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A scenario approach to assess stakeholder preferences for ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes of Costa Rica

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Abstract

In many developing rural areas, efforts to avoid degradation of soil regulation services (SRS) face significant challenges especially in steep slopes due to the combined effect of climate change-related extreme precipitation and inadequate soil management practices in agriculture and grazing. In order to design socially desirable alternatives to the status quo, it is important to identify and engage relevant stakeholders to discuss the evaluation of land use and management alternative scenarios. However, innovative methods are needed to ensure the best use of available knowledge and often scarce data. We use structured value referendum (SVR) poll-type voting which is a value-focused decision-making process that can be used to create land use scenarios combining expert knowledge, modeling and stakeholders’ perspectives. We applied this approach to a Costa Rican watershed affected by heavy soil erosion. We engaged actors directly concerned with the on- and off-site effects of SRS degradation such as upstream farmers, a downstream hydropower facility affected by siltation and watershed planners. Results from preference elicitation regarding watershed land use scenarios showed that actors preferred alternatives to the status quo. They supported win–win land use strategies that protect SRS through soil conservation practices to be implemented in critical agricultural plots. Along with other land use scenario approaches that engage stakeholders, application of SVR can promote discussion and learning among interested parties and, at least in watershed conservation initiatives, can lead to identification of opportunities for joint gains among upstream land users and downstream users of soil- and water-related ecosystem services.

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Notes

  1. This law defines areas between 15 and 50 m (according to the slope of the terrain) on each side of water streams as “Protection Areas”.

  2. This method estimates the cost of substituting nutrients lost from topsoil erosion with fertilizers thus providing an estimate of the value of soil lost due to erosion that is conservative as the loss of soil capital (i.e. created over decades) associated with topsoil erosion is not accounted for.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Karen Cooke’s and Christian Brenes’ support and REC reviewers. The research in this paper was funded by “Tropical Forests and Climate Change Adaptation” project implemented by CATIE and CIFOR and funded by the European Commission (contract EuropeAid/ENV/2004-81719). The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. Article’s writing was supported by a grant from the International Opportunities Fund of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the University of British Columbia. The efforts of Tim McDaniels and Raffaele Vignola were supported by the Climate and Energy Decision-Making Center (CEDM) of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, through a cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation (SES-0949710) and Carnegie Mellon University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Latin American Chair of Environmental Decisions for Global Change, Climate Change and Watersheds Program, Tropical Agriculture Higher Education and Research Centre (CATIE), Turrialba, 7170, Costa Rica

    Raffaele Vignola & Tim McDaniels

  2. Institute for Environment, Resources and Sustainability (IRES), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Raffaele Vignola

  3. Civil Engineering: Construction, Infrastructure and Transportation Department, Technical University of Madrid, C. Ramiro de Maeztu 7, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Beatriz Gonzalez-Rodrigo

  4. Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Oliver Lane

  5. Topography and Geomatics Laboratory, Caminos-UPM, Technical University of Madrid, C. Ramiro de Maeztu 7, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Marchamalo

  6. Timothy McDaniels, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, 415-6333 Memorial Rd, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada

    Tim McDaniels

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  1. Raffaele Vignola
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  2. Beatriz Gonzalez-Rodrigo
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  3. Oliver Lane
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  4. Miguel Marchamalo
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  5. Tim McDaniels
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Correspondence to Raffaele Vignola.

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Vignola, R., Gonzalez-Rodrigo, B., Lane, O. et al. A scenario approach to assess stakeholder preferences for ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes of Costa Rica. Reg Environ Change 17, 605–618 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-1051-y

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