Download Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services - Description

Provided for non-commercial research and educational use only.
Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use.
This article was originally published in the Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, second edition, the copy attached is provided
by Elsevier for the author’s benefit and for the benefit of the author’s institution, for non-commercial research
and educational use. This includes without limitation use in instruction at your institution, distribution to specific
colleagues, and providing a copy to your institution’s administrator.
All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including without limitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing
copies or access, or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution’s website or repository, are prohibited.
For exceptions, permission may be sought for such use through Elsevier’s permissions site at:
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissionusematerial
Guerry Anne D., Ruckelshaus Mary H., Plummer Mark L., and Holland Dan (2013) Modeling Marine Ecosystem
Services. In: Levin S.A. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, second edition, Volume 5, pp. 329-346. Waltham, MA:
Academic Press.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Anne D Guerry and Mary H Ruckelshaus, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Mark L Plummer and Dan Holland, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, USA
r 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
Ecosystem services Wide array of benefits that ecosystems
and their biodiversity confer on humanity.
Marine Broadly defined to include coastal (on land,
within a narrow fringe adjacent to saltwater), intertidal,
nearshore, and open ocean.
Production function approach An approach that models
ecosystem services as the relationship between ecological
Introduction to Marine Ecosystem Services
Humans have always benefited from marine ecosystems,
enjoying resources such as seafood and opportunities for activities like recreation and marine transportation. These ecosystems also provide indirect benefits by sequestering carbon
and playing key roles in the regulatory processes of other
global cycles. Benefits derived from these systems are broadly
characterized as the ecosystem services provided by marine
ecosystems. As identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) (2005b), marine ecosystem services span four
major categories: provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services (Table 1). Broad assessments of marine and
coastal ecosystems services based on the MA can be found in
Agardy et al. (2005) and the United Nations Environment
Program (2006), as well as other synthesis documents (e.g.,
Peterson and Lubchenco, 1997). Costanza (2000), Patterson
and Glavovic (2008), and Wilson and Liu (2008) also provide
useful overviews of these services, as do descriptions of the
particular services provided by fish populations (e.g., Holmlund and Hammer, 1999), coral reef ecosystems (e.g., Moberg
and Folke, 1999) and mangroves (e.g., Ronnback, 1999).
Among the four types of marine ecosystem services, provisioning services such as food from capture fisheries, aquaculture, and wild foods are the most obvious and easily
valued. About 80 million tons of fish were landed in marine
capture fisheries worldwide in 2009, and fish account for approximately 16% of the annual animal protein consumption
by humans (FAO Fisheries Department, 2010). Globally, more
than 1.5 billion people rely on fish for almost 20% of their
animal protein. On average, each person living in 2009 ate
17.2 kg of fish (including fish from aquaculture; the proportion from capture fisheries alone is difficult to calculate
given nonfood uses of wild fish) (FAO Fisheries Department,
2010). Other provisioning services include timber and fiber
from mangroves and seagrass beds, and biochemicals for
cosmetics and food additives. The potential also exists for
developing novel natural products from marine species with
medical applications (Carte, 1996). For example, researchers
recently found that three marine species collected from offshore oil and gas platforms in California’s Santa Barbara
Channel had potential for biomedical applications, including
Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Volume 5
and human inputs (e.g., the structure and functions of an
ecological system, human labor and capital) and outputs
valued by humans.
Valuation Act of estimating or setting the value of
something,
Value Relative worth, merit, or importance. Can be
measured in various ways, including but not limited to
monetary metrics.
two that inhibit the division of cancer cells grown in the laboratory (Schmitt et al., 2006). In addition, the ocean may
become an important energy source: biofuels from algae and
power generation from wave and tidal energy have potential
for more widespread use. And finally, the world’s oceans
provide the highways for the global shipping trade.
Marine systems also provide a wide range of regulating
services. As vividly highlighted by the human losses wrought
by the 2005 hurricanes on the US Gulf Coast, coastal and
estuarine wetlands have value for their ability to reduce storm
surge elevations and wave heights (Danielsen et al., 2005;
Travis, 2005). Other regulating services provided by marine
systems include the transformation, detoxification, and sequestration of wastes (Peterson and Lubchenco, 1997). And
‘‘blue carbon’’ – the role oceans can play as carbon sinks – is a
service that is gaining interest (Nellemann et al., 2009).
Human societies have always been drawn to the oceans,
which have proven to be a rich source of cultural services. In
1995, an estimated 39% of the world’s population lived with
100 km of a coast (Burke et al., 2001). In the US, people love
to live near the ocean; one study predicts average increases of
3600 people a day moving to coastal counties through 2015
(Culliton, 1998). Coastal tourism is a key component of many
economies around the world and is one of the fastest growing
and most profitable sectors of tourism (United Nations
Environment Program, 2006). Countless intangible benefits
are drawn from the oceans, too. For example, many communities define their identities in relation to the coast, people
draw inspiration from oceans in numerous ways, and rich
ceremonial traditions are intricately linked to the sea.
Finally, the oceans provide essential supporting services
that underpin many of the globe’s ecological functions. The
oceans hold 96.5% of Earth’s water (Gleick, 1996) and are a
primary driver of the atmosphere’s temperature, moisture
content, and stability (Colling, 2001). The global cycles of
carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, and other key
elements flow through the oceans (Peterson and Lubchenco,
1997), and marine ecosystems are responsible for approximately 40% of global net primary productivity (Schlesinger,
1991; Melillo et al., 1993). The oceans are home to vast reservoirs of genetic and ecological diversity, arguably the most
fundamental source of supporting services as they are directly
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-384719-5.00333-6
329
Author's personal copy
330
Table 1
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services provided by marine systems
Types of service
Provisioning services
Food production (capture fisheries; aquaculture; and wild
foods)
Fiber production
Biomass fuel production
Maintenance of aquatic systems
Generation of genetic resources
Production of biochemicals, natural medicines, and
pharmaceuticals
Regulating services
Climate regulation
Water regulation
Erosion regulation
Water purification and waste treatment
Disease regulation
Pest regulation
Pollination/Assistance of external fertilization
Natural hazard regulation
Cultural services
Provision of conditions that support or enhance ethical
values (nonuse)
Provision of conditions that support or enhance
existence values (nonuse)
Provision of recreation and ecotourism opportunities
(consumptive and nonconsumptive uses)
Supporting services
Nutrient cycling
Soil formation
Primary production
Water cycling
Examples
Tuna, crab, lobster; salmon, oysters, shrimp, seaweed; mussels, clams
Mangrove wood, seagrass fiber
Mangrove wood, biofuel from algae
Shipping, tidal turbines
Individual salmon stocks, marine diversity for bioprospecting
Antiviral and anticancer drugs from sponges, carrageenans from seaweed
Major role in global CO2 cycle
Natural stormwater management by coastal wetlands and floodplains
Nearshore vegetation stabilizes shorelines
Uptake of nutrients from sewage wastewater, detoxification of PAHs by marine
microbes, sequestration of heavy metals
Natural processes may keep harmful algal blooms and waterborne pathogens in
check
Grazing fish help keep algae from overgrowing coral reefs
Innumerable marine species require seawater to deliver sperm to egg
Coastal and estuarine wetlands and coral reefs protect coastlines from storms
Spiritual fulfillment derived from estuaries, coastlines, and marine waters
Belief that all species are worth protecting, no matter their direct value to
humans
Scuba diving, beachcombing, whale watching, boating, snorkeling; fishing,
clamming
Major role in carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur cycles
Many salt-marsh surfaces vertically accrete; eelgrass slows water and traps
sediment
Significant portion of global net primary productivity
Most of Earth’s water is in oceans; they are central to the global water cycle
Source: Adapted from Guerry A, Plummer M, Ruckelshaus M, and Harvey C (2011) Ecosystem service assessments for marine conservation. In: Kareiva P, Tallis H, Ricketts T, Daily
G, and Polasky S (eds.) Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
linked to the rate of evolution and therefore the ability to
adapt to a changing climate (Pergams and Kareiva, 2009).
Since the MA, much work has been done in developing
and applying new methodologies to model, map, and value
ecosystem services (e.g., UNEP and IOC-UNESCO, 2009;
Kareiva et al., 2011; UK National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011).
A great deal of the original MA was focused on terrestrial
systems, but new workFand new political contextsFhave
sparked the expansion of an ecosystem services framework to
marine systems. For example, the UK recently completed a
groundbreaking, countrywide assessment of both terrestrial
and marine ecosystem services and their value (Stokstad, 2011;
UK National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011). Although agricultural production has increased between 1950 and the present, landings of fish and shellfish from UK waters have
declined since the 1960s from almost 900,000 t to slightly
more than 500,000 t in 2008 (UK National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011). Protection of UK coastlines from storminduced flooding and erosion has declined in response to a
10% loss of natural habitats such as dunes, kelps, seagrasses
and marshes over the past 60 years (UK National Ecosystem
Assessment, 2011).
The MA and subsequent assessments have raised awareness
of ecosystem services, the explicit human dependence on
them, and the threatened status of many of them. Bringing
ecosystem services into the active management of terrestrial
and marine ecosystems, however, requires more than just a
catalog of services and their total values. More pragmatic is the
assessment of the ecological and economic consequences of
management activities in particular places. An understanding
of how changes in ecosystems are likely to lead to changes
in ecosystem services can most clearly provide information to
decision makers. Modeling marine ecosystem services can play
an important role in providing such insights.
Foundations
Marine ecosystems provide both great opportunities and
challenges for the application of the framework of ecosystem
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
services. The concept of ecosystem services has a long history
but has seen a relatively recent resurgence of interest from
ecologists, economists, and conservation practitioners. Because ecosystem services are reviewed elsewhere in this volume, we focus here on the conceptual frameworks and
methodologies that pertain to marine applications, as well as
the challenges facing these applications.
Why Model Marine Ecosystem Services?
Models are important tools for examining the dynamic natures of and interconnections among the biophysical and
human elements of marine ecosystems. They provide a way of
exploring future scenarios that lie outside the range of past
experiences, as well as possible unexpected consequences of
policy actions. An ecosystem services framework provides
important insights into the challenge of pursuing ecosystembased management. Ecosystem services are the currencies
through which the consequences of ecosystem change flow to
people. Using such a framework, ecosystem services and their
values can be used as a set of metrics for assessing alternative
management interventions and their potential impacts on
economic or social well-being.
Models of ecosystems that incorporate both biophysical
and human components can present policy makers with an
enormous set of potential indicators for gauging the changes
brought about by policies. Ecosystem services – the ‘‘ecological
endpoints’’ of the system that are directly connected
to human well-being (Boyd, 2007) – can provide a guide for
winnowing this set down. In the context of ecosystem modeling, such a framework avoids the potential problem of
double counting the value of ‘‘intermediate’’ ecological elements (e.g., forage fish) that support other ‘‘endpoint’’ elements
with direct value (e.g., fishery harvests) because the value of
the intermediate elements are embedded in the value of the
endpoints (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007).
Ecosystem models that focus on ecosystem services also
provide the opportunity to overcome problems arising from
traditional management in the marine realm, which generally
proceeds sector by sector, with distinct bodies making isolated
decisions. These single-sector decisions often affect a broad set
of ecosystem services, many of which are outside the scope of
their authority. As a result, there has been little effort to consider the ways in which single decisions impact the full suite of
things people care about and need.
Using an ecosystems services framework can highlight
trade-offs among multiple objectives so that decisions to resolve those trade-offs can be made transparently. Increasingly,
scientists and managers are pointing to links between diversity, productivity, and resilience attributes of marine systems
and their response to human interventions in conserving,
harvesting, and regulating marine ecosystem services (Liu
et al., 2007a; Levin and Lubchenco, 2008; Murawski et al.,
2009; Chan and Ruckelshaus, 2010). Our ability to model and
assess trade-offs among objectives of multiple management
sectors (e.g., fisheries, wave or wave energy, recreation) and
ecosystem services (e.g., value of fishery landings, kilowatt
hours of energy generated, revenue from recreational activities) is needed in order to inform more complex cases
331
of ecosystem-based management that can accommodate a
broader suite of actors (Foley et al., 2010).
Pioneering efforts to use the framework of ecosystem services to understand the connections between activities in one
sector and their impacts on others are underway in the marine
environment. Decision makers at various levels of government
from around the globe, including the Interagency Ocean
Policy Task Force (IOPTF) (2010), the European Commission
(2010), and the recently approved UN Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have recognized that new approaches are needed
to ensure the sustainability of benefits people derive from
oceans and coasts (UN General Assembly (UNGA), 2010).
Among these parties, there is currently a great deal of emphasis on marine (or ‘‘maritime’’) spatial planning. This approach to comprehensive management of marine and coastal
systems analyzes current and anticipated uses, identifies areas
most suitable for particular activities, and provides a process
to better determine how oceans are used and protected now
and for future generations (Douvere and Ehler, 2009; Ehler
and Douvere, 2009). Ecosystem services provide a framework
and a common language for this type of planning process,
allowing agencies and private interests to articulate their goals
transparently using common terms and to better understand
how their decisions interact with those of other users and
activities.
Connecting Social and Ecological Systems
Several related conceptual frameworks provide the context
within which ecosystem service information is critical to
understanding feedbacks between humans and ecosystem
conditions in marine and other environments. One of the
most important is the notion that humans are an integral part
of ecosystems, and so ecosystem models should encompass
their behavior (Holland et al., 2010). Similarly, the theory of
complex adaptive systems encompasses humans as parts of
coupled systems and presents humans as participating in the
dynamics of the system (Levin, 1998; Levin and Lubchenco,
2008). The production of ecosystem services involves a combination of ecological functions and human actions and values (Figure 1). In the marine environment, for example,
marine ecosystems have fish populations that offer opportunities for commercial and recreational harvests, two of the
most valuable services derived from these systems. The human
action of harvest, however, is what transforms the potential
ecological supply into the actual provision of the ecosystem
service (Tallis et al., 2011). Human values in the form of the
demand for seafood, the valuation of recreation, and the costs
of commercial harvest or recreational angling all determine
the value of these services.
Building models to account for the humans who interact
with or are affected by an ecological system can therefore
provide fundamental insights into the provision and value of
ecosystem services. Simple economic models can focus on
individual decisions to use more or less of a marine resource,
for example. An ecological change that makes it harder to
harvest fish is likely to produce a lower level of effort that can
be modeled in a simple framework of the demand for that
Author's personal copy
332
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Figure 1 The production of ecosystem services involves a combination of ecological functions and human actions and values. Recreational
fishing as an ecosystem service, for example, depends on the healthy functioning of natural systems that support fish populations. The human
action of harvest transforms the potential ecological supply into the actual provision of the ecosystem service.
activity. More complicated models involve complex decisions
about where and when to fish, which species to fish for, and so
forth (e.g., Sanchirico and Wilen,1999; Wilen et al., 2002).
Similarly, human behavior has more latitude to make adjustments over longer periods of time, and so modeling short-run
versus long-run behavior of a system can account for such
differences (Holland and Brazee, 1996). As they mature,
models of marine ecosystem services can include how humans
interact with biophysical components of the system and can
incorporate realistic mechanisms for changing those interactions based on economic and other incentives. We include
some examples of these kinds of truly linked human and
biophysical models in the ‘‘Production Function Modeling’’
section.
The coupled social–ecological systems model developed by
Ostrom (2009) is one key conceptual framework that includes
interactions between biophysical and social systems. Much of
the focus of research guided by this conceptual model is to
identify relevant attributes for understanding the dynamics
of a coupled social–ecological system (e.g., the lobster fishery
in Maine and its fishing community) and the effects of different management approaches (e.g., regulation, incentives)
on ecological and ecosystem services (e.g., lobster biomass,
landings, biodiversity) and social (e.g., efficiency, equity, accountability) outcomes. Under this framework, the features of
governance systems (e.g., property rights systems, operational
rules), user groups (e.g., social heterogeneity, leadership), and
resource units (e.g., economic value, behavior of harvested
species) that give rise to different ecological and social outcomes can be quantitatively or qualitatively assessed using
well-developed methodologies (Cudney-Bueno and Basurto,
2009; Ostrom, 2009; Basurto and Coleman, 2010).
The closely related conceptual framework of coupled
human and natural systems touches on similar issues but with
a stronger focus on understanding mechanisms and feedbacks
(Liu et al., 2007a, 2007b). A critical question this framework
poses is the positive or negative direction of feedback loops
between human and natural components of a system and the
strength of those interactions (Liu et al., 2007b). This modeling framework encourages exploration of temporal and
spatial as well as organizational couplings, thresholds, and
resilience in linked systems. For example, whether couplings
between human and natural components of a marine ecosystem are direct and local or indirect and global can be a key
feature influencing how humans and ecosystem services respond to signs of change in the ecosystem, and it is an increasingly important feature with the globalization of both
human and natural processes.
One modeling approach that incorporates these frameworks is the integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA). An IEA
outlines both a decision analytical framework and a process
containing the logical steps necessary for managing ecosystems, including explicit identification of objectives and the
indicators for tracking progress, a risk analysis describing the
state of the indicators, an evaluation of management strategies, and an overall assessment of ecosystem response (Levin
et al., 2009). IEAs have a successful history of application in
fishery-based ecosystem management (Caddy, 1999; Sainsbury et al., 2000; Smith et al., 2007); they are designed to be
iterative, expanding in scope and sophistication as
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
information develops over time (e.g., Dennison et al., 2007;
Tallis et al., 2010; Samhouri et al., 2011).
IEAs are one example of current approaches to the management of marine ecosystems that can use ecosystem services
in a modeling framework. An IEA uses quantitative analyses
and ecosystem modeling to support management decisions
that address a range of social, economic, and natural conditions. Ecosystem services can provide a set of metrics for
assessing these conditions, and modeled changes in their
levels can then provide decision makers with a way to compare alternative policies.
Challenges in Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
From a scientific perspective, the modeling of marine ecosystem services is sufficiently different from the task on land to
warrant its own treatment. Marine systems provide some
special scientific challenges in the endeavor to map, model,
and value ecosystem services. Most models for terrestrial systems use a land-use or land-cover data layer as a foundation
for the initial assessment of services, as well as a baseline for
exploring how land conversion and land-use change alter
ecosystem services. Fundamentally, the same approach works
for marine environments. Marine systems have habitats that
are altered or used with consequences, and different management approaches yield different habitat conditions and
different delivery of services.
We cannot readily ‘‘see’’ most benthic habitat types using
satellite imagery or other remote sensing technology, so maps
of habitat type and condition are harder to come by in marine
systems than they are on land. Also, in marine systems, associations between species and habitat patches are more difficult to discern. The lack of basic land-use and land-cover data
for marine systems underscores the need for a modeling approach to ecosystem and food-web dynamics that is less
tightly coupled to detailed habitat maps than the approach
often taken in terrestrial systems (e.g., Kareiva et al., 2011).
A second shift in perspective required when considering
marine ecosystem services stems from the ways in which
humans interact with marine environments. We do not live in
the sea, and thus many of our actions that affect the marine
environment are indirect. We can think of many terrestrial
habitats without considering the effects of marine systems on
them, but the converse is not true. Activities on land (e.g.,
coastal development; nutrient, sediment, and pathogen inputs
to freshwater; increases in impervious surfaces) have profound
effects on nearshore marine systems (Carpenter et al., 1998;
Mallin et al., 2000; Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008).
Understanding and modeling marine ecosystem services is
also made more difficult by the fact that we generally have less
direct control or knowledge of human actions. In terrestrial
areas, property rights are the norm, and zoning often dictates
what and where actions can take place (both on public and
private property). Human activities and their results are also
more observable on land. In marine areas, human activities
are not typically managed explicitly at a fine scale, and many
areas are effectively open access. Thus, it is often more critical
to incorporate endogenous behavioral models of people into
models of ecosystem services.
333
Finally, modeling ecosystem services is not a substitute for
all other ways of assessing marine and other ecosystems.
Concerns about biodiversity of marine ecosystems, for example, may be poorly addressed by a pure ecosystem services
approach. Some assert that protection and restoration of
marine systems will improve both biodiversity and the ability
of the oceans to provide ecosystem services; others point out
that trade-offs can occur (Balvanera et al., 2006; Worm et al.,
2006; Naeem et al., 2009; Palumbi et al., 2009; Klein et al.,
2010; Brander, 2010). Ecosystem modeling coupled with observations should not ignore this and other approaches to
marine conservation, and they should continue to provide
needed evidence for the conditions under which biodiversity
and ecosystem service provision are positively related and
where trade-offs are likely to occur.
Approaches
The modeling of marine ecosystem services can take a variety
of approaches. Although not normally considered a ‘‘model,’’ a
straightforward accounting of ecosystem services and their
values has played an important role in past assessments, and
so it is included in this section as one approach. Many models
of ecosystem services take a production function approach in
which the structure and functions of an ecological system are
combined with human actions and capital to produce an
output valued by humans (National Research Council, 2005).
This approach has been used to analyze a variety of individual
ecosystem services, as well to provide the framework for developing suites of models that encompass multiple services.
Each of these approaches is presented in the following
sections.
Accounting Approaches and Basic Valuation Methods
The simplest approach to assessing ecosystem services for
marine and terrestrial systems is a straightforward accounting
of those services and their values. This approach is not one
that explicitly models the ecological or human systems, but it
has been used to assess marine ecosystem services (Beaumont
et al., 2007, 2008). Generally, the approach begins by defining
a particular geographic location and then identifying the set of
ecosystem services flowing from that area. The assessment can
then be as simple as compiling local information on each of
these services for that region – e.g., using revenues from an
area’s fishery harvests as a measure of the economic value of
that type of provisioning service.
A more common method that has been used for terrestrial
systems is ecosystem-service mapping (Troy and Wilson,
2006). This method differentiates a particular area by land
cover, biome, or some other set of ecologically based landscape or seascape type. Drawing from a standard set of ecosystem service categories (e.g., deGroot et al., 2002), each
landscape type (e.g., forestland) is then linked to a set of
services (e.g., recreation or carbon sequestration) believed to
be provided by that type. The quantity of an ecosystem service
produced is then assumed to be linearly related to the area of
the landscape type.
Author's personal copy
334
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
From these starting points, local economic data, if they
exist, can be used to transform the quantity of ecosystem
services into economic values. Such data are not commonly
available, however, and so the more typical approach to assigning economic value is to use what is known as benefit
transfer. Benefit transfer is a method for taking economic data
on benefits (or values in general) gathered from one site and
applying the data to another site. This method is rarely the
‘‘first-best’’ choice for estimating economic values but the costs
of gathering primary, site-specific data have made it a common
practice for studies of ecosystem service value (e.g., see
Rosenberger and Loomis (2001) and National Research
Council (2005) for examples of recreational uses of natural
sites). Using the assumption of a linear relation between
ecosystem service quantities and landscape area, a ‘‘unit value’’
for a particular ecosystem service and landscape type can then
be derived by taking an existing study’s estimated value for a
particular ecosystem service and dividing by the area of the
studied site’s landscape (e.g., recreation or carbon sequestration value per acre of forestland). These unit values can
then be used to assess the value of ecosystem services at other
sites for multiple services and landscape types if they are
present.
This accounting approach was pioneered by Costanza and
colleagues (1997), who estimated global values for 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes. Their effort included five marine and coastal biomes: open ocean, estuaries, seagrass or
algae beds, coral reefs, and ocean shelf. These five biomes
accounted for almost two-thirds of the estimated annual $33
trillion value of Earth’s services. Their use of benefit transfer
was almost universal; the original data used in the study
were gathered in one or more locations and then projected
worldwide.
Accounting approaches such as Costanza et al. (1997) are
simple and play the important role of raising the awareness of
the values of traditionally undervalued, nonmarket ecosystem
services. They should be used cautiously, however, with important qualifications in mind. First, this approach imposes
linearity on the valuation of ecosystem services, which has the
potential to produce biased estimates. Human pressures on
ecosystems and the services they provide can result in impacts
that respond nonlinearly to changes in the scale of the pressure or change discontinuously if a threshold is crossed
(Groffman et al., 2006). The valuation of ecosystems services
should therefore account for such nonlinearities if the scale
under consideration is more than minimal (Barbier et al.,
2008; Koch et al., 2009). The human values that apply to
ecosystem services can also exhibit nonlinearities as the
quantity or quality of the ecosystem service available changes
(Bockstael et al., 2000; Toman, 1998). Again, if the scale of a
service under consideration is large, projecting a value estimated for a small change has the potential to produce significant bias. And if more than one service is evaluated, the
aggregate value of the group of services is likely to be nonlinear with respect to considering more and more services. If
estimates of individual ecosystem service values are used in
such an exercise, simply adding them together will again
produce a biased estimate of the group’s value. These problems grow more and more significant as the scale of the ecosystem service valuation exercise increases. Given that this
approach is often used to produce national or even global
estimates (Anielski and Wilson, 2009; Beaumont et al., 2007,
2008; Ingraham and Foster, 2008; Naidoo et al., 2008), the
issue of nonlinearities is an important one.
Second, the method requires rigid association of a particular set of ecosystem services to a particular landscape type;
thus it does not allow assessment of how policies might
change the flow of ecosystem services and affect their
values, short of comparing values under wholesale destruction
of the landscape type. Relying on landscape type to assign
a fixed presence and quantity of services provides little information to evaluate how a policy will change ecosystem service
values in any way other than a change in the landscape type.
This ‘‘all or nothing’’ approach may make sense for some
cases – for example, replacing forest with open agricultural
fields – but not for others, as it is highly unlikely that any
policy is capable of converting saltwater estuaries into upland
forestland.
A third caution stems from the common use of benefit
transfer for ecosystem service mapping exercises and other
accounting approaches. The broad categories used in these
types of exercises facilitate a comprehensive analysis of ecosystem service values for large geographic areas, but they also
subject the analysis to a high likelihood of what is called
generalization error (Plummer, 2009). As an example, consider
the problem of estimating the value of providing ‘‘recreation’’
in a ‘‘marine area.’’ Recreation covers scores of possible market
and nonmarket activities that take place in natural settings,
and some may be present in one marine area but not in
others. Also, the presence of human-built infrastructure
and the accessibility of the marine area are important determinants of the economic value of the recreational activity.
Because these factors can vary widely, using estimates of
economic value from one site and applying them to another
is likely to produce significant errors if the categories of
‘‘recreation’’ and ‘‘marine area’’ are treated at a high level of
generalization.
Finally, existing estimates of economic values for ecosystem
services are strongly influenced by the methodology employed
to make the estimate. As the NRC report on valuing ecosystem
services (2005) emphasizes, not all methodologies are equally
good. Happily, several valuation approaches are accepted
practice by economists, but the interpretation of the resulting
values should be informed by the method used.
Revealed Preferences Methods
Standard economic theory is based on the assumption that
observable choices made by individuals reveal their expected
valuation of a good or activity (but it also allows for some
goods with values that are independent of observable behavior) (Slesnick, 1998). The revealed preference approach is
a collection of methods for estimating economic values that
rely on observable behavior. The most obvious revealed preference method is the use of market data. The production
of commercially harvested finfish and shellfish is a leading
example of marine ecosystem services with values that can
be estimated with market data. Another revealed preference
method that uses market data is known as hedonic analysis
(Palmquist, 1991; Freeman, 1993; Palmquist, 2003); it analyzes goods (e.g., housing) that are sold as a bundle of
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
characteristics. In some cases, location-specific characteristics
may be part of the bundle and include environmental
amenities such as air and water quality or proximity to open
space. If ecosystem services are a part of these bundled
characteristics – for example, shoreline protection provided by
nearshore ecological systems – the marginal value of such a
service can be estimated with a hedonic analysis.
A final revealed preference method is useful for cultural
ecosystem services such as recreation and other environmental
experiences that take place outside any formal market. In this
approach, the cost of engaging in the activity can be used
to derive estimates of its economic value (Clawson, 1959;
Knetsch, 1963). Similar to the assumptions for hedonic
models, the recreation ‘‘good’’ can be viewed as a bundle of
characteristics, some of which are the environmental features
important to the recreational experience. If data are available
for visits to multiple sites with varying levels of those features,
one can then estimate the contribution of a particular feature
to the demand for that recreation and from this estimate the
feature’s value (Morey, 1981).
Stated Preference Methods
Stated preference methods also can provide legitimate estimates of economic value. These methods rely on survey
questions that ask individuals to make a choice, describe a
behavior, or state directly what they would be willing to pay
for specified changes in nonmarket goods or services. These
methods are increasingly used in economic studies of environmental quality because they offer the opportunity to estimate the value for anything that can be presented as a
credible and consequential choice. If conducted with attention
to the many standards of care for its execution (Mitchell and
Carson, 1989), this method can provide useful estimates of
ecosystem service values.
Other Valuation Methods
Other methods are less reliable and particularly prone
to misuse when estimating ecosystem service values. A
prominent example is the replacement-cost or cost-of-treatment approach. For example, the cost of municipal water
treatment for drinking water can be reduced by the presence of
a wetland because the wetland system filters and removes
pollutants (Day et al., 2004). Using the cost of a human-built
alternative treatment method is an approach sometimes taken
to estimate the ‘‘value’’ of the wetland, but in general this cost
does not have any necessary relation to the actual services
provided by a particular wetland. On the one hand, the wetland may not actually provide filtration services (e.g., because
of the absence of contaminants that need filtering or biophysical features of the wetland that prevent filtering). On the
other hand, the wetland might simultaneously provide a
number of other services (such as carbon storage, nursery
habitat support for fisheries) that are not captured by this
form of valuation. As a result, the replacement-cost approach
to estimating the value of an ecosystem service must be used
with great care.
One final word about valuation: much of the dialogue
about ecosystem services focuses on economic valuation. Economic valuation, however, is far from the only way to value
ecosystem services. Although many services (e.g., provisioning
335
services) are relatively straightforward to value in economic
terms, others (e.g., cultural services) often defy economic
valuation. The comparison of multiple ecosystem services in a
single currency (e.g., dollars) is appealing in some contexts but
not appropriate or even desirable in others. Cultural ecosystem
services – diverse, nonmaterial benefits that people obtain
through their interactions with ecosystems, including spiritual
inspiration, cultural identity, and recreation – are difficult but
not impossible to value. Various methods (e.g., narrative
methods, paired comparisons, structured decision making) can
be used to elicit the relative weight that people place on these
services (Chan et al., in press).
Production Function Modeling
A production function approach is fundamentally processbased. It represents the relationship between inputs (e.g., the
density of mangroves) and outputs (e.g., the degree of protection from storms). Production functions have been used
extensively in agriculture, manufacturing, and other sectors of
the economy. Ecological production functions can be used to
explore how changes in ecosystem structure and function lead
to changes in the flows of services (National Research Council,
2005).
Unlike the accounting methods previously discussed
(see Accounting Approaches and Basic Valuation Methods),
a production function approach allows for the comparison
of alternative courses of action and their effects on ecosystems
and services, and it can thus provide more useful information for decision making. With process-based models,
analysts can explore how changes in inputs are likely to lead
to changes in outputs. If valuation is of interest, then
production function approaches can use both market prices
and nonmarket valuation methods to estimate economic
value and to show how the monetary value or other value
currencies are likely to change under different environmental
conditions.
The production function approach has been used to model
various ecosystem services on land (Ricketts et al., 2004; Kareiva et al., 2011) and in marine systems (Barbier et al., 2008;
Holland et al., 2010). In many cases, the approach is used to
model a single ecosystem service, which is appropriate when it
is functionally somewhat separate from other services and
management actions are focused on that service. In other
cases, the services have sufficiently strong connections that a
multiple service approach is warranted. Both of these choices
are explored in the following sections.
Modeling Single Ecosystem Services: Bioeconomic Models
of Fisheries
A leading example of the modeling of a single ecosystem
services in marine systems is the modeling of fisheries
that incorporates both biological and economic components.
For some types of fishery management decisions, a narrow
focus on the single ecosystem service of food from fisheries
is appropriate. It also provides important lessons for ecosystem service modeling because a critical part of its development has been the evolution of the human behavioral
portion of the models. For that reason, an extended discussion
Author's personal copy
336
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
of this type of production function approach is provided in
this section.
Of all marine ecosystem service modeling, fisheries models
are by far the most sophisticated and have the longest history
of use in managing marine systems. Bioeconomic models
have been used since the early 1950s to explore how the
value generated by fisheries is affected by how they are exploited and regulated. Bioeconomic models have evolved
over time from simple models focused on equilibrium
outcomes associated with static annual harvests and effort
levels (e.g., Gordon, 1954; Schaefer, 1957) to more complex
dynamic models that explore the implications of the timing,
location, and methods of harvests, the linkages between
different species, and the impacts of fisheries on other ecosystem services. From the beginning, these models have emphasized the interconnection of the natural and human
components of fisheries and the importance of an approach to
modeling that treats human activity as an endogenous part of
the system.
It was recognized early on that understanding the optimal
exploitation of fisheries would generally require a dynamic
modeling approach since fisheries are rarely if ever in equilibrium at some desired state. Scott (1955) introduced the
concept of user cost to illustrate the trade-offs between harvesting fish today and leaving fish in the water to contribute to
future growth. Viewing the fish stock as natural capital,
Scott showed that optimal exploitation would require the
rate of return from the in situ fish stock to equal the rate of
return from other uses of that capital (i.e., by extracting and
selling fish and thereby transforming them into economic
capital).
Although the initial focus of bioeconomic models was on
aggregate annual effort and harvests, Gordon’s (1954) analysis
demonstrated that the value generated by the fishery was also
dependent on the spatial distribution of fishing. The exploitation of fisheries over space – and particularly the issue of
whether to close some areas to fishing to conserve fish stocks,
habitat, and biodiversity – became an important focus of
bioeconomic modeling in the late 1990s (e.g., Holland and
Brazee, 1996; Sanchirico and Wilen, 1999) and remains so
(Costello and Polasky, 2008). It is becoming increasingly clear
that spatial heterogeneity of marine ecosystems and of fishing
costs provide opportunities to increase the value generated by
fishing by managing where and when fishing takes place and
which harvest methods are employed. These models show that
optimal exploitation depends on relative costs over space in
conjunction with spatial variation in productivity (e.g., from
differences in suitability and productivity of habitat for species
and their prey or from metapopulations with source-sink
dynamics).
Another important focus of bioeconomic modeling that
has become more prevalent over time is the multispecies nature of fisheries. Many multispecies fishery models focus on
the implications of technical interactions that make it difficult
and costly to control the relative catch of different species that
occupy the same habitat. These models provide insights into
how economic incentives or regulations on gear or fishing
locations can influence catch composition to increase the
value and sustainability of fisheries and reduce undesirable
bycatch. Trophic linkages between different fish species are
often thought to be important drivers of fishery productivity
and stability. However, they have largely been ignored in the
assessment of the productivity of fish stocks and when providing management advice (but see Hollowed et al., 2011).
This is not surprising: these relationships are typically poorly
understood and difficult to quantify.
Nonetheless, there is recognition that understanding
and responding to these species interactions can increase
value and improve the sustainability of fisheries. Ecosystem
models that attempt to depict entire food webs and the
impacts of bottom-up forcing (e.g., by climate) and top-down
forcing (e.g., predation and fishing) have been developed
in recent years; a few such as Atlantis (Fulton et al., 2004a,
2004b) include an endogenous human harvester component
to the model. These models offer the possibility of informing a more holistic ecosystem-based approach to managing
fisheries and other activities in the marine environment,
but their complexity and the lack of data to parameterize
them has so far limited their usefulness in providing
specific tactical advice for managing individual fisheries. An
increasing number of multispecies bioeconomic models focus
on small systems of exploited species (see, e.g., the discussion
in the section The American Lobster, Atlantic Herring, and
Northeast Multispecies Groundfish Fisheries in the Gulf of
Maine). For these smaller systems made up of primarily
commercial species, there is often more data and research,
making it more feasible to parameterize the models accurately
enough to quantitatively evaluate multispecies harvest
strategies.
Our ability to understand and model fishery systems in the
marine environment is hindered by an inability to observe
directly the processes that drive outcomes since they occur
under the sea and over vast areas. It is often the perturbations
caused by human exploitation of the system and the data
gathered by fishermen that enable us to develop an understanding of these systems that is sufficient to create empirically
based models capable of providing specific insights that can be
applied to the management of these systems as we seek sustainable harvest levels. Bioeconometric models, defined by
Smith (2008) as structural models that econometrically estimate one or more parameters of the bioeconomic system,
have the potential to reveal both ecological and economic
parameters of the system simultaneously and to greatly increase our understanding of these systems at relatively low cost
(since they exploit data easily collected by fishermen in the
course of normal operations).
This field is not new as it includes empirical applications of
the Gordon-Schaefer model dating to the 1950s – but until
recently was mostly limited to equilibrium models based on
aggregate annual catch and effort. These models did not reveal
the underlying microecological and economic processes
driving the results and required making strong assumptions
about system behavior (e.g., that it tends toward equilibria). In
recent years, progress has been made in modeling and parameterizing these processes with dynamic models and disaggregated data. This has made it more feasible to model and
predict how changes in the underlying ecological system or
changes in factors that drive human behavior will change
outcomes and the resulting flow of ecosystem services (e.g.,
Smith et al., 2008).
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Efforts to model a single ecosystem service – such as the
critical service of food from fisheries – and the ways in which
its delivery or value change under different scenarios are of
great utility when decisions are being made sector by sector or
when a better understanding of a key service sheds light on a
previously understudied aspect of a system. But with decision
makers increasingly grappling with multisector decisions,
modeling of multiple ecosystem services in the same context
can allow for more informed decision making.
Modeling Multiple Ecosystem Services and Examining
Trade-Offs
Single-sector management that proceeds without the explicit
consideration of how single decisions impact the full suite
of things people care about and need can lead to misguided
assessments of the true costs and benefits to the environment
and society of natural resource management options. For
example, mangroves are routinely cleared and the resultant
open areas used for shrimp aquaculture. A singular focus
on aquaculture as an ecosystem service derived from cleared
areas often shows a positive bottom line, as the high
market price of shrimp provides strong support for this action
from a private perspective. Standing mangroves provide
other social and ecological benefits that private owners cannot
capture, however. More complete accounting using a multiple
ecosystem service framework shows that keeping mangroves
intact often has higher social benefits once other services
such as wood products, support for offshore fisheries, and
coastal protection are taken into account (Sathirathai and
Barbier, 2001). In other words, a single-sector approach risks
ignoring the multitude of connections among components of
natural and social systems. These connections are often important for the maintenance of ecosystem health, human wellbeing, and the sector of interest itself (Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment, 2005b).
The explicit recognition of connections between activities
and their consequences for multiple ecosystem benefits allows
for the exploration of trade-offs and win–wins. Rodrı́guez et al.
(2006) review some of the most frequent ecosystem service
trade-offs faced by society. In some cases, trade-offs and
win–wins can be explored using a common currency (e.g.,
dollars, Sathirathai and Barbier, 2001), but various metrics can
be used (Tallis et al., 2008, 2011; Lester et al., 2010). As one
example, the MA explored trade-offs among various categories
of ecosystem services (with axes for each service scaled from
1 to 1 to represent positive or negative change from the
baseline) for each of four heuristic scenarios (Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, 2005a).
Explorations of multiple ecosystem services and how they
are likely to change under various management scenarios has
proceeded in two important directions: detailed explorations of
particular situations and the development of tools designed to
be applicable in various contexts. We focus here on tools. Research teams have taken a number of different approaches to
modeling the flow of multiple ecosystem services and examining trade-offs between them. Here we provide a brief introduction to some of the approaches and tools that are most
applicable to modeling marine ecosystem services (Table 2).
Modeling the flows of ecosystem services can take many
forms. Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES;
337
www.ariesonline.org) offers a range of approaches including
probabilistic Bayesian models, machine learning, and pattern
recognition to assess the provision, use, and flow of ecosystem
services on a landscape. The tool allows users to evaluate and
compare alternative policy and land-use scenarios and their
impacts on ecosystem services. The initial marine application
of ARIES is in Madagascar in partnership with the United
Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP’s) World Conservation Monitoring Center, where a benefits-transfer approach
to ecosystem service valuation is being used (Center for Ocean
Solutions, 2011).
More process-based ecosystem service modeling approaches also have emerged. The challenges of applying the
land-use or land-cover map-based approach used in terrestrial
systems, coupled with the strong foundations of marine ecosystem modeling, has made ecosystem modeling central to the
ecosystem services framework for marine systems. Foodweb
models such as EcoPath with EcoSim (EwE) (Christensen
and Walters, 2004) and ecosystem models such as Atlantis
(Fulton et al., 2004a, 2004b) have been used to explore fishery
management options in an ecosystem context. These models
also have the potential to evaluate a more comprehensive
suite of human activities and the ways in which they
change the delivery of ecosystem services. Using these models,
explorations of the potential outcomes of various human
actions can lead to the development of management
approaches that consider multiple objectives and trade-offs
among objectives.
Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs
(InVEST; http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org) helps decision
makers visualize the impacts of potential management
activities by modeling and mapping the delivery, distribution,
and economic value of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine
ecosystem services under alternative scenarios (for more
information, see Kareiva et al. (2011) and Guerry et al. (2012)).
InVEST can be used to identify trade-offs and compatibilities
between environmental, economic, and social benefits. Applicable at a range of scalesFfrom local to globalFInVEST
was designed to play a key role in real-world decision-making
processes. The first phase of the approach involves working
with stakeholders to identify critical management decisions
and to develop scenarios that project how the provision of
services might change in response to those decisions as well
as to changing climate, population, and so on. Using these
scenarios and basic biophysical and social data as inputs, InVEST quantifies and maps a broad range of ecosystem services.
To facilitate the use of InVEST in real decision-making contexts, a key design feature of InVEST is the relative simplicity
of data required and the free availability of models on the web.
InVEST outputs provide decision makers with information
about costs, benefits, trade-offs, and synergies of alternative
management strategies.
InVEST uses a primarily production function approach to
assess how environmental change, as a result of future policies
and management decisions, affects the delivery of ecosystem
services. Terrestrial InVEST models have been applied around
the world to inform a variety of land-use decisions (Kareiva
et al., 2011). InVEST’s marine tools (see Guerry et al., 2012)
were initially released in 2011 and are being applied in
Canada, the US, and Belize. Marine InVEST includes models
Author's personal copy
Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem
Services (ARIES)
Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3);
University of VermontFGund Institute
for Ecological Economics, Conservation
International, and Earth Economics
Atlantis
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organization (CSIRO) Marine
and Atmospheric Research
Coastal Resilience
The Nature Conservancy, University of
Southern Mississippi, and University of
California, Santa Barbara
Description
Marine applications
Spatial mapping of
ecosystem
services
Analysis of
ecosystem service
trade-offs
Level of technical
expertise neededa
ARIES is a suite of web-accessible
applicationsFincluding probabilistic
Bayesian models, machine learning,
and pattern recognitionF used to
assess the provision, use, and flow of
ecosystem services. ARIES maps both
the sources of ecosystem services and
their users, along with the flows from
ecosystems to users.
ARIES has been used to assess
subsistence fisheries and coastal storm
regulation in Madagascar.
Yes
Yes
2, 3
Atlantis is a three-dimensional, spatially
explicit model that incorporates
biogeochemical dynamics and fishing
behavior. Submodels cover food-web
relations, hydrographic processes, and
fisheries.
Atlantis has been used to evaluate
restructuring of Southeastern Australia
fishing fleets, the NOAA Integrated
Ecosystem Assessment for the
California Current, the Marine
Stewardship Council Forage Fish
Harvest Guidelines, and groundfish fleet
impacts on protected marine mammals
in the California Current.
No
Yes
3
Coastal Resilience is a spatial planning
and action approach that integrates
appropriate coastal hazard, ecological,
and socioeconomic information within a
particular geography. The Coastal
Resilience approach is to map sea-level
rise and other coastal hazards, natural
resources, and human communities at
risk and display this information via an
internet mapping application that is a
data viewer, data discovery tool, and a
future scenario mapper.
Coastal Resilience has been used for data
exploration with the New York State
Emergency Management Office and
local towns and villages on Long Island
and the Connecticut shores.
No
No
2
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Decision support tool/developer
338
Table 2
Decision support tools for use in marine environments, with particular attention to: marine applications, spatial mapping of ecosystem services, capacity to analyze trade-offs between
services, and the level of technical expertise needed to use the tool
Author's personal copy
Cumulative Impacts
National Center for Ecological Analysis
and Synthesis (NCEAS), University of
California, Santa Barbara, and Stanford
University
InVEST
The Natural Capital ProjectFStanford
University, World Wildlife Fund, The
Nature Conservancy, and the University
of Minnesota
Marxan with zones
University of Queensland
Cumulative Impacts has been used in a
coarse global analysis and in the
California Current and the northwestern
Hawaiian Islands.
No
No
2
InVEST is composed of a number of
models for assessing flows of and
changes in different ecosystem services
including, but not limited to, carbon
storage, wave energy, recreation,
fishery production, erosion control,
habitat quality, water quality, crop
pollination, and timber production.
InVEST is a toolbox in ArcGIS and runs
on both spatial and nonspatial physical,
biological, and economic data and
information. (An ArcGIS-independent
version is forthcoming.)
InVEST has been used for marine
applications in Canada (west coast of
Vancouver Island) and Belize, and for
land–sea connections in Puget Sound,
Galveston Bay, and Chesapeake Bay
(US). In addition, it is being used in
climate adaptation planning and to
inform restoration in the Gulf of Mexico
and in Monterey Bay (both US).
Yes
Yes
1, 3
MarineMap is a web-based decision
support toolkit to support marine
spatial planning processes. The toolkit
includes a spatial data viewer and
design tools that allow users to
networks of prospective marine
protected areas. The application also
allows users to share their proposals
with others and evaluate their proposals
against goals defined in the course of
any planning process.
MarineMap has been used for the
California MLPA Initiative and the
Oregon Territorial Sea Planning process
(US).
No
Yes
1
Marxan is a program for identifying
combinations of sites to create
conservation networks such as marine
protected areas. The program allows
the user to set biodiversity and other
Marxan has been applied to Marine
Zoning in Saint Kitts and Nevis and to
examine four types of protected areas
in the context of California’s Marine Life
Protection Act.
No
Yes
2, 3
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Marine Map
MarineMap ConsortiumFUniversity of
California, Santa Barbara, The Nature
Conservancy, and EcoTrust
The Cumulative Impacts model uses
spatial data and expert opinion to
assess the ecological consequences of
17 types of human activities. By
overlaying maps of human activities
and ecosystem vulnerabilities, this
model produces a cumulative mapping
of ecological impacts.
(Continued )
339
Author's personal copy
340
Table 2
Continued
Decision support tool/developer
Description
Spatial mapping of
ecosystem
services
Analysis of
ecosystem service
trade-offs
Level of technical
expertise neededa
MIMES is a multiscale integrated suite of
models that incorporate stakeholder
input and a variety of data sets to
assess trade-offs among multiple
ecosystem services. The models
simulate ecological and socioeconomic
systems and their interactions, and they
calculate the values of ecosystem
services for different scenarios.
MIMES is being used by the
Massachusetts Ocean Partnership to
examine the trade-offs between
different sectors in spatial planning and
to model ecosystem service values at
multiple scales.
Yes
Yes
2, 3
Originally developed to support the
assessment of offshore energy
projects, MMC is a web-based
geospatial data viewer containing more
than 80 data layers from a variety of
sources that each can be turned on or
off or queried one at a time. The user
has the ability to draw lines and other
features, create buffers, and perform
other geospatial actions.
MMC has been used for reviews of ocean
energy projects in Northern California
and the outer continental shelf off
Massachusetts, and by the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Council on the Ocean to
support marine spatial planning efforts.
No
No
1
targets for one or more zones and then
find the set of sites that meets those
targets while minimizing the cost of the
network.
Multiscale Integrated Models of
Ecosystem Services (MIMES)
AFORDable futures
Multipurpose Marine Cadastre (MMC)
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,
Regulation and Enforcement
(BOEMREFformerly Minerals
Management Service) and NOAA
Coastal Services Center
a
Levels of technical expertise (when more than one level is listed the tool has capabilities that require varying levels of expertise):
1.
2.
3.
Minimal training or technical expertise.
Minimal training and expertise but process objectives must be set in advance.
Expert users.
Source: Adapted from Center for Ocean Solutions (2011) Decision Guide: Selecting Decision Support Tools for Marine Spatial Planning. Stanford, CA: The Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University.
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Marine applications
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Input data (Reflect scenarios)
Marine InVEST models
Model outputs
(Ecosystem services and values)
Ecosystem
services
Carbon
341
Carbon
sequestered
Valuation
e.g.
Value of
carbon
sequestered
Terrestrial systems
Wave energy
Energy
captured
3
Value of
captured
wave energy
Bio-physical
9
Scenarios
Bathymetry and topography
Species
distribution
Oceanography
Coastal
protection
Habitat
risk
5
Recreation
4
Avoided
Area flooded/
eroded
Visitation
rates
7
Habitat type
Water
quality
1
8
Fishery
Landed
biomass
Socio-economic
6
Population density
Aquaculture
2
Harvested
biomass
Value of
avoided
damages
Expenditures
due to
recreation
activity
Net present
value of
finfish and
shellfish
Demographics
Aquaculture operation costs
Property values
Aesthetic
quality
Figure 2 Marine InVEST evaluates how alternative scenarios yield changes in the flow of ecosystem services. First, one translates management
or climate scenarios into input data. Inputs include spatially explicit biophysical and socioeconomic information. Next, one feeds input maps into
models that predict the delivery of services across the seascape. Intermediate effects of management choices and climate on the flow of services
can be evaluated in terms of risks to habitats and changes in water quality. Ecosystem service outputs are expressed in biophysical or
socioeconomic units. Some examples of processes or activities that link the models include (numbers correspond to circled numbers on arrows):
(1) flow rate and the movement of sediment, nutrients, toxic waste and bacteria; (2) filtration, flows of waste; (3) limiting fishing grounds; (4)
light attenuation, sedimentation; (5) water purification; (6) food supply (shellfish); (7) beachgoing; (8) spawning, rearing; and (9) wave
attenuation. Adapted from Guerry AD, Ruckelshaus MH, Arkema KK, et al. (2012) Modeling benefits from nature: using ecosystem services to
inform marine spatial planning. International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services and Management. doi: 10.1080/
21513732.2011.647835.
for renewable energy, protection from coastal hazards,
fisheries, recreation, aquaculture, aesthetic views, and more
(Figure 2).
The Multiscale Integrated Models of Ecosystem Services
(MIMES) project represents another attempt to build a suite
of models that assess the values of ecosystem services to
allow managers to understand the dynamics of ecosystem
services, how services are linked to human welfare, and
how the flow of services might change under various management scenarios in both terrestrial and marine systems
(http://www.uvm.edu/giee/mimes/). MIMES involves a relatively complex approach, simulating ecosystems and socioeconomic systems and the interactions between them. It
calculates values of ecosystem services using marginal cost
pricing. MIMES is currently being used by the Massachusetts
Ocean Partnership to evaluate the trade-offs between different
sectors in marine spatial planning (Center for Ocean Solutions, 2011).
Applications of Marine Ecosystem Service Modeling
to Decision Making
Decision contexts for managing ecosystem services in the
sea are varied, so it is to be expected that a mix of quantitative
and qualitative modeling approaches are being developed
and applied to support biodiversity and ecosystem service
management in marine systems. Information needed to
support the methodologies we highlight in the following
sections ranges from observations and empirical data to
modeled ecosystem and social responses, expert opinion and
traditional local knowledge (e.g., Kliskey et al., 2009). Typically, the time frames of decisions, local technical capacity,
and the nature of information available for each context
dictate the approach employed for ecosystem service modeling. We explore four contexts in the following section that
display a wide range of the numbers of services modeled,
quantitative complexity, and types of decisions being made.
Author's personal copy
342
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
We start where marine modelers and managers are most at
home together – with a fisheries-focused example – and then
move to efforts to include a number of different types of
services.
The American Lobster, Atlantic Herring, and Northeast
Multispecies Groundfish Fisheries in the Gulf of Maine
The American lobster, Atlantic herring, and Northeast
multispecies groundfish fisheries in the Gulf of Maine provide
an excellent example of a system of interlinked fisheries with
a value that might be substantially increased by accounting
for linkages between them and with the environment. A
number of important environmental, ecological, and economic linkages within these fisheries and with the environment were identified as key processes to study and
model (Figure 3). This system is the subject of an interdisciplinary research project funded by the National Science
Foundation aimed at understanding these linkages through
empirical research and modeling to provide insights into
how the management of each fishery and the system as
a whole can be improved. The strategy of this research effort
is to link and build on the single-species models that are
already used for providing management advice by modeling
key linkages between the fisheries and with the environment that might be exploited to increase value and
sustainability.
The primary focus for environmental linkages in this system
is on impacts of temperature, salinity, and winds on recruitment and juvenile growth. Changes in the abundance of larval
food and changes in circulation driven by wind and currents are
thought to be key drivers of recruitment variability for all three
species. Determining what drives recruitment success requires a
combination of empirical fieldwork (determining where and
how much spawning and settlement take place) and coupled
biophysical models (evaluating how currents, winds, and
temperatures affect dispersal and settlement of larvae and
consequent recruitment). In addition to circulation and dispersion, model calculations may need to consider spatial patterns of egg production, temporal patterns of hatching,
temperature-dependent development, vertical distribution, and
mortality (see Incze et al., 2010, and Churchill et al., 2011, for
examples that are relevant to this system).
A variety of ecological linkages, natural and artificial, are
being studied, including predation of groundfish on herring
and juvenile lobsters and predation of herring on groundfish
larvae. In addition to predator–prey linkages, the team is
studying behavior modification as a result of diminished
presence of groundfish predators that may have allowed lobster to expand use of habitat and consequently carrying
capacity.
This fishery system is somewhat unusual, though perhaps
not unique, in that a key linkage between the fisheries is
controlled by humans. The artificial trophic linkage resulting
from use of herring bait in quantities (exceeding 50,000 tons
Key processes to include in coupled system model
Trophic interactions and competition
• Predation of groundfish on herring and juvenile lobsters
• Impacts of temperature, salinity, winds on
• Predation of herring on groundfish larvae
recruitment and juvenile growth
• Herring bait growth subsidy for lobster
• Lobster behavior modification with absence/pressure of
groundfish predators
Environmental-early life history
Economic connections
• Movement of labour/capital between
fisheries
• Dependence of lobster fishery on herring
bait (primary herring market)
Cod recruits
Cod juveniles
Cod adults
Environment
wind
currents
temperature
phytoplankton
zooplankton
Groundfish
Fishery
Groundfish fleet
Herring recruits
Herring juveniles
Herring adults
Herring
fishery
Herring fleet
Bait
market
Lobster settlement
Lobster juveniles
Lobster adults
Lobster
fishery
Figure 3 Linkages between lobster, herring, and groundfish fisheries in the Gulf of Maine.
Lobster fleet
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
annually in recent years) is thought to be responsible for a
substantial increase in productivity of the lobster stock
(Grabowski et al., 2010). The way that the lobster fishery
is managed substantially alters the amount of herring bait
demanded by the fishery, which affects profitability of both
fisheries (Holland et al., 2010) and how those profits are distributed (Ryan et al., 2010).
Understanding these linkages among the fisheries and the
environment provides useful qualitative insights for resource
managers and stakeholders, and it may be possible to use
this information to improve single-species models and management advice to account for them as exogenous factors.
Ideally, a linked dynamic set of fishery and environmental
models will be constructed enabling managers to better
understand how changes in one part of the system affect other
parts and how best to react or even manipulate the system.
In addition to evaluating potential management actions or
forecasting future outcomes in the fishery system, models of
the system can also be used to determine which variables and
processes have the most impact on the system. This knowledge
can be used to determine the value of better information and
direct research. Ultimately, this information can be used to
manage these three key fisheries in a systemwide manner that
maximizes the service of provisioning of seafood and the
various benefits that flow from that service (e.g., revenues,
working waterfronts, community identity).
Coastal Zone Management in Belize
Belize is home to a rich diversity of ocean life, coastal habitats,
and the longest barrier reef in the Western hemisphere. Its
people are inextricably linked to the marine environment as a
source of sustenance, inspiration, economic prosperity, and
cultural heritage (Figure 4). Yet rapid development, overfishing,
and population growth threaten local marine ecosystems. In
Figure 4 Belize is home to a rich diversity of marine life; its people
derive sustenance, inspiration, economic prosperity, and cultural
heritage from the marine environment. Mangroves and coral reefs not
only provide protection from storms and serve as a draw for
international tourism, but also are critical habitats for the spiny
lobster, a backbone of commercial and artisanal fisheries. The
commercial fishermen in this picture are from a fleet of dugout
canoes that work with a traditional sail boat (or ‘‘mother ship’’’) to
harvest spiny lobster.
343
1998, the government created the Coastal Zone Management
Authority and Institute (CZMAI) with the objective of developing an integrated management plan to guide sustainable
economic growth that is consistent with protection of Belize’s
natural heritage. To date, however, CZMAI has lacked the scientific capacity needed to assess trade-offs among various
marine uses and to demonstrate potential win–wins where
emphasis on one service yields benefits for another.
CZMAI has partnered with the Natural Capital Project to
help create a comprehensive coastal zone management plan
for Belize. The plan will identify new marine protected areas,
locations suitable for coastal development, and strategies such
as payments for ecosystem services (PES) and other market
mechanisms (e.g., catch shares) to support effective implementation. The partners are using Marine InVEST to forecast
how management strategies and future uses of the marine
environment will likely affect the benefits that nature brings to
people, such as nursery habitat for fisheries, tourism and recreation, coastal protection, and carbon storage. By providing a
platform for stakeholder and agency discussions about tradeoffs and win–win situations, this information is moving the
process beyond sector-specific issues to the development of a
defensible plan.
The first step toward developing a coastal zone plan informed by the science of ecosystem services is to identify and
map current and potential future uses of marine and coastal
environments. Next is to use modeling approaches (in this
case, the InVEST decision support tool) to examine how these
activities affect the ecosystem services most important to
Belizeans. The team is running marine InVEST models, given
future scenarios of marine use, to quantify changes in the
ecosystem services that are most compelling to stakeholders
and government officials. Scenarios under consideration include explorations of how coastal development and no-take
areas – in addition to climate change – might affect services,
including (1) provision of commercial and artisanal fisheries
for lobster; (2) flooding and erosion protection provided by
mangroves, corals, and seagrasses; and (3) maintenance of
tourism attractions such as snorkeling and diving. Quantitative outputs in biophysical (e.g., biomass of harvested fish,
reduction in land flooded or eroded due to mangroves) and
economic (e.g., net present value of harvest, avoided damages
to property values) units for each service are informing
CZMAI’s coastal planning process.
Modeling of ecosystem services in Belize is helping to articulate connections between human activities that are often
considered in isolation to align diverse stakeholders around
common goals and to make implicit decisions explicit. Ecosystem service modeling results have informed early iterations
of the coastal zone plan and will inform the creation of the
final plan in 2012.
Protection and Restoration of Reef Habitats in the Coral
Triangle
Klein et al. (2010) used a combination of quantitative modeling and qualitative information to prioritize strategies for
protection and restoration of reef habitats in the coral triangle.
The method is designed to allocate a limited budget to management and policy interventions that will abate key threats
Author's personal copy
344
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
affecting marine ecosystem objectives. The approach requires
estimates of management costs and opportunity costs of applying alternative actions; and these estimates are user-generated, so they can come from expert judgment, models, or
empirical information. The models provide an estimate of the
return on investment for different actions so that the relative
merits of land- and marine-based interventions on marine
ecosystem biodiversity and services can be weighed. This type
of practical approach, where a mix of quantitative and expert
information is used, allows the users to consider both economic and ecological criteria in a conservation management
context. For example, for the ecoregions of the coral triangle,
marine-based conservation efforts (e.g., establishment of
MPAs, changes in fishing gear types) were often more costeffective at improving marine ecosystem condition than landbased actions designed to reduce nutrient or sediment runoff.
Putting Offshore Wind in Context in Massachusetts
Like many coastal marine ecosystems, the coast of Massachusetts (US) is crowded with various user groups interested
in using a broad range of ecosystem services. Conflicts among
sectors in their ability to procure different services from
shared, interacting ecosystem resources has prompted calls for
the reduction of conflicts through transparent, integrated
marine spatial planning. In Massachusetts and elsewhere,
offshore wind farms are an emerging, and controversial, ocean
use. Numerous wind farms are under litigation or consideration in the state. Large economic gains and ‘‘green’’ energy are
purported benefits; impacts on marine mammals and fisheries
are some of the potential costs. To explore these issues and
inform the dialogue about this new and emerging use of the
marine environment, White and colleagues (in press) performed a spatially explicit bioeconomic trade-off analysis
among wind energy, fishery, and whale-watching ecosystem
services in Massachusetts Bay. They identified optimal planning solutions for wind-energy development that minimize
spatial conflicts among sectors and maximize their values.
Solutions that considered all three sectors were significantly
better than single-sector management outcomes. Solutions
were also strongly dependent on the spatial design of the wind
farms and the particular fishery examined. This approach of
quantifying ecosystem service trade-offs in a crowded, multiuse ecosystem highlights when and how offshore renewable
energy may be developed optimally within the complicated
contexts of coastal ecosystems.
Here we have reviewed the services provided by marine
environments, discussed some of the potential audiences
for information about how changes in marine ecosystems
are likely to lead to changes in services, explored critical
differences – both in human and scientific contexts – between
mapping and modeling ecosystem services on land and at sea,
outlined approaches to modeling marine ecosystem services,
and described some examples of how these approaches can
and are being used in real decision making.
Quantifying, mapping, and valuing marine ecosystem services have the potential to fundamentally change decision
making in marine and coastal environments. Making explicit
the connections between human activities in one sector and
their effects on a broad range of other sectors leads people to
think about whole ecosystems and to manage them accordingly. Ultimately, results from marine ecosystem service
modeling can help society perceive the critical services oceans
and coasts provide, appropriately value marine natural capital,
and help human communities make better choices about the
use of these life-sustaining environments.
Appendix
List of Courses
1.
2.
3.
4.
Marine
Marine
Marine
Marine
Ecosystem Services
Conservation Biology
Ecology
Resource Economics
See also: Aquaculture. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Biodiversity, Human Well-Being, and Markets. Carbon Cycle. Census
of Marine Life. Computer Systems and Models, Use of. Economic
Value of Biodiversity, Measurements of. Economics of the Regulating
Services. Ecosystem, Concept of. Ecosystem Function Measurement,
Aquatic and Marine Communities. Ecosystem Function, Principles of.
Ecosystem Services. Endangered Marine Invertebrates. Estuarine
Ecosystems. Evaluation of Ecosystem Service Policies from
Biophysical and Social Perspectives: The Case of China. Fish
Conservation. Mangrove Ecosystems. Marine Conservation in a
Changing Climate. Marine Ecosystems, Human Impacts on. Marine
Ecosystems. Marine Protected Areas: Static Boundaries in a Changing
World. Modeling Terrestrial Ecosystem Services. Ocean Ecosystems.
Priority Setting for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Resource
Exploitation, Fisheries. The Value of Biodiversity. Valuing Ecosystem
Services
Conclusions
References
Marine ecosystems around the globe are under increasing
pressure: people rely on them for the delivery of provisioning,
regulating, supporting, and cultural ecosystem services. With
increasing pressure from increasing and redistributing human
populations and from new and emerging uses (e.g., renewable
energy), the ability of these systems to sustainably deliver
the full range of services that people count on and need is not
assured.
Agardy T, Alder J, Dayton P, et al. (2005) Coastal Systems. Assessment report.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ch 19.
Anielski M and Wilson SJ (2009) Counting Canada’s Natural Capital: Assessing the
Real Value of Canada’s Boreal Ecosystems. Drayton Valley, Alberta: Canadian
Boreal Initiative & The Pembina Institute.
Balvanera P, Pfisterer A, Buchmann N, et al. (2006) Quantifying the evidence for
biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning and services. Ecology Letters 9:
1146–1156.
Author's personal copy
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Barbier E, Koch E, Siliman B, et al. (2008) Coastal ecosystem-based management
with nonlinear ecological functions and values. Science 319: 321–323.
Basurto X and Coleman E (2010) Institutional and ecological interplay for
successful self-governance of community-based fisheries. Ecological Economics
69: 1094–1103.
Beaumont N, Austen M, Atkins J, et al. (2007) Identification, definition and
quantification of goods and services provided by marine biodiversity:
Implications for the ecosystem approach. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54: 253–265.
Beaumont NJ, Austen MC, Mangi SC, and Townsend M (2008) Economic valuation
for the conservation of marine biodiversity. Marine Pollution Bulletin 56:
386–396.
Bockstael NE, Freeman III AM, Kopp RJ, Portney PR, and Smith VK (2000) On
measuring economic values for nature. Environmental Science and Technology
34: 1384–1389.
Boyd J (2007) The Endpoint Problem. Resources 165: 26–28.
Boyd J and Banzhaf S (2007) What are ecosystem services? The need for
standardized environmental accounting units. Ecological Economics 63:
616–626.
Brander K (2010) Reconciling biodiversity conservation and marine capture fisheries
production. Current Opinions in Environmental Sustainability 2: 416–421.
Burke L, Kura Y, Kassem K, Revenga C, Spalding M, and McAllister D (2001) Pilot
Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Coastal Ecosystems. Washington, DC: World
Resources Institute.
Caddy JF (1999) Fisheries management in the twenty-first century: Will new
paradigms apply? Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 9: 1–43.
Carpenter S, Caraco N, Correll D, Howarth R, Sharpley A, and Smith V (1998)
Nonpoint pollution of surface waters with phosphorus and nitrogen. Ecological
Applications 8: 559–568.
Carte BK (1996) Biomedical potential of marine natural products. BioScience 46:
271–286.
Center for Ocean Solutions (2011) Decision-Guide: Selecting Decision-Suport Tools
for Marine Spatial Planning. Stanford, CA: The Woods Institute for the
Environment, Stanford University.
Chan K, Guerry A, Satterfield T, et al. (in press) Integrating ‘‘cultural’’ and ‘‘social’’
into ecosystem services: A framework for making decisions about what matters.
BioScience.
Chan K and Ruckelshaus M (2010) Characterizing changes in marine ecosystem
services. F1000 Biology Reports 2: 54–60.
Christensen V and Walters C (2004) Ecopath with Ecosim: Methods, capabilities
and limitations. Ecological Modeling 172: 109–139.
Churchill JH, Runge J, and Chen C (2011) Processes controlling retention of
spring-spawned Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the western Gulf of Maine and
their relationship to an index of recruitment success. Fisheries Oceanography
20: 32–46.
Clawson M (1959) Methods of Measuring the Demand and Value of Outdoor
Recreation. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
Colling A (2001) Ocean Circulation. Milton Keynes, UK: Butterworth Heineman and
The Open University.
Costanza R (2000) The ecological, economic and social importance of the oceans.
In: Sheppard CRC (ed.) Seas at the Millenium: An Environmental Evaluation,
vol. 3: Global Issues and Processes. New York: Pergamon Press.
Costanza R, d’Arge R, de Groot R, et al. (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem
services and natural capital. Nature 387: 253–260.
Costello C and Polasky S (2008) Optimal harvesting of stochastic spatial resources.
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 56: 1–18.
Cudney-Bueno R and Basurto X (2009) Lack of cross-scale linkages reduces
robustness of community-based fisheries management. PLoS One 4: e6253.
Culliton T (1998) Population: Distribution, Density, and Growth. National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration. MD: Silver Spring.
Danielsen F, Sorensen M, Olwig M, et al. (2005) The asian tsunami: A protective
role for coastal vegetation. Science 370: 643.
Day Jr. J, Ko J, Rybczyk J, et al. (2004) The use of wetlands in the Mississippi
Delta for wastewater assimilation: A review. Ocean and Coastal Management 47:
671–691.
deGroot R, Wilson M, and Boumans R (2002) Ecosystem functions, goods and
services: Classification, description and valuation guidelines. Ecological
Economics 41: 393–408.
Dennison W, Lookingbill T, Carruthers T, Hawkey J, and Carter S (2007) An eyeopening approach to developing and communicating integrated environmental
assessments. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5: 307–314.
Diaz R and Rosenberg R (2008) Spreading dead zones and consequences for
marine ecosystems. Science 321: 926–929.
345
Douvere F and Ehler C (2009) New perspectives on sea use management: Initial
findings from European experience with marine spatial planning. Journal of
Environmental Management 90: 77–88.
Ehler C and Douvere F (2009) Mrine spatial planning: A step-by-step approach
toward ecosystem-based management. Paris: UNESCO.
European Commission (2010) Maritime Spatial Planning in the EU: Achievements
and Future Development. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission.
FAO Fisheries Department (2010) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture.
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. Rome: Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations.
Foley M, Halpern B, Micheli F, et al. (2010) Guiding ecological principles for
marine spatial planning. Marine Policy 34: 955–966.
Freeman III AM (1993) The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values:
Theory and Methods. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
Fulton EA, Parslow JS, Smith ADM, and Johnson CR (2004a) Biogeochemical
marine ecosystem models II: The effect of physiological detail on model
performance. Ecological Modelling 173: 371–406.
Fulton EA, Smith ADM, and Johnson CR (2004b) Biogeochemical marine
ecosystem models. I: IGBEM – a model of marine bay ecosystems. Ecological
Modelling 174: 267–307.
Gleick P (1996) Water resources. In: Schneider S (ed.) Encyclopedia of Climate and
Weather, pp. 817–823. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gordon HS (1954) The economic theory of a common-property resource: The
fishery. The Journal of Political Economy 62: 124–142.
Grabowski JH, Clesceri EJ, Gaudette J, Baukus A, Weber M, and Yund PO (2010)
Use of herring bait to farm lobsters in the Gulf of Maine. PLoS One 5: e10188.
Groffman P, Baron J, Blett T, et al. (2006) Ecological thresholds: The key to
successful environmental management or an important concept with no practical
application? Ecosystems 9: 1–13.
Guerry A, Plummer M, Ruckelshaus M, and Harvey C (2011) Ecosystem service
assessments for marine conservation. In: Kareiva P, Tallis H, Ricketts T, Daily G,
and Polasky S (eds.) Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping
Ecosystem Services. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guerry AD, Ruckelshaus MH, Arkema KK, et al. (2012) Modeling benefits from
nature: Using ecosystem services to inform marine spatial planning. International
Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services and Management. doi:
10.1080/21513732.2011.647835.
Holland DS and Brazee R (1996) Marine reserves for fisheries management. Marine
Resource Economics 11: 157–171.
Holland DS, Sanchirico J, Johnston RJ, and Joglekar DP (2010) Economic Analysis
for Ecosystem Based Management: Applications to Marine and Coastal
Environments. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
Hollowed AB, Aydin KY, Essington T, et al. (2011) Experience with quantitative
ecosystem assessment tools in the northeast Pacific. Fish and Fisheries 12:
189–208.
Holmlund CM and Hammer M (1999) Ecosystem services generated by fish
populations. Ecological Economics 29: 253–268.
Incze L, Xue H, Wolff N, et al. (2010) Connectivity of lobster (Homarus americanus)
populations in the coastal Gulf of Maine: Part II. Coupled biophysical dynamics.
Fisheries Oceanography 19: 1–20.
Ingraham MW and Foster SG (2008) The value of ecosystem services provided by
the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System in the contiguous. U.S Ecological
Economics 67: 608–618.
Inter-agency Ocean Policy Task Force (IOPTF) (2010) Final Recommendations of the
Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. Washington, DC: Council on
Environmental Quality.
Kareiva P, Tallis H, Ricketts TH, Daily GC, and Polasky S (eds.) (2011) Natural
Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services. Cambridge: Oxford
University Press.
Klein C, Ban N, Halpern B, et al. (2010) Prioritizing land and sea conservation
investments to protect coral reefs. PLoS One 5: e12431.
Kliskey A, Alessa L, and Barr B (2009) Integrating local and traditional ecological
knowledge. In: McLeod K and Leslie H (eds.) Ecosystem-Based Management for
the Oceans, pp. 145–161. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Knetsch JL (1963) Outdoor recreation demands and benefits. Land Economics 39:
387–396.
Koch EW, Barbier EB, Silliman BR, et al. (2009) Non-linearity in ecosystem
services: Temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection. Frontiers in
Ecology and the Environment 7: 29–37.
Lester SE, McLeod K, Tallis H, et al. (2010) Science in support of ecosystem-based
management for the US West Coast and beyond. Biological Conservation 143:
576–587.
Author's personal copy
346
Modeling Marine Ecosystem Services
Levin PS, Fogarty MJ, Murawski SA, and Fluharty D (2009) Integrated ecosystem
assessments: Developing the scientific basis for ecosystem-based management
of the ocean. PLoS Biology 7: 23–28.
Levin S (1998) Ecosystems and the biosphere as complex adaptive systems.
Ecosystems 1.
Levin S and Lubchenco J (2008) Resilience, robustness, and marine ecosystembased management. BioScience 58: 1–6.
Liu J, Dietz T, Carpenter SR, et al. (2007a) Complexity of coupled human and
natural systems. Science 317: 1513–1516.
Liu J, Dietz T, Carpenter SR, et al. (2007b) Coupled human and natural systems.
Ambio 36: 639–648.
Mallin MA, Williams KE, Esham EC, and Lowe RP (2000) Effect of human
development on bacteriological water quality in coastal watersheds. Ecological
Applications 10: 1047–1056.
Melillo JM, Mcguire AD, Kicklighter DW, Moore B, Vorosmarty CJ, and Schloss AL
(1993) Global climate-change and terrestrial net primary production. Nature 363:
234–240.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005a) Ecosystems and Human Well-Being:
Scenarios, vol. 2. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005b) Ecosystems and human well-being:
Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Mitchell RC and Carson RT (1989) Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The
Contingent Valuation Method. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.
Moberg F and Folke C (1999) Ecological goods and services of coral reef
ecosystems. Ecological Economics 29: 215–233.
Morey E (1981) The demand for site-specific recreation activities: A characteristics
approach. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 8: 345–371.
Murawski SA, Steele J, Taylor P, et al. (2009) Why compare marine ecosystems?
ICES Journal of Marine Science 67: 1–9.
Naeem S, Bunker D, and Hector A (2009) Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning and
Human Wellbeing: An Ecological and Economic Perspective. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Naidoo R, Balmford A, Costanza R, et al. (2008) Global mapping of ecosystem
services and conservation priorities. Proceeding of the National Academy of
Sciences 105: 9495–9500.
National Research Council (2005) Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better
Environmental Decision-Making. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Nellemann C, Corcoran E, Duarte CM, et al. (2009) Blue Carbon. A Rapid
Response Assessment. GRID-Arendal: United Nations Environment Programme.
Ostrom E (2009) A general framework for analyzing sustainability of socialecological systems. Science 325: 419–422.
Palmquist RB (1991) Hedonic methods. In: Braden JB and Kolstad CD (eds.)
Measuring the Demand for Environmental Quality, pp. 77–120. Amsterdam:
North Holland.
Palmquist RB (2003) Property value models. In: Mäler K-G and Vincent JR (eds.)
Handbook of Environmental Economics. North Holland: Elsevier.
Palumbi S, Sandifer P, Allan J, et al. (2009) Managing for ocean biodiversity to
sustain marine ecosystem services. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7:
204–211.
Patterson M and Glavovic B (eds.) (2008) Ecological Economics of the Oceans and
Coasts. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Pergams O and Kareiva P (2009) Support services: A focus on genetic diversity. In:
Levin S (ed.) The Princeton Guide to Ecology, pp. 642–651. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Peterson C and Lubchenco J (1997) Marine ecosystem services. In: Daily G (ed.)
Nature’s Services. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Plummer ML (2009) Assessing benefit transfer for the valuation of ecosystem
services. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7: 38–45.
Ricketts T, Daily G, Ehrlich PR, and Michener C (2004) Economic value of tropical
forest to coffee production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of
the United States of America 101: 12579–12582.
Rodrı́guez JP, Beard JTD, Bennett EM, et al. (2006) Trade-offs across space, time,
and ecosystem services. Ecology and Society 11: 28.
Ronnback P (1999) The ecological basis for economic value of seafood production
supported by mangrove ecosystems. Ecological Economics 29: 235–252.
Rosenberger R and Loomis J (2001) Benefit Transfer of Outdoor Recreation Use
Values: A Technical Document Supporting the Forest Service Strategic Plan
(2000 revision). Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Ryan RW, Holland DS, and Herrera G (2010) Bioeconomic equilibrium in a Baitconstrained fishery. Marine Resource Economics 25: 281–294.
Sainsbury KJ, Punt AE, and Smith A (2000) Design of operational management
strategies for achieving fishery ecosystem objectives. ICES Journal of Marine
Science 57: 731–741.
Samhouri J, Levin P, James CA, Kershner J, and Williams G (2011) Using existing
scientific capacity to set targets for ecosystem-based management: A Puget
sound case study. Marine Policy 35: 508–518.
Sanchirico JN and Wilen JE (1999) Bioeconomics of spatial exploitation in a patchy
environment. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 37:
129–150.
Sathirathai S and Barbier EB (2001) Valuing mangrove conservation in southern
Thailand. Contemporary Economic Policy 19: 109–122.
Schaefer MB (1957) Some considerations of population dynamics and economics
in relation to the management of marine fishes. Journal of the Fisheries
Research Board of Canada 14: 669–681.
Schlesinger W (1991) Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change. Academic
Press
Schmitt RJ, Jacobs RS, Page HM, et al. (2006) Advancing marine biotechnology:
Use of OCS oil platforms as sustainable sources of marine natural products.
Santa Barbara, CA: Coastal Research Center, Marine Science Institute, University
of California.
Scott A (1955) The fishery: The objectives of sole ownership. Journal of Political
Economy 63: 116–124.
Slesnick D (1998) Empirical approaches to the measurement of welfare. Journal of
Economic Literature 36: 2108–2165.
Smith A, Fulton E, Hobday A, Smith D, and Shoulder P (2007) Scientific tools to
support the practical implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management.
ICES Journal of Marine Science 64: 633–639.
Smith MD (2008) Bioeconometrics: Empirical modeling of bioeconomic systems.
Marine Resource Economics 23: 1–23.
Smith MD, Zhang J, and Coleman FC (2008) Econometric modeling of fisheries
with complex life histories: Avoiding biological management failures. Journal of
Environmental Economics and Management 55: 265–280.
Stokstad E (2011) Appraising UK’s ecosystems, Report envisions greener horizons.
Science 332: 1139.
Tallis H, Kareiva P, Marvier M, and Chang A (2008) An ecosystem services
framework to support both practical conservation and economic development.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 105: 9457–9464.
Tallis H, Lester SE, Ruckelshaus M, et al. (2011) New metrics for managing and
sustaining the ocean’s bounty. Marine Policy.
Tallis H, Levin PS, Ruckelshaus M, et al. (2010) The many faces of ecosystembased management: Making the process work today in real places. Marine
Policy 34: 340–348.
Toman M (1998) Why not to calculate the value of the world’s ecosystem services
and natural capital. Ecological Economics 25: 57–60.
Travis J (2005) Hurricane Katrina: Scientists’ fears come true as hurricane floods
New Orleans. Science 309: 1656–1659.
Troy A and Wilson M (2006) Mapping ecosystem services: Practical challenges and
opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer. Ecological Economics 60.
UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) The UK National Ecosystem
Assessment: Synthesis of the Key Findings. Cambridge: UNEP-WCMC.
UN General Assembly (UNGA) ((2010) Sustainable Development: Report of the
Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme on its
Eleventh Special Session.
UNEP and IOC-UNESCO (2009) An Assessment of Assessments, Findings of the
Group of Experts. Start Up Phase of a Regular Process for Global Reporting and
Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment including Socio-Economic
Aspects.
United Nations Environment Program (2006) Marine and Coastal Ecosystems and
Human Wellbeing: A Synthesis Report based on the Findings of the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment. United Nations Environment Program.
White C, Halpern BS, and Kappel CV (in press) Ecosystem service tradeoff analysis
reveals the value of marine spatial planning for multiple ocean uses. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Wilen JE, Smith M, Lockwood D, and Botsford L (2002) Avoiding surprises:
Incorporating fisherman behavior into management models. Bulletin of Marine
Science 70: 553–575.
Wilson MA and Liu S (2008) Evaluating the nonmarket value of ecosystem goods
and services provided by coastal and nearshore marine system. In: Patterson
MG and Glavovic BC (eds.) The Ecological Economics of the Oceans and
Coasts. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Worm B, Barbier E, Beaumont N, et al. (2006) Impacts of biodiversity loss on
ocean ecosystem services. Science 314: 787–790.