Spatial covariance of ecosystem services and poverty in China

<p>Ecosystem services (ESs) are known to be particularly important to the rural poor globally and effective management of such services is argued to be a sustainable pathway out of poverty. However, there is as yet no clear evidence as to how important ESs are for poverty alleviation, partly as there are very few large-scale studies addressing this issue. Here, we examine patterns of spatial covariation of income poverty and provisioning services and biodiversity using county-level data across China (<i>n</i> = 1924). We conduct our analyses both at the national scale and at the subnational scale. At the national scale, poor counties have significantly lower levels of agricultural provisioning services and water availability, but significantly higher levels of forest-related provisioning services and biodiversity. This finding supports the hypothesis that in general, high levels of poverty co-occur with areas with high levels of non-agricultural ESs. However, in the forest-dominated counties in southern China, low poverty, high densities of forest-related provisioning services and high levels of natural forest cover co-occur. Our results highlight the scale and context dependency of patterns of co-occurrence of poverty and ESs, and the importance of large-scale analyses for understanding the relationships between poverty and ESs.</p><p><b>EDITED BY</b> Berta Martín-López</p><p></p> <p><b>EDITED BY</b> Berta Martín-López</p

Water Accounting and Vulnerability Evaluation (WAVE): Considering Atmospheric Evaporation Recycling and the Risk of Freshwater Depletion in Water Footprinting

Aiming to enhance the analysis of water consumption and resulting consequences along the supply chain of products, the water accounting and vulnerability evaluation (WAVE) model is introduced. On the accounting level, atmospheric evaporation recycling within drainage basins is considered for the first time, which can reduce water consumption volumes by up to 32%. Rather than predicting impacts, WAVE analyzes the vulnerability of basins to freshwater depletion. Based on local blue water scarcity, the water depletion index (WDI) denotes the risk that water consumption can lead to depletion of freshwater resources. Water scarcity is determined by relating annual water consumption to availability in more than 11 000 basins. Additionally, WDI accounts for the presence of lakes and aquifers which have been neglected in water scarcity assessments so far. By setting WDI to the highest value in (semi)­arid basins, absolute freshwater shortage is taken into account in addition to relative scarcity. This avoids mathematical artifacts of previous indicators which turn zero in deserts if consumption is zero. As illustrated in a case study of biofuels, WAVE can help to interpret volumetric water footprint figures and, thus, promotes a sustainable use of global freshwater resources