Keywords

1 Introduction

Mountain socio-ecological systems provide multiple ecosystem services such as fresh water, timber production, climate regulation, and recreation (Grêt-Regamey & Weibel, 2020), which are mostly co-produced through human-nature interactions. Beneficiaries are not only the local residents and tourists but also the people living in the adjacent lowlands (Grêt-Regamey et al., 2012; Schirpke et al., 2019a). For example, lowland populations often obtain fresh water from the mountains or visit mountain regions for recreational activities. Hence, service-providing areas are often dislocated from benefitting area (Syrbe & Grunewald, 2017), as the capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services greatly depends on spatial characteristics and environmental conditions such as climate, land use/cover and topography (Mengist et al., 2020). Such spatial discrepancies require the transportation of goods or the movement of people to benefit from the services provided, if the demand for certain ecosystem services exceeds the provision at the local level (Serna-Chavez et al., 2014). In mountain-lowland systems, hotspots of ecosystem services supply are predominantly located in mountain areas, whereas the beneficiaries are mostly located in the lowland areas (Grêt-Regamey et al., 2012; Schirpke et al., 2019a). These spatial misbalances can create dependencies of people in the lowlands from services provided by mountain regions (Grêt-Regamey & Weibel, 2020; Meisch et al., 2019).

In mountain ecosystems, which are highly susceptible to global change, an increasing demand for ecosystem services such as outdoor recreation may lead to increasing pressure on mountain ecosystems (Jäger et al., 2020b). Therefore, a profound understanding of interactions between human activities and ecological processes in such vulnerable system is fundamental to develop sustainable management strategies that aim at maintaining the supply of multiple ecosystem services and at preserving biological diversity (Huber et al., 2013), not only locally or regionally but also at cross-national level. Spatially explicit and quantitative analyses of multiple ecosystem services are therefore essential to generate knowledge about mountain-lowland interactions of multiple ecosystem services (Mengist et al., 2020). In particular, analyses that account for supply, demand and actual use of goods and services contribute to an enhanced understanding of spatial interactions and incongruences (Spake et al., 2017).

In this chapter, quantitative and spatially explicit analysis of multiple ecosystem services in the European Alps and adjacent lowlands is presented, focusing on mountain-lowland interactions. Key ecosystem services include fresh water, grassland biomass, fuel wood, filtration of surface water, protection against mountain hazards, carbon sequestration, outdoor recreation and symbolic species. By linking and further elaborating data provided by previous studies (Schirpke et al. 2019a, b, c), this chapter highlights (1) differences in the spatial distribution of ecosystem services across mountain and lowland areas, (2) spatial mismatches between supply and demand requiring transfer processes, and (3) spatial linkages between ecosystem services and sustainability. Finally, recent and future challenges in mountain socio-ecological systems under global change are indicated.

2 The ‘Alpine Space Programme’ Cooperation Area

The ‘Alpine Space Programme’ cooperation area (hereinafter referred to as ASP) is located in central Europe and includes the European Alps as well as the surrounding foothills and lowlands (Fig. 11.1). It covers about 390,000 km2 and comprises Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Slovenia, as well as several regions of France, Germany and Italy. The ASP is characterised by significant topographical and climatic differences, different populations and cultures, resulting in a high variety of landscapes. The core mountain range, the European Alps, represent one of the largest continuous near-natural areas in Europe and the landscape is strongly influenced by traditional small-scale farming (Flury et al., 2013), with the exception of the valley bottoms. Instead, large-scale intensive agriculture and metropolitan regions dominate the surrounding lowlands and foothills (Dematteis, 2009). The ASP has a population of about 70 million, mostly living in strongly urbanized areas in the lowlands. The European Alps are one of the most important European tourist destinations with more than 100 million visitors each year (Batista e Silva et al., 2018), besides offering a wide range of recreational opportunities to the people living in the ASP.

Fig. 11.1
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The ‘Alpine Space Programme’ cooperation area and distribution of major land cover types in the mountain and lowland area

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To disentangle the differences in ecosystem services between the mountain regions and the lowland areas, this study separated mountain areas from lowland areas by applying a threshold of terrain ruggedness (difference in elevation >200 m between the value of a cell and the mean of an 8-cell neighbourhood of surrounding cells; Körner et al., 2011). Mountain areas, covering 47% of the total area (37% of the municipalities), are characterized by a high share of near-natural ecosystems, whereas lowland areas are dominated by agriculture and have a higher share of artificial surfaces (Fig. 11.1).

3 Spatial Distribution of Key Ecosystem Services

Eight key ecosystem services (Table 11.1) were identified for the ASP through literature review, expert workshops and a user survey and account for specificity, representativeness, easiness of communication as well as controllability at different policy levels (Schirpke et al., 2019a). The geospatial datasets of all ecosystem services are available at the municipality level (www.alpes-webgis.eu), differentiating between supply, actual use and demand. Ecosystem services supply is defined as the capacity of ecosystems to provide ecosystem services, while the actual use indicates the level of use (Burkhard & Maes, 2017). The demand for ecosystem services indicates the amount of a service required and/or desired by society (Wolff et al., 2015). For most ecosystem services, supply, demand and actual use were quantified at the landscape scale on a pixel basis with a resolution of 25 m (grassland biomass, fuel wood, filtration of surface water, protection against mountain hazards, carbon sequestration) or 100 m (fresh water, outdoor recreation, symbolic species) using various spatially explicit indicators (Table 11.1). Some indicators, such as the number of residents and tourists, were only available at the municipality level. All indicators were subsequently aggregated to the municipality level and area-weighted mean ecosystem service values calculated. In this chapter, we use the max-standardized mean values at municipality level for analysing spatial relationships.

Table 11.1 Indicators of eight key ecosystem services, distinguishing supply, actual use and demand.
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The spatial distribution of supply, actual use and demand for the eight ecosystem services varies greatly across mountain and lowland areas within the ASP (Fig. 11.2). The supply and actual use of most ecosystem services is higher in mountain regions compared to lowland areas, with the exception of filtration of surface water and fresh water for the actual use. This can be explained by the higher amount of natural and near-natural ecosystems in mountain areas and related biophysical processes as well as by the location of benefitting areas for goods or cultural services. In contrast, lowland areas have a higher demand for ecosystem services due to higher population density and a more intensive agricultural use. Only the demand for protection against mountain hazards is higher in mountain regions due to topography.

Fig. 11.2
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Z-scores depicting the deviation of ecosystem service values of mountain and lowland area from the average of the entire study area. Positive z-scores refer to above-average values and negative z-scores to below-average values. Fresh water (WA), grassland biomass (GB), fuel wood (FW), filtration of surface water (FS), protection against mountain hazards (MH), carbon sequestration (CS), outdoor recreation (OR), symbolic species (SY)

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4 Spatial Mismatches Between Supply and Demand and Transfer Processes

Differences between ecosystem services supply and demand at the municipality level indicate great spatial variations of deficits or surpluses (Fig. 11.3). In particular, fresh water, fuel wood, protection against mountain hazards and outdoor recreation have a surplus in ecosystem services supply in mountain regions. Deficits can be found for carbon sequestration across the entire ASP and for all other ecosystem services, with the exception of filtration of surface water, in various locations in the lowlands.

Fig. 11.3
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Differences between supply and demand for standardized ecosystem services values at municipality level. Fresh water (WA), grassland biomass (GB), fuel wood (FW), filtration of surface water (FS), protection against mountain hazards (MH), carbon sequestration (CS), outdoor recreation (OR). Demand for symbolic species (SY) was not assessed

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Each ecosystem service has specific spatial relationships between service-providing area and benefitting area (Syrbe & Grunewald, 2017), which leads to different transfer processes (Fig. 11.4). These include the active transport of goods to the beneficiaries through human infrastructure for provisioning services, i.e. fodder and fuel wood are transported by road, rail or ship and fresh water by pipelines. Passive biophysical transport through ecological processes from polluting areas to service-providing ecosystems occurs for regulating services such as filtration of surface water or carbon sequestration, while protection against mountain hazards does not involve transfer processes. For cultural services, it may be necessary that people move to natural environments to benefit from recreational opportunities, or, in case of symbolic species, ideas or information are distributed through printed or digital media. In the study area, the direction of the spatial transfer is mainly from the mountains to the lowland areas for fresh water, fuel wood as well as symbolic species due to spatial mismatches between demand and supply. In the case of outdoor recreation, the main direction is from the lowlands to the mountains, which is mainly related to the unequal distribution of appealing landscapes with high recreation potential across the ASP. Carbon sequestration is directionless, while filtration of surface follows the water flow.

Fig. 11.4
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Generalized scheme of spatial interactions and transfer processes between mountain areas (M) and surrounding lowlands (L) for eight ecosystem services. For each area (M, L), the colours indicate whether this area is a service-providing area (supply > demand) or a service-demanding area (demand > supply). The different symbols indicate four different types of transfer processes (1–4). Figure modified from Schirpke et al. (2019b)

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5 Spatial Linkages Between Ecosystem Services and Sustainability

Although the concept of ecosystem services focuses on human well-being and human-nature interactions, ecosystem service assessments usually do not evaluate their results with regard to sustainability (Huber et al., 2013; Schirpke et al., 2019c), i.e., whether managing mountain landscapes for increasing or maintaining the provision of specific ecosystem services also supports the sustainable development of mountain socio-ecological systems. Considering the three dimensions environment, society and economy as equally important, sustainable development aims at supporting long-term socio-economic progress while protecting the environment.

To evaluate the spatial overlap between ecosystem services and sustainability for mountain and lowland regions, sustainability indicators at the municipality level were used from Schirpke et al. (2019c). The 24 indicators represented the three dimensions of environment, society or economy and were related to various topics such as biodiversity, land use, population, households and labour market (Fig. 11.5). A total sustainability index was calculated by standardizing all indicators to values between 0 and 1 and by subsequently aggregating them to a total value with the three dimensions equally represented.

Fig. 11.5
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Sustainability values of mountain and lowland areas represented by 24 indicators that are attributed to the three dimensions environment, society or economy. Z-scores depict the deviation of sustainability values of mountain and lowland areas from the average of the entire study area. Positive z-scores refer to above-average values and negative z-scores to below-average values. The influence of each indicator on the respective dimension of sustainability is indicated by + = positive and - = negative

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The sustainability index is generally higher in mountain areas than in most lowland areas due to above-average values for indicators related to environment (Fig. 11.6). Nevertheless, indicators related to society are generally stronger in lowland areas, whereas those related to economy and environment are mostly above average in mountain areas (Figs. 11.5 and 11.6). These spatial differences are also reflected in the spatial distribution of supply and demand for ecosystem services. Accordingly, areas of high supply of ecosystem services often coincide with high sustainability, while, in particular, urbanized area with a high demand for ecosystem services in lowland areas have low sustainability values. These results suggest that the supply of ecosystem services may reflect well the environmental dimension of sustainability, although a high supply does not imply a sustainable use of natural resources. In contrast, social and economic dimensions are rather related to the demand side, indicating misbalances between more rural or urban areas.

Fig. 11.6
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(a) Total sustainability index based on 24 standardized indicators (see Fig. 11.6) representing one of the three dimensions of environment, society or economy, which are equally represented. (b) Mean values (z-scores) of the three dimensions economy, environment and society for mountain and lowland areas

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6 Recent Developments and Future Challenges

The spatial analysis of multiple ecosystem services in the ASP indicates significant supply-demand mismatches across landscapes, i.e. mountain regions are generally hotspots of ecosystem services supply, whereas highly urbanized areas or intensively used agricultural areas, mostly located in the adjacent lowlands, are related to high demand for ecosystem services (Grêt-Regamey et al., 2012; Schirpke et al., 2019a). Consequently, the spatial flow is directed from mountain regions towards lowland area for many ecosystem services, but transfer processes often involve interactions at the global level (Schirpke et al., 2019b). Such dependencies will become even more important in the future due to global change (Grêt-Regamey & Weibel, 2020). For example, changing rainfall patterns are likely to increase water stress in the southern parts along together with an increasing water demand of the urban population in the lowlands (Meisch et al., 2019), which leads to higher levels of water insecurity and a higher necessity to obtain water from the mountain regions. Accordingly, the southern regions will be affected by a decline in the production of grassland biomass due to water scarcity, while productivity may increase in low-elevated hillslopes due to increasing temperatures provided that there is enough precipitation (Jäger et al., 2020a).

In mountain regions, past land-use changes have already altered the supply of ecosystem services, inducing a shift towards forest-related ecosystem services on the expense of grassland biomass production and various cultural ecosystem services at the subalpine and alpine zone, while the production of agricultural products increased in the lower elevated valleys (Egarter Vigl et al., 2016; Locatelli et al., 2017). Spatially explicit scenarios based on socio-economic developments suggest that this trend will generally continue and be amplified by legacy effects (Tasser et al., 2017; Schirpke et al., 2020b). Hence, regulating ecosystem services will become more dominant in higher areas, while the lower areas will focus on provisioning services. Cultural services that greatly depend on the composition of the landscape, such as aesthetic or symbolic values, could be increasingly at risk due to the abandonment of mountain grassland (Schirpke et al., 2020a). At the same time, socio-demographic changes, including population growth and altered leisure behaviour, are expected to increase the recreational use of natural environments (Guo et al., 2010). A higher spatio-temporal expansion of recreational activities, however, may add pressure on mountain environments by degrading sensitive ecosystems and leading to higher disturbance of wildlife (Jäger et al., 2020b). Additionally, it can be expected that conflicts between recreational user groups or with non-recreational interested parties such as forest managers, hunters, farmers, nature conservationists will become more frequent, which may lead to restriction of recreational use or limit the provision of non-recreational services (Schirpke et al., 2020a).

7 Concluding Remarks

The above-indicated developments call for more attention to a sustainable use of natural resources and the development of nature-based solutions in mountain regions as well as adjacent lowlands (Grêt-Regamey & Weibel, 2020). However, a focus on the provision of selected ecosystem services may neglect trade-offs among different ecosystem services and disregard socio-economic aspects (Huber et al., 2013; Spake et al., 2017; Schirpke et al., 2019a). Accordingly, the herein presented results underline that, in addition to accounting for the demand side, it is necessary to integrate the mapping of ecosystem services with socio-economic and environmental data representing aspects of human well-being to improve the understanding of the complex interrelationships within mountain socio-ecological systems. Here, sustainability indicators may be useful to reveal spatial misbalances and to monitor the effects of landscape management and land-use policies over time. Further assessments of human values and benefits may also provide in-depth insights on social relations and human-nature interactions (Mengist et al., 2020), which should be considered in decision-making in addition to account for multiple ecosystem services as well as the complex spatial relationships between areas of supply and areas of demand.