ESRC/NERC Trans-disciplinary Seminar SeriesNew Approaches to Managing Ecosystem Services in

the Marine EnvironmentSeminar 3, 1 May 2008:

Ecosystem Services and Management of the Marine Environment

Response from a science perspective: Andy Plater and Tom BarkerInstitute for Sustainable Water, Integrated Management and Ecosystem Research, University of Liverpool ( gg07@liverpool.ac.uk ; tomb@liverpool.ac.uk )

Structure of presentation

• Ecosystem – concept, framework, terms

• Sufficient knowledge to act – or time to act?

• Identifying management goals: time and space

• Climate change and human impact

• Practice

Ecosystem... a conceptual framework

Ecosystem goods and services arise from the natural functioning of ecosystems, and thus rely on interactions and processes among ecosystem components.

These have evolved under conditions that are inherently variable within general environmental limits. Changes to these conditions that exceed the natural limits place stresses on the system, e.g. additions of nutrients or toxins, invasions of exotic species, depletion of physical materials, or physical disturbances.

An ecosystem delivers goods and services (as does M & S!)

Ecosystems are abstract, human defined and do not exist to deliver any particular suite of goods and services

Ecosystem services and human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005)

Ecosystem... Function?

Function – the role an organism plays in the ecosystem

Function – processes by which the ecosystem operates (flows of matter and energy)

Function – capturing how the ecosystem provides society with goods and services

Ecosystem... Status, Health, Resilience, Robustness?

Seven key features of high ecological status (Moss, 2008): 1. Biosphere is a system maintained by living organisms in a state

equable to their evolved biochemistry;2. Evolved natural ecosystems are the units for this maintenance and

their extent and integrity is essential for sustained maintenance;3. These systems are highly efficient because their components are

continually tested and modified through natural selection; they represent optimal systems that can be damaged but not improved;

4.4. Measures of efficiency characterise ecological qualityMeasures of efficiency characterise ecological quality:: (a) efficiency in (a) efficiency in recycling scarce materials (nutrient parsimony), (b) characteristic recycling scarce materials (nutrient parsimony), (b) characteristic physical and food web structure that ensures this parsimony and physical and food web structure that ensures this parsimony and maintenance of the intactness of the system as a whole, (c) maintenance of the intactness of the system as a whole, (c) connectivity with other systems that also maintains intactness, (d) a connectivity with other systems that also maintains intactness, (d) a large enough to allow resilience to change;large enough to allow resilience to change;

5. Impairment of these features represents damage/decline in ecological quality;

6. Secondary features such as particular concentrations of substances or lists of species do not adequately measure these characteristics;

7. Ecological quality is accurately measured by attention primarily to the intactness of the fundamental characteristics rather than the details of the secondary characteristics.

Sufficient knowledge to act?

The deep seabed is 27 million sq km – we have sampled approx 2 sq km!

Deep sea – thermally stratified, spatially variable salinity contrasts, nutrient and transport contrasts across thermocline (deep, nutrient rich)

Shallow (shelf) sea (200m) – seasonally stratified, impacted by rivers (ROFI) – eutrophication/pollution, 4x biological productivity of abyssal ocean (photic zone)

Sufficient knowledge to act?

Do we know enough about marine ecosystems – particularly in relation to resilience, intactness, connectedness?

Precautionary approach?

Monitoring - providing time-series (recovery/remediation/deterioration/collapse)

Effects observed and measured, causes inferred/guessed

Modelling – scenario testing based on best knowledge

Regime shifts between alternative stable states – are these predictable?

Regional loss of species diversity and ecosystem services in coastal areas

Illustrating trends of collapse over the past 1000 years, and particularly since industrial revolution

More collapsed fisheries where species richness is lower

Rates of resource collapse increase, and recovery potential, stability and water quality decrease with declining diversity

Increased biodiversity increases resilience

(Worm et al., 2006)

...or time to act?

Global loss of species from large marine ecosystems (83% of global fisheries):

A.Trajectories of collapsed fish and invertebrate taxa over the past 50 years (triangles = cumulative) for all (black), species-poor (blue) and species-rich (red) LMEs – diversity increases ‘robustness’ and recoveryB.LMEs colour coded according to total fish species richness (Worm et al., 2006)

Identifying management goals: time and space

Defining management priorities requires a full appreciation of the role the oceans play – especially their global importance

Societal/economic importance is more likely to be linked to particular seas and their surrounding nation states – especially as economies become less global, more local

Societal/economic importance is time-dependent as priorities change/are changed

Value of goods and services linked to conservation have often been overlooked in the past

Balmford et al., 2002

Value of retaining undisturbed condition vs converted – illustrated by difference in benefit flows of goods and services

Thai mangroves: Conversion to aquaculture gives short-term private benefits, no loss of C sequestration, but loss of timber, charcoal, offshore fisheries and storm protection (TEV intact >70% above that of shrimp farming)

Philippine reef: Private benefits from blast fishing, but loss of coastal protection and tourism (TEV intact >75% above that of destructive fisheries)

Loss of non-marketed services > marginal benefits of conversion. Conservation enhances human well-being above that of ‘development’

The ocean interacts with the atmosphere through the exchange of heat, water, and momentum. The ocean stores vast amounts of heat energy. Moreover, the ocean has a relatively large temperature inertia. The ocean is the "global heat engine” - energy escapes in the forms of heat and water vapour.

Most of the world’s carbon resides in the ocean, and the processes that result in exchanges between the surface ocean and the atmosphere, and between the upper ocean and the deep ocean, are critical. Carbonate chemistry and photosynthesis regulate much of the transfer between these systems. Settling of organic carbon into the deep ocean is known as the “biological pump.”

Climate change and human impact

How to identify measures of success (against targets/baselines?) in the context of incomplete understanding and data, inherent ecosystem variability and response, and underlying trends linked to climate change and human impact?

Climate change leads to significant change in the oceans and seas, and will lead to extinctions, collapse and invasions – even within presently healthy, resilient ecosystems

Delivery of societally-defined ecosystem goods and services impacted significantly by human disturbance: e.g. tidal barrage, river impoundment, coastal eutrophication

Climate change and human impact

Climate change is making the oceans more acidic. Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean more dissolves into seawater, forming a very dilute acid (carbonic acid). The pH of surface water has reduced by 0.1 units since the start of the industrial revolution. This could affect the ocean's ability to remove carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

Many organisms have calcium carbonate-based structural plates or shells, and these might be damaged by more acid water. This could mean the oceans absorb less carbon dioxide in future.

Changes in climate will also affect the world's carbon balance directly. Warmer oceans will absorb less carbon dioxide simply because the gas becomes less soluble in warmer water.

Eutrophication in estuaries and shelf seas

Eutrophication is the enhanced primary productivity of marine algae due to excessive supply of nutrients from human activities, e.g. North Sea, Baltic

The major impacts are changes in the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems, reduced biodiversity, and reduced income from fishery, mariculture and tourism. The main source of nitrogen is run-off from agricultural land. Most of the phosphorus comes from households and industry discharging treated or untreated wastewater to freshwater or directly to the sea.

Climate change and human impact on estuaries:

Coastal systems provide 16x more goods and services than oceanic areas and the majority of the aquatic ecosystem contribution to the global economy

Estuaries are important spawning grounds, nurseries and shell fisheries

Estuaries impacted by sea-level rise - changing location, salinity and sediment budgets, potentially remobilising sediment stores of pollutants and nutrients

Estuaries impacted by changes to rainfall patterns, e.g. NAO, ENSO, and increased impoundment of freshwaters (dams and runoff cycling)

Changes in tidal range impact directly on coastal morphology (estuaries becoming lagoons)

Practice

Marine Protected Areas and Marine Reserves- Reverse decline in biodiversity on local/regional scales- Increase fisheries productivity- Increase in recovery after natural disturbances- Reduced community variability- Increased tourist revenue (Worm et al., 2006)

Scale of MPAs?

Connectedness and corridors

Are MPAs greater ‘value’ than a degraded/developed ecosystem – in economic terms?

(Balmford et al., 2002)

Loss of non-marketed services > marginal benefits of conversion – so why does conversion continue?

1.Failures in information – lack of valuation for provision of many services by natural systems2.Fundamental role of markets in driving habitat loss (non-marketed services at local and global scales overlooked)3.Private benefits of conversion may be exaggerated by intervention failures (Govt subsidies, tax incentives)

Conclusions

Ecosystem concept/terminology – address ambiguity re. function, status, health, resilience

Acknowledge the unknowns but recognise that it is time to act to address loss of biodiversity

Embed global ‘non-marketed’ ecosystem goods and services in regional sea MSP (and their full economic valuation)

Include ecosystem variability and climate-driven ecosystem response/trajectories into MSP

Recognise and promote that “there is no dichotomy between biodiversity conservation and long-term economic development” (Worm et al., 2006)

Embed human action and decision-making in ecological framework – connectedness, interaction with environment, nutrient parsimony etc.