Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services Trade-offs Into Farmland Use And Livelihood Strategies

Agriculture and farmland are the principle semi-natural resources for human survival and development,not only fulfilling the global demand of various food or fiber products,but also performing the function of biodiversity sustainability,biogeochemical cycles and providing essential ecosystem services（ES）that underpin human wellbeing.Entering the 21^st century,China has released a package of policies,such as the program of“Beautiful Rural China”,Rural Land Consolidation and Agricultural Supply-side Reform,charting the roadmap for rural vitalization.With those efforts,it has fulfilled remarkable achievement in promoting rural economy,optimizing the countryside infrastructure and speeding up urban-rural integration.However,those activities might irreversibly change rural environment,inducing soil degradation,biodiversity loss and various service decline.Under the current background of coordinating regional development,balancing rural-urban development and ecological civilization construction,the current study aimed to achieve agricultural land-use optimization so as to increase human welfare while maintaining the natural system.This paper identified trade-offs in multiple ES supply associated with social-ecological management in agricultural area.Taking the ESs’ecological mechanism,social-ecological interaction and stakeholders’decision making into consideration,we try to optimize the land-use pattern for sustainable resources management and rural development.On the basis of multi-source information of Langxia Town,a typical rural area dominated by managed agricultural production,and the use of various analytical techniques,this study conducted the following research:1)Assessment of multiple ES supply and their spatial trade-offs in agroecosystems.We quantified eleven ESs including provisioning,regulating,supporting and cultural services using proxy calculation,computational modeling and PPGIS methods.GIS mapping and statistical techniques were applied to identify the spatial distribution and interrelationships of ESs associated with landscape structure and properties.2)Understanding how the trade-offs in ES supply in agroecosystems are influenced by landholder behavior and context-based policies for landscape management.Based on Ostrom’s SES framework,we conceptualized the ES trade-offs and linked them to multiple social-economic ecological factors.3)Mainstreaming ecosystem service trade-offs into farmland use strategies in future planning to realize sustainable resources management.We presented a participatory framework for spatially explicit scenarios to generate alternative land-use vision to the year 2030,which involves the conflict of multi-objective,top-down oversight and bottom-up knowledge as well as social-ecological uncertainties.We modeled environmental and socioeconomic dynamics of multiple drivers which might induce discrepant land use and cover change（LUCC）in two different scenarios.Finally,a sustainability framework that integrates ES trade-offs and the efficiency frontier was articulated to clarified the conflict arising among landholders with different preferences and land-use practices,and led to the sustainability-oriented policy and management options.This study drew the following main conclusions:1)Clustered distribution patterns and interactions of ecosystem services were found on a rural community scale.We found significant tendency for trade-offs between provisioning service and regulating service and there exists the potential for regulating service and cultural service,and also in between regulating services to form synergies.Meanwhile,several cultural services showed strong spatial coincidence.Six ecosystem service bundles（ESB）with distinct dominant service functions and multiple interactions were identified through hierarchical clustering techniques.The bundle types exhibited specialized areas for agricultural production in contiguous farmland,forest ecological integrity with high recreation potential,and high provision of cultural services around the river and main roads,reflecting the coincidence and complexity of divergent ESs.These bundle distributions were determined by natural endowment,socio-ecological effects,landscape structure and managements.2)In terms of specific farm,the co-existence of ES is resulted in the interaction among the resources system,the resources units,the governance system,and the users.Different livelihood strategies and land-use behavior that the farmers adapt would lead to divergent ecosystem service supply,and thus induces dissimilar trade-off patterns like factory productivity,multifunctionality,crop production and public accessibility.These trade-off patterns are closely linked to various factors related to environmental,social,economic,technological and governance.Though landowners seem to perform similar agricultural work and outdoor activities,they have differentiated perceptions of landscape values and concerns and they do perceive a quite deep understanding of good farm management which would maximize family welfare.Different value appreciation and work motivation would influence the landholders’decision-making and land-use strategies.3)KESHO scenario tool is a novel framework that integrates ecosystem service trade-offs,local stakeholder perspectives,future vision and landscape management.Paying full attention to the stakeholder-driven process,this scenario development framework can generate quantitative,qualitive and spatial outputs which can reflect different perspectives and value preferences in first different scenarios,development trajectories,demand satisfaction of ES,and the impacts of consequent LUCC.We presented two different scenarios（i.e.BAU and GE）,in which the causality relations contributed to different acreage and spatial distribution of cultivated land,woodland,agro-forest-water complex land,waterbody,village and other construction land.Enhancing the policy formulation and implement relevant to agricultural trade-off analysis with joint efforts of local stakeholders is required for shaping a productive,vibrant,and resilient agroecosystem.4)Landholders’activities might lead to the conflict between grain productivity and habitat quality.Farms of three distinct types including“self-supporting”,value-added”and non（weak）-agricultural showed differentiated land-use decision-making and livelihood strategies.Fortunately,it is possible to increase the productivist action while sustaining non-productivist conservation（so-called“win-win”）through well-designed practice and adaptive management.Looking forward,areas of policy implication might include:1)adopt the combination pattern of conversion and conservation,enhance compound eco-agriculture and preserve the valuable green space;2)strengthen mutual support among the government,public organizations,agricultural enterprises and farmers,and improve farmers’knowledge and technical equipment.3)promote agricultural brand building and meanwhile optimize the marketing network and sale strategies so as to maximize the core value of agricultural products.