1. Title Date1 WAVES © 2014 Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services www.wavespartnership.org Biophysical modeling of ecosystem services: Module 2B: Ecological Production Functions and Ecoregions WAVES Training Module

2. Title Date2 WAVES © 2014 Ecological production functions Analogous to production functions in: Economics Economic production = ∫ (land, labor, capital) Agriculture Plant growth = ∫ (N, P, K, water, growing degree days)

3. Title Date3 WAVES © 2014 Ecological production functions A common example: Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation: a = R*K*LS*C*P Soil loss = rainfall erosivity*soil erodibility*slope steepness & length*cover management*conservation practice Predicts sheet & rill erosion in relatively flat, agricultural landscapes REPLACE WITH IMAGES OF THE 5 FACTORS? REPLACE WITH IMAGES OF E.G., A CORN FIELD

4. Title Date4 WAVES © 2014 How do we derive ecological production functions? Field experiments

5. Title Date5 WAVES © 2014 How do we derive ecological production functions? Field experiments

6. Title Date6 WAVES © 2014 How can we apply ecological production functions more broadly? Meta analysis

7. Title Date7 WAVES © 2014 How can we apply ecological production functions more broadly? Meta analysis

8. Title Date8 WAVES © 2014 Knowing the “boundaries” of your models Can we apply a model tested in one place to another? RUSLE: developed in the central United States. May be OK to apply to agricultural landscapes in Europe. Probably not OK to apply to volcanic landscapes in the Pacific Islands. Biomes or ecoregions: “natural” units – similar vegetation, climate, soils, etc. Similar ecological processes that underpin ecosystem services?

9. Title Date9 WAVES © 2014 Knowing the “boundaries” of your models Are there thresholds and nonlinearities in the biophysical or socioeconomic system? Local/regional ecological & hydrologic transitions (climatic drying, collapse of a fishery) Potential tipping points in the global climate system (Lenton et al. 2008) Breakdowns in governance (natural disasters, drought, poverty, war) If so, a model may predict system behavior well up to a point but then break down Predicting and understanding thresholds and nonlinearities is a very complex problem (Scheffer et al. 2009)

10. Title Date10 WAVES © 2014 Thresholds and nonlinearities Scheffer et al. 2009Paul and Meyer 2001

11. Title Date11 WAVES © 2014 How widely can we apply ecological production functions? Derived, at least initially, from field measurements/experiments! http://naturalcapitalproject.org/database.html

12. Title Date12 WAVES © 2014 Ecoregions and the use of ecological production functions

13. Title Date13 WAVES © 2014 Whose ecoregions? World Wildlife Fund (WWF) WWF ecoregions USGS ecosystems biomes (global n = 14) (global n = 867) (global n = 3,923)

14. Title Date14 WAVES © 2014 Whose ecoregions? World Wildlife Fund (WWF) biomes WWF ecoregions ecosystems

15. Title Date15 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Philippines

16. Title Date16 WAVES © 2014 Marine ecoregions The Nature Conservancy – Marine Ecoregions of the World (global n = 232)

17. Title Date17 WAVES © 2014 Exercise 3: Ecoregions for ecosystem service modeling 1. Pull up a map of your country’s ecoregions. 2. Individually, spend 5 minutes writing the pros and cons of using a given ecoregional classification system for applying ecosystem service models. 3. Spend 10 minutes in small group discussion (3-4 participants), debating your positions. 4. Each group presents one of their positions to the full group.

18. Title Date18 WAVES © 2014

19. Title Date19 WAVES © 2014 Whose ecoregions? World Wildlife Fund (WWF) WWF ecoregions USGS ecosystems biomes

20. Title Date20 WAVES © 2014 Whose ecoregions? World Wildlife Fund (WWF) biomes WWF ecoregions ecosystems

21. Title Date21 WAVES © 2014 Whose ecoregions? World Wildlife Fund (WWF) biomes WWF ecoregions ecosystems

22. Title Date22 WAVES © 2014 Whose ecoregions? World Wildlife Fund (WWF) biomes WWF ecoregions ecosystems

23. Title Date23 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Colombia

24. Title Date24 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions – Costa Rica

25. Title Date25 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Guatemala

26. Title Date26 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Rwanda

27. Title Date27 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Madagascar

28. Title Date28 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Botswana

29. Title Date29 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - Indonesia

30. Title Date30 WAVES © 2014 WWF biomes & ecoregions - India