Description
Sustainability requires developing the capacity to manage difficult tradeoffs to advance human livelihoods now and in the future. Decision-makers are recognizing the ecosystem services approach as a useful framework for evaluating tradeoffs associated with environmental change to advance decision-making towards

Sustainability requires developing the capacity to manage difficult tradeoffs to advance human livelihoods now and in the future. Decision-makers are recognizing the ecosystem services approach as a useful framework for evaluating tradeoffs associated with environmental change to advance decision-making towards holistic solutions. In this dissertation I conduct an ecosystem services assessment on the Yongding River Ecological Corridor in Beijing, China. I developed a `10-step approach' to evaluate multiple ecosystem services for public policy. I use the 10-step approach to evaluate five ecosystem services for management from the Yongding Corridor. The Beijing government created lakes and wetlands for five services (human benefits): (1) water storage (groundwater recharge), (2) local climate regulation (cooling), (3) water purification (water quality), (4) dust control (air quality), and (5) landscape aesthetics (leisure, recreation, and economic development).

The Yongding Corridor is meeting the final ecosystem service levels for landscape aesthetics, but the new ecosystems are falling short on meeting final ecosystem service levels for water storage, local climate regulation, water purification, and dust control. I used biophysical models (process-based and empirically-based), field data (biophysical and visitor surveys), and government datasets to create ecological production functions (i.e., regression models). I used the ecological production functions to evaluate how marginal changes in the ecosystems could impact final ecosystem service outcomes. I evaluate potential tradeoffs considering stakeholder needs to recommend synergistic actions for addressing priorities while reducing service shortfalls.
Reuse Permissions
  • Downloads
    PDF (16.6 MB)
    Download count: 3

    Details

    Title
    • Managing for urban ecosystem services: the Yongding River ecological corridor
    Contributors
    Date Created
    2014
    Resource Type
  • Text
  • Collections this item is in
    Note
    • thesis
      Partial requirement for: Ph. D., Arizona State University, 2014
    • bibliography
      Includes bibliographical references (p. 291-308)
    • language
      Chiefly English with some Chinese
    • Field of study: Sustainability

    Citation and reuse

    Statement of Responsibility

    by Christina P. Wong

    Machine-readable links