Assessing the Impact of Land-Cover Changes on Ecosystem Services: A First Step Toward Integrative Planning in Bordeaux, France

You are here

Home > Initiatives > Case Studies > Assessing the Impact of Land-Cover Changes on Ecosystem Services: A First Step Toward Integrative Planning in Bordeaux, France

Browse by:

Sector

Country

Region

Theme

Organisation

Tell us how you used this resourceSuggest a green growth resource
December 2016
Authors: 
P. Cabral, C. Feger, H. Levrel, M. Chambolle, D. Basque
This case study analyses multiple ecosystem services provided by the landscape of the Urban Community of Bordeaux, France, between 1990 and 2006 as a result of land use and cover change (LUCC). The studied ecosystem services were food provisioning, flood regulation, water quality, erosion regulation, recreation, climate regulation, and biodiversity. These were selected with the help of local stakeholders and were calculated using a spatially explicit modeling approach with InVEST and own-produced models. The study also utilized free tools and open data, such as Corine Land Cover data.
 
The study found that all ecosystem services, except erosion regulation, have decreased as a consequence of LUCC. In addition, the results suggest that LUCC change decisions that do not consider policy measures for ecosystem services protection tend to generate land use patterns that provide lower levels of ecosystem services. 
 
This approach enables an informed discussion with stakeholders and may be used to effectively implement, monitor, and communicate future planning policies.
Read Online
Country: 
France
Themes: 
Natural Capital
Key search terms: 
inVEST, ecosystem services, land use management, natural capital

Related Case Studies

November 2017

How to Overcome the Implementation Gap in Ecosystem Services? A User-Friendly and Inclusive Tool for Improved Urban Management

This case study contributes to the incorporation of the concept of ecosystem services on the ground in concrete operational decision-making contexts. It does so by testing the use of open-source data and free tools as well as the adoption of a short-term participatory process, in the context of a project in the urban metropolitan area of Bordeaux, France.
December 2016

Using Ecosystem Service Trade‐offs to Inform Water Conservation Policies and Management Practices

This case study quantifies ecosystem services in several land use scenarios, relative to actual land use change, over a nine-year period. These scenarios were developed in an effort to maintain agricultural production while improving water quality and increasing water quantity in the watershed of the Miyun Reservoir—the only source of surface water currently available for domestic use in Beijing, China.
January 2010

Ecosystem Accounting and the Cost of Biodiversity Loss: The Case of Mediterranean Coastal Wetlands

European Environment Agency (EEA)
This report focuses on ways to use land and ecosystem accounting techniques to describe and monitor the consequences of biodiversity loss in the coastal wetlands of the Mediterranean. These ecosystems are characterized by the close coupling of economic, social, and ecological processes, and any accounting system has to represent how these key elements are linked and change over time. This report discusses the importance of estimating the ecological and social costs of maintaining these systems as well as the problems related to providing monetary estimates of the services associated with wetlands. It also shows how individual wetland socio-ecological systems can be defined and mapped using the remotely sensed land cover information from Corine Land Cover.
February 2018

Economic Viability of the National-Scale Forestation Program: The Case of Success in the Republic of Korea

This study investigates the economic viability of the Republic of Korea’s national forestation programme, which began in the 1960s and ultimately resulted in the successfully recovery of its forests and the ecosystem services associated with them. The study found that the programme was economically viable in the long-term, with the break-even point of the extensive investment on forestation appearing within two decades. In addition, this study highlights some key lessons from Korea’s programme that other countries could apply to maximize the probability of success in their own countries.