by diverse stakeholders including local research and development institutions, NGOs and government agents. Cases corresponded to a wide range of situations from humid and dry forests to grasslands, and from local to subcontinental scales in southern South America. We found that ESSI was successfully applied for diagnosis, planning and monitoring processes which helped to better define interventions in management decisions and also to empower the most vulnerable stakeholders under territorial and environmental conflicts.Fil: Staiano, Luciana. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Camba Sans, Gonzalo Hernán. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Baldassini, Pablo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Gallegos, Federico Nicolás. Universidad de la República. Facultad de Ciencias; UruguayFil: Texeira González, Marcos Alexis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información; ArgentinaFil: Paruelo, José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentin

From Framework to Action: The DESIRE Approach to Combat Desertification

It has become increasingly clear that desertification can only be tackled through a multi-disciplinary approach that not only involves scientists but also stakeholders. In the DESIRE project such an approach was taken. As a first step, a conceptual framework was developed in which the factors and processes that may lead to land degradation and desertification were described. Many of these factors do not work independently, but can reinforce or weaken one another, and to illustrate these relationships sustainable management and policy feedback loops were included. This conceptual framework can be applied globally, but can also be made site-specific to take into account that each study site has a unique combination of bio-physical, socio-economic and political conditions. Once the conceptual framework was defined, a methodological framework was developed in which the methodological steps taken in the DESIRE approach were listed and their logic and sequence were explained. The last step was to develop a concrete working plan to put the project into action, involving stakeholders throughout the process. This series of steps, in full or in part, offers explicit guidance for other organizations or projects that aim to reduce land degradation and desertification. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York