Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management with Nonlinear Ecological Functions and Values

By Edward B. Barbier, E. Koch, B. Silliman, S. Hacker, E. Wolanski, J. Primavera, Elise F. Granek, Stephen Polasky, S. Aswani, Lori A. Cramer and 6 more. Science, 2008

1,071 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A common assumption is that ecosystem services respond linearly to changes in habitat size. This assumption leads frequently to an “all or none” choice of either preserving coastal habitats or converting them to human use. However, our survey of wave attenuation data from field studies of mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds, nearshore coral reefs, and sand dunes reveals that these relationships are rarely linear. By incorporating nonlinear wave attenuation in estimating coastal protection values of mangroves in Thailand, we show that the optimal land use option may instead be the integration of development and conservation consistent with ecosystem-based management goals. This result suggests that reconciling competing demands on coastal habitats should not always result in stark preservation-versus-conversion choices.

Subfields: Ecology, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e447171620a8986673d0108478830273aa15ebe7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Citations in the corpus

Ecosystem service values for mangroves in Southeast Asia: A meta-analysis and value transfer applicatio (2012, background): “Explicit ecological modelling of the potential non-linearities in the provision of ecosystem services would, however, be preferable (Barbier et al., 2008; Koch et al., 2009).”
Economic Analysis for Ecosystem Service Assessments (2011, background): “42 An exception being cases where there is only one option available for delivering sustainability, in which case that option becomes a fixed constraint on any development policy (Barbier et al., 1990).”
Integrating ecological, economic and social aspects to generate useful management information under the EU Directives' ‘ecosystem approach’ (2012, background): “If a cost-benefit assessment assumed linearity but service provision is in fact non-linear, policy option outcomes may be unnecessarily polarised (Barbier et al., 2008).”
Twenty years of ecosystem services: How far have we come and how far do we still need to go? (2017, background): “Another key challenge is accurately measuring the functioning of the system to correctly quantify the amount of a given service derived from that system (Boumans et al., 2002; Barbier et al., 2008; Koch et al., 2009).”
Non‐linearity in ecosystem services: temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection (2009, methodology): “Although this ecosystem function may result in coastal protection, it cannot be assumed that the presence of coastal biotic structures leads to the full provision of this ecosystem service (Barbier et al. 2008b; Feagin 2008).”
Science in support of ecosystem-based management for the US West Coast and beyond (2010, background): “EBM ultimately must strive to balance the delivery of multiple services because it is not possible to simultaneously maximize the delivery of all services (Barbier et al., 2008; Halpern et al., 2008a; Tallis et al., 2008b).”
Coastal and marine ecosystem services valuation for policy and management: Managed realignment case studies in England (2011, background): “The consequences of the loss of services and economic benefits at the margin are considerable, but they have yet to be properly recognised, quantified and evaluated (Daily, 1997; Turner et al., 2003; Mäler et al., 2008; Barbier et al., 2008).”
Guiding ecological principles for marine spatial planning (2010, background): “Particularly at the land–sea interface, these foundation species provide such services as coastal protection, erosion control, water catchment, and nutrient retention [103].”