The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) estimated that two thirds of ecosystem services on the earth have degraded or are in decline due to the unprecedented scale of human activities during recent decades. These changes will have tremendous consequences for human well-being, and offer both risks and opportunities for a wide range of stakeholders. Yet these risks and opportunities have not been well managed due in part to the lack of quantitative understanding of human dependence on ecosystem services. Here, we propose an index of dependence on ecosystem services (IDES) system to quantify human dependence on ecosystem services. We demonstrate the construction of the IDES system using household survey data. We show that the overall index and sub-indices can reflect the general pattern of households' dependences on ecosystem services, and their variations across time, space, and different forms of capital (i.e., natural, human, financial, manufactured, and social capitals). We support the proposition that the poor are more dependent on ecosystem services and further generalize this proposition by arguing that those disadvantaged groups who possess low levels of any form of capital except for natural capital are more dependent on ecosystem services than those with greater control of capital. The higher value of the overall IDES or sub-index represents the higher dependence on the corresponding ecosystem services, and thus the higher vulnerability to the degradation or decline of corresponding ecosystem services. The IDES system improves our understanding of human dependence on ecosystem services. It also provides insights into strategies for alleviating poverty, for targeting priority groups of conservation programs, and for managing risks and opportunities due to changes of ecosystem services at multiple scales.
References
[1]
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems & Human Well-being: Synthesis. Washington, DC.: Island Press.
[2]
Liu J, Dietz T, Carpenter SR, Alberti M, Folke C, et al. (2007) Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science 317: 1513–1516.
[3]
Carpenter SR, DeFries R, Dietz T, Mooney HA, Polasky S, et al. (2006) Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Research Needs. Science 314: 257–258.
[4]
Campbell A (1976) Subjective Measures of Well-Being. American Psychologist 31: 117–124.
[5]
Diener E, Suh EM, Lucas RE, Smith HL (1999) Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin 125: 276–302.
[6]
Diener E (2000) Subjective well-being — The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist 55: 34–43.
[7]
Grant S, Langan-Fox J, Anglim J (2009) The Big Five Traits as Predictors of Subjective and Psychological Well-Being. Psychological Reports 105: 205–231.
[8]
Abdallah S, Thompson S, Marks N (2008) Estimating worldwide life satisfaction. Ecological Economics 65: 35–47.
[9]
Turner BL, Lambin EF, Reenberg A (2008) Land Change Science Special Feature: The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 105: 2751–2751.
[10]
Rosa EA, Dietz T, Diekmann A, Jaeger CC, editors(2010) Human Footprints on the Global Environment: Threats to Sustainability. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
[11]
Daily GC (1997) Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
[12]
Shackleton C, Shackleton S, Gambiza J, Nel E, Rowntree K, et al. (2008) Links between Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation: Situation analysis for arid and semi-arid lands in southern Africa. Ecosystem Services and Poverty Reduction Research Programme: DFID, NERC, ESRC
[13]
He G, Chen X, Liu W, Bearer S, Zhou S, et al. (2008) Distribution of Economic Benefits from Ecotourism: A Case Study of Wolong Nature Reserve for Giant Pandas in China. Environmental Management 42: 1017–1025.
[14]
Liu W, Vogt CA, Luo J, He G, Frank KA, et al. (2012) Drivers and Socioeconomic Impacts of Tourism Participation in Protected Areas. PLoS ONE 7: e35420.
[15]
Kiss A (2004) Is community-based ecotourism a good use of biodiversity conservation funds? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 19: 232–237.
[16]
Grigg A (2008) Dependency and impact on ecosystem services – unmanaged risk, unrealised opportunity: A briefing document for the food, beverage and tobacco sectors. Fauna & Flora International
[17]
Liu J, Yang W (2012) Water Sustainability for China and Beyond. Science 337: 649–650.
[18]
McConnell WJ, Millington JDA, Reo NJ, Alberti M, Asbjornsen H, et al. (2011) Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS): Approach, Challenges, and Strategies. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 92: 218–228.
[19]
Carpenter SR, Mooney HA, Agard J, Capistrano D, DeFries RS, et al. (2009) Science for managing ecosystem services: Beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106: 1305–1312.
[20]
Yang W, Dietz T, Kramer DB, Chen X, Liu J (2013) Going beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: an index system of human well-being. PLoS One In press. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064582.
[21]
Costanza R, d'Arge R, de Groot R, Farber S, Grasso M, et al. (1997) The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387: 253–260.
[22]
Farber SC, Costanza R, Wilson MA (2002) Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 41: 375–392.
[23]
Wallace KJ (2007) Classification of ecosystem services: Problems and solutions. Biological Conservation 139: 235–246.
[24]
Wallace K (2008) Ecosystem services: Multiple classifications or confusion? Biological Conservation 141: 353–354.
[25]
Boyd J, Banzhaf S (2007) What are ecosystem services? The need for standardized environmental accounting units. Ecological Economics 63: 616–626.
[26]
Zhang W, Ricketts TH, Kremen C, Carney K, Swinton SM (2007) Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture. Ecological Economics 64: 253–260.
[27]
Naidoo R, Ricketts TH (2006) Mapping the economic costs and benefits of conservation. PLoS Biology 4: 2153–2164.
[28]
Nelson E, Mendoza G, Regetz J, Polasky S, Tallis H, et al. (2009) Modeling multiple ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, commodity production, and tradeoffs at landscape scales. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7: 4–11.
[29]
Birch JC, Newton AC, Aquino CA, Cantarello E, Echeverria C, et al. (2010) Cost-effectiveness of dryland forest restoration evaluated by spatial analysis of ecosystem services. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 107: 21925–21930.
[30]
Chang J, Wu X, Liu AQ, Wang Y, Xu B, et al. (2011) Assessment of net ecosystem services of plastic greenhouse vegetable cultivation in China. Ecological Economics 70: 740–748.
[31]
Yang W, Chang J, Xu B, Peng C, Ge Y (2008) Ecosystem service value assessment for constructed wetlands: A case study in Hangzhou, China. Ecological Economics 68: 116–125.
[32]
Hanley N, Shogren JF, White B (2001) Introduction to Environmental Economics. New York: Oxford University Press.
[33]
Boardman AE, Greenberg DH, Vining AR, Weimer DL (2006) Cost-Benefit Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Chee YE (2004) An ecological perspective on the valuation of ecosystem services. Biological Conservation 120: 549–565.
[36]
Scott MJ, Bilyard GR, Link SO, Ulibarri CA, Westerdahl HE, et al. (1998) Valuation of Ecological Resources and Functions. Environmental Management 22: 49–68.
[37]
Bateman IJ, Mace GM, Fezzi C, Atkinson G, Turner K (2011) Economic Analysis for Ecosystem Service Assessments. Environmental & Resource Economics 48: 177–218.
[38]
Wilson MA, Hoehn JP (2006) Valuing environmental goods and services using benefit transfer: The state-of-the art and science. Ecological Economics 60: 335–342.
[39]
Ready R, Navrud S (2006) International benefit transfer: Methods and validity tests. Ecological Economics 60: 429–434.
[40]
Shrestha R, Rosenberger R, Loomis J (2007) Benefit Transfer Using Meta-Analysis in Recreation Economic Valuation. Environmental Value Transfer: Issues and Methods 9: 161–177.
[41]
Kareiva P, Tallis H, Ricketts TH, Daily GC, Polasky S (2011) Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services: Oxford University Press.
[42]
Richard TC, Nicholas EF, Norman FM (2001) Contingent Valuation: Controversies and Evidence. Environmental and Resource Economics 19: 173–210.
[43]
Hanley N, MacMillan D, Wright RE, Bullock C, Simpson I, et al. (1998) Contingent valuation versus choice experiments: Estimating the benefits of environmentally sensitive areas in Scotland. Journal of Agricultural Economics 49: 1–15.
[44]
He G, Chen X, Bearer S, Colunga M, Mertig A, et al. (2009) Spatial and temporal patterns of fuel collection in Wolong Nature Reserve: Implications for panda conservation. Landscape and Urban Planning 92: 1–9.
[45]
Myers N, Mittermeier RA, Mittermeier CG, da Fonseca GAB, Kent J (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403: 853–858.
[46]
Liu J, Daily GC, Ehrlich PR, Luck GW (2003) Effects of household dynamics on resource consumption and biodiversity. Nature 421: 530–533.
[47]
Liu J, Linderman M, Ouyang Z, An L, Yang J, et al. (2001) Ecological degradation in protected areas: The case of Wolong Nature Reserve for giant pandas. Science 292: 98–101.
[48]
Wolong Nature Reserve (2005) Development History of Wolong Nature Reserve [in Chinese]; Lai B, editor. Chengdu: Sichuan Science and Technology Press.
[49]
Liu J, Li S, Ouyang Z, Tam C, Chen X (2008) Ecological and socioeconomic effects of China's policies for ecosystem services. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 105: 9477–9482.
[50]
Liu J, Ouyang Z, Yang W, Xu W, Li S (2013) Evaluation of Ecosystem Service Policies from Biophysical and Social Perspectives:The Case of China. In: Levin SA, editor. Encyclopedia of Biodiversity (second edition). ed. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. pp. 372–384.
[51]
Yang W, Liu W, Vi？a A, Luo J, He G, et al. (2013) Performance and prospects on payments for ecosystem services programs: evidence from China. Journal of Environmental Management In press. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.1004.1019.
[52]
An L, Liu J, Ouyang Z, Linderman M, Zhou S, et al. (2001) Simulating demographic and socioeconomic processes on household level and implications for giant panda habitats. Ecological Modelling 140: 31–49.
[53]
National Bureau of Statistics of China (2011) Rural Household Survey Instrument [in Chinese]. Beijing: National Bureau of Statistics of China.
[54]
De Rus G (2010) Introduction to Cost-benefit Analysis: Looking for Reasonable Shortcuts: Edward Elgar Pub.
[55]
Chen X, Frank KA, Dietz T, Liu J (2012) Weak ties, labor Migration, and environmental impacts: Toward a sociology of sustainability. Organization and Environment 25: 3–24.
