Watson, SCL, Newton, AC, Ridding, LE et al. (5 more authors) (2021) Does agricultural intensification cause tipping points in ecosystem services? Landscape Ecology, 36 (12). pp. 3473-3491. ISSN 0921-2973
Abstract
Context
Agricultural intensification is being widely pursued as a policy option to improve food security and human development. Yet, there is a need to understand the impact of agricultural intensification on the provision of multiple ecosystem services, and to evaluate the possible occurrence of tipping points.
Objectives
I.
To quantify and assess the long-term spatial dynamics of ecosystem service (ES) provision in a landscape undergoing agricultural intensification at four time points 1930, 1950, 1980 and 2015.
II.
Determine if thresholds or tipping points in ES provision may have occurred and if there are any detectable impacts on economic development and employment.
Methods
We used the InVEST suite of software models together with a time series of historical land cover maps and an Input–Output model to evaluate these dynamics over an 85-year period in the county of Dorset, southern England.
Results
Results indicated that trends in ES were often non-linear, highlighting the potential for abrupt changes in ES provision to occur in response to slight changes in underlying drivers. Despite the fluctuations in provision of different ES, overall economic activity increased almost linearly during the study interval, in line with the increase in agricultural productivity.
Conclusions
Such non-linear thresholds in ES will need to be avoided in the future by approaches aiming to deliver sustainable agricultural intensification. A number of positive feedback mechanisms are identified that suggest these thresholds could be considered as tipping points. However, further research into these feedbacks is required to fully determine the occurrence of tipping points in agricultural systems.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Agriculture; Ecosystem services; InVEST modelling; Thresholds; Tipping points |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 01 Sep 2021 11:04 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10980-021-01321-8 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:177580 |
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