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Spatio-temporal trends and trade-offs in ecosystem services: An Earth observation based assessment for Switzerland between 2004 and 2014

D. Braun,A. Damm,L. Hein,Owen L. Petchey,M. Schaepman

Published 2018 in Ecological Indicators

ABSTRACT

Understanding and monitoring pressures on ecosystems and their consequences for ecosystem services (ES) is essential for management decisions and verification of progress towards national and international policies (e.g. Aichi Biodiversity Targets, Sustainable Development Goals). Remote sensing (RS) offers a unique capability to assess ES systematically and regularly across spatial and temporal scales. We aim to evaluate the benefits of RS to monitor spatio-temporal variations of ES by assessing several ES in Switzerland between 2004 and 2014. We coupled mechanistic ES models and RS data to estimate time series of three regulating (i.e. carbon dioxide regulation (CO₂R), soil erosion prevention (SEP), and air quality regulation (AQR)) and one cultural ES (re- creational hiking (RH)). The resulting ES were used to assess spatial and temporal changes, trade-offs and sy- nergies of ES potential supply and flow in Switzerland between 2004 and 2014. Resulting ES trends showed diverse spatial patterns across Switzerland with largest changes in CO₂R and AQR. ES interactions revealed a scale and elevation dependency. We identified weak to strong synergies between all ES combinations except for trade-offs between CO₂R–AQR and AQR–RH at Swiss scale. Spatially, all ES interactions revealed a hetero- geneous mix of synergies and trade-offs within Switzerland. Our results demonstrate the strength of RS for systematic and regular spatio-temporal ES monitoring and contribute insights to the large potential of RS, which will be extended with future Earth observation missions. Derived spatially explicit ES information will facilitate decision-making in landscape planning and conservation and will allow examining progress towards environmental policies.

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