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Mapping the Value of National Forest Landscapes for Ecosystem Service Provision

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Valuing Chaparral

Part of the book series: Springer Series on Environmental Management ((SSEM))

Abstract

Natural landscapes provide ecosystem services that are critical to human health and society. However, as landscapes are threatened by urban development, climate change, intensive agriculture, and altered fire regimes, this negatively affects the condition of natural ecosystems and reduces the provision of these services for which there may not be viable alternatives. We report on a project to map the value of national forest lands in southern California for ecosystem service provision. Our focus is on quantifying five types of ecosystem services, water runoff, groundwater recharge, sediment erosion retention, carbon storage, and biodiversity, across an area that encompasses the four southern national forests—the Angeles, Los Padres, San Bernardino, and Cleveland. We first develop environmentally and climatically driven ecological units as a practical way to summarize information on services for resource managers. Second, we map the spatial distribution of the five services under current climate conditions and assess the spatial concordance between the five services. Third, using a conceptually straightforward approach, we prioritize the ecological units that provide the highest amount of each service and identify hotspots of ecosystem services where ecological units contain multiple services. By providing results to resource managers and the means to access and query the data, information can be used to guide decision making (e.g., prioritizing areas for conservation and restoration activities), assess the impacts of proposed activities (e.g., the impact of fuel management on ecosystem service provision), provide estimates of the value of chaparral shrublands for fire damage assessments, and help secure the long-term provision of ecosystem services across the landscape. The maps and data generated in this project provide the foundation for the next step that is calculating the economic value of these services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Emma C. Underwood

  2. University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Emma C. Underwood, Allan D. Hollander & Patrick R. Huber

  3. RedCastle Resources, Inc. and USDA Forest Service, Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center, Pineville, OR, USA

    Charlie Schrader-Patton

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  1. Emma C. Underwood
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  2. Allan D. Hollander
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  3. Patrick R. Huber
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  4. Charlie Schrader-Patton
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Correspondence to Emma C. Underwood .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, USA

    Emma C. Underwood

  2. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, Vallejo, California, USA

    Hugh D. Safford

  3. USDA Forest Service, Los Padres National Forest, Goleta, California, USA

    Nicole A. Molinari

  4. U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Three Rivers, California, USA

    Jon E. Keeley

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Underwood, E.C., Hollander, A.D., Huber, P.R., Schrader-Patton, C. (2018). Mapping the Value of National Forest Landscapes for Ecosystem Service Provision. In: Underwood, E., Safford, H., Molinari, N., Keeley, J. (eds) Valuing Chaparral. Springer Series on Environmental Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68303-4_9

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