Rapidly increasing demand for food and agricultural non-food products to meet the demands of rising populations with new consumption patterns have worrying implications for sustainability of many ecosystems globally. Landscape approaches are often promoted as a win-win solution to reducing harmful impacts of development – a means to balance social needs and economic performance, while maintaining ecological function. In this respect, landscape approaches that address multiple sector needs, including agriculture, production forestry and conservation, are identified as a significant opportunity to contribute to the United Nations new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, assessing and verifying sustainability outcomes across broad, diverse and dynamic landscapes is challenging, mainly because of the lack of pragmatic and standardized means of assessment and measurement in cost-effective ways. This paper aims to advance the concept of sustainable landscape development, including ways to assess sustainability performance and to leverage the scaling-up of investment in sustainable development, as a means of achieving SDGs and other goals.Tools and indicators used to measure sustainability outcomes are reviewed in the context of landscape investments, to identify high performing and pragmatic parameters and associated measurable indicators. Considerations include seeking parameters that are applicable to any type or size of landscape, and standardized indicators that are measurable within short time-scale and resource constraints. Based on these requirements, we develop and present a framework associated with four universally important parameters: (i) livelihoods; (ii) ecosystem services; (iii) efficient resource use; and (iv) food and non-food products. This framework will be useful to assist in measuring sustainability outcomes in landscapes and is designed to be applicable to any landscape setting. We elaborate on readily measurable indicators for each parameter group. Linkages between sustainability outcomes in landscapes and SDGs are discussed.
A framework for measuring sustainability outcomes for landscape investments
Published 2015 in Unknown venue
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2015
- Venue
Unknown venue
- Publication date
2015-10-19
- Fields of study
Economics, Environmental Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- ecosystem services
Benefits that ecosystems provide and that are considered in the landscape assessment.
- efficient resource use
How effectively a landscape converts inputs such as land, water, and other resources into outputs.
- food and non-food products
Products generated from landscapes, including both agricultural and non-agricultural outputs.
- framework for measuring sustainability outcomes in landscapes
A proposed assessment structure that groups landscape sustainability measurement into four parameter areas.
- landscape setting
A landscape context of any size or type in which sustainability is assessed.
- livelihoods
The livelihood and well-being conditions of people living in or depending on a landscape.
- readily measurable indicators
Indicators that can be measured directly and with relatively low cost or complexity.
- short time-scale and resource constraints
Limits on the time and resources available for collecting and using indicators.
- sustainability outcomes in landscapes
The social, ecological, and production-related results used to judge whether a landscape is developing sustainably.
- sustainable development goals
The United Nations global goals referenced as an external sustainability target.
Aliases: SDGs
REFERENCES
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