Helping to identify, evaluate and incorporate plural values of nature into decision-making frameworks for the management of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
This expertise area focuses on how people value ecosystems and what nature means to them... and how these values and meanings relate to notions of equity and distribution.
Examples of applications include:
- policy implementation of ecosystem services approaches
- market failure and positive externalities from conservation efforts
- territorial approaches and the symbolic meaning of ecosystem services
- ecosystem services and natural capital accounting for businesses
- the role of technology in new ways of engaging with nature
- the integration of valuations in online platforms.
Further applications focus on the educational aspects of human-nature interactions, and traditional/Indigenous ecological knowledge.
Our approaches to estimating values of ecosystems for people involve a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods such as monetary evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, ecosystem services approaches and participatory evaluations (e.g. participatory mapping, citizens’ juries).
PROJECT | 2016-2017
Water scarcity risk for Australian farms and the implications for the financial sector
ISF partnered with AgTech company The Yield to come up with a new method for calculating the water risk exposure for farms.
PROJECT | 2012-2013
Knowledge-based biodiversity mapping for valuation of ecosystem services from peri-urban agriculture
This French-Australian collaborative project, undertaken by the UTS Chief Investigator while on secondment in Southern France, placed the issue of conservation and restoration of bio-diverse (agro-) ecosystems in the context of local land use planning.
The project's scientific objective was to advance techniques for knowledge-based biodiversity mapping and valuation, allowing better informed and socially accepted planning decisions at the local scale.
Building on the latest developments in geo-informatics and participatory modelling, the research focused on methods for integrating formal knowledge (e.g. soil fertility maps, habitat maps) and local ecological knowledge (LEK) as possessed by farmers, fishermen, land managers, citizens, local historians, etc.
Using two peri-urban case studies in Southern France (Bassin de Thau and a second area in the Nîmes region), laboratory-based and participatory mapping techniques were employed to empirically explore stakeholders’ values around the roles that peri-urban agriculture can play in conserving and restoring biodiversity - and indeed safeguard their livelihoods for the future.
Location: Southern France
Client: Irstrea France
Partners: Syndicat Mixte du Bassin de Thau, City of Nîmes
Researcher: Roel Plant
RESEARCH OUTPUTS
Reading Ecosystem Services at the Local Scale Through a Territorial Approach: the Case of Peri-Urban Agriculture in the Thau Lagoon, Southern France (2015) (Report)
Ecology and Society, vol. 20, no. 3, p. 11.
Les terres agricoles face à l’urbanisation –De la donnée à l’action, quels rôles pour l’information? (2018) (Report)
Éditions Quae, Versailles
PROJECT | 2011
Recognising ecosystem services in water planning
The Australian National Water Commission wanted a standardised way to assess the benefits and risks of water systems, and asked ISF to help.
The public benefits derived from aquatic systems need to be clearly recognised and included in water planning so sustainable water extraction regimes are achieved and unintended consequences of water allocations are avoided.
In 2011, the Australian National Water Commission asked ISF to help them develop a method for assessing the water systems around the country. To do this, our researchers used an ecosystem services approach – implemented as a 'benefits table' – as a mechanism to clearly identify, describe, value, explain and communicate what they found.
The resulting guideline document follows typical water planning steps—describing the resource, setting high level objectives and outcomes, trade-offs, and monitoring and evaluation. The document presents a worked example of the benefits table, together with case study examples to provide jurisdictional water planners with guidance on how multiple benefits can be better considered.
Location: Australia-wide
Client: National Water Commission
Partner: Mark Hamstead Consulting
Researchers: Louise Boronyak, Roel Plant
RESEARCH OUTPUTS
An Ecosystem Services Framework to Support Statutory Water Allocation Planning in Australia (2014) (Report)
International Journal of River Basin Management, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 219-30.
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PROJECT | 2016
Measuring urban green space in Australia
Developing a nationally consistent set of criteria for evaluating urban green space.
PROJECT | 2008
Ecosystem Services and Natural Resource Management Practice: Where the Rubber Hits the Road
The 'ecosystem services' concept initially gained momentum amongst the Australian scientific community in the late 1990s. This research, commissioned by Land & Water Australia, sought to investigate if the earlier Australian ecosystem services research efforts and findings have been adopted and utilised by Australian resource managers, highlighting factors that may have enabled or prevented this adoption.
Combining a literature review, interviews and observations from Australian regional planning, the research generated a snapshot of resource managers’ experiences in engaging with the ecosystem services concept.
Results of the research suggest that thinking about biodiversity and ecosystems as providers of economic value has broadly found its way into Australian natural resource management practice but that the ‘language’ of ecosystem services is not necessarily new, clear or practicable. For the ecosystem services concept to be used meaningfully and effectively in Australian natural resource management in the future, a concerted effort at the nexus of natural resource management research, policy and practice will be required. This requires a shift away from the ecosystem services valuation controversy towards embedding ecosystem services thinking in participatory planning processes, recognising that, in the face of unascertainable outcomes of action, rational choice is best preceded by a process of learning and reasoning.
Location: Regional NSW
Client: Land & Water Australian
Researcher: Roel Plant
RESEARCH OUTPUTS
Ecosystem Services as a Practicable Concept for Natural Resource Management: Some Lessons from Australia (2013) (Report)
International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services & Management, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 44-53.
