IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i7p2418-d157412.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tipping Points in the Supply of Ecosystem Services of a Mountainous Watershed in Southeast Asia

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Thellmann

    (Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany)

  • Marc Cotter

    (Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany)

  • Sabine Baumgartner

    (Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany)

  • Anna Treydte

    (Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany
    Nelson-Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha P.O. Box 447, Tanzania)

  • Georg Cadisch

    (Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany)

  • Folkard Asch

    (Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany)

Abstract

Rubber plantations have expanded at an unprecedented rate in Southeast Asia in recent decades. This has led to a substantial decline in the supply of ecosystem services (ESS) and has reduced livelihood options and socioeconomic well-being in rural areas. We assessed the impact of two land use scenarios on the supply of ESS in a mountainous watershed in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, People’s Republic of China. We combined time-series data derived from spatially explicit ESS models (InVEST) with a sequential, data-driven algorithm (R-method) to identify potential tipping points (TPs) in the supply of ESS under two rubber plantation expansion scenarios. TPs were defined as any situation in which the state of a system is changed through positive feedback as a result of accelerating changes. The TP analysis included hydrological, agronomical, and climate-regulation ESS, as well as multiple facets of biodiversity (habitat quality for vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant species). We identified regime shifts indicating potential tipping points, which were linked to abrupt changes in rubber yields, in both scenarios at varying spatial scales. With this study, we provide an easily applicable method for regional policy making and land use planning in data-scarce environments to reduce the risk of traversing future TPs in ESS supply for rubber producing land use systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Thellmann & Marc Cotter & Sabine Baumgartner & Anna Treydte & Georg Cadisch & Folkard Asch, 2018. "Tipping Points in the Supply of Ecosystem Services of a Mountainous Watershed in Southeast Asia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-15, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:7:p:2418-:d:157412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2418/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2418/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liu, Shiliang & Yin, Yijie & Liu, Xuehua & Cheng, Fangyan & Yang, Juejie & Li, Junran & Dong, Shikui & Zhu, Annah, 2017. "Ecosystem Services and landscape change associated with plantation expansion in a tropical rainforest region of Southwest China," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 353(C), pages 129-138.
    2. Norman Myers & Russell A. Mittermeier & Cristina G. Mittermeier & Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca & Jennifer Kent, 2000. "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6772), pages 853-858, February.
    3. Marten Scheffer & Steve Carpenter & Jonathan A. Foley & Carl Folke & Brian Walker, 2001. "Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems," Nature, Nature, vol. 413(6856), pages 591-596, October.
    4. Nancy B. Grimm & Peter Groffman & Michelle Staudinger & Heather Tallis, 2016. "Climate change impacts on ecosystems and ecosystem services in the United States: process and prospects for sustained assessment," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 97-109, March.
    5. Stephen Polasky & Erik Nelson & Derric Pennington & Kris Johnson, 2011. "The Impact of Land-Use Change on Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Returns to Landowners: A Case Study in the State of Minnesota," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 219-242, February.
    6. Nancy Grimm & Peter Groffman & Michelle Staudinger & Heather Tallis, 2016. "Climate change impacts on ecosystems and ecosystem services in the United States: process and prospects for sustained assessment," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 97-109, March.
    7. Wang, Jue & Aenis, Thomas & Hofmann-Souki, Susanne, 2018. "Triangulation in participation: Dynamic approaches for science-practice interaction in land-use decision making in rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 364-371.
    8. Bagstad, Kenneth J. & Johnson, Gary W. & Voigt, Brian & Villa, Ferdinando, 2013. "Spatial dynamics of ecosystem service flows: A comprehensive approach to quantifying actual services," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 4(C), pages 117-125.
    9. Marten Scheffer & Jordi Bascompte & William A. Brock & Victor Brovkin & Stephen R. Carpenter & Vasilis Dakos & Hermann Held & Egbert H. van Nes & Max Rietkerk & George Sugihara, 2009. "Early-warning signals for critical transitions," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7260), pages 53-59, September.
    10. Huafang Chen & Zhuang-Fang Yi & Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt & Antje Ahrends & Philip Beckschäfer & Christoph Kleinn & Sailesh Ranjitkar & Jianchu Xu, 2016. "Pushing the Limits: The Pattern and Dynamics of Rubber Monoculture Expansion in Xishuangbanna, SW China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-15, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Timothy M. Lenton & Jesse F. Abrams & Annett Bartsch & Sebastian Bathiany & Chris A. Boulton & Joshua E. Buxton & Alessandra Conversi & Andrew M. Cunliffe & Sophie Hebden & Thomas Lavergne & Benjamin , 2024. "Remotely sensing potential climate change tipping points across scales," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ferdinando Villa & Kenneth J Bagstad & Brian Voigt & Gary W Johnson & Rosimeiry Portela & Miroslav Honzák & David Batker, 2014. "A Methodology for Adaptable and Robust Ecosystem Services Assessment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Brendan Fisher & Stephen Polasky & Thomas Sterner, 2011. "Conservation and Human Welfare: Economic Analysis of Ecosystem Services," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 151-159, February.
    3. Vasilis Dakos & Stephen R Carpenter & William A Brock & Aaron M Ellison & Vishwesha Guttal & Anthony R Ives & Sonia Kéfi & Valerie Livina & David A Seekell & Egbert H van Nes & Marten Scheffer, 2012. "Methods for Detecting Early Warnings of Critical Transitions in Time Series Illustrated Using Simulated Ecological Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-20, July.
    4. Zeng, Chunhua & Wang, Hua, 2012. "Noise and large time delay: Accelerated catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 233(C), pages 52-58.
    5. Florian Wagener, 2013. "Shallow lake economics run deep: nonlinear aspects of an economic-ecological interest conflict," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 423-450, December.
    6. Jiayi Zhou & Kangning Xiong & Qi Wang & Jiuhan Tang & Li Lin, 2022. "A Review of Ecological Assets and Ecological Products Supply: Implications for the Karst Rocky Desertification Control," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-20, August.
    7. Ren, Bijie & Polasky, Stephen, 2014. "The optimal management of renewable resources under the risk of potential regime shift," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 195-212.
    8. Dmitry Gromov & Thorsten Upmann, 2021. "Dynamics and Economics of Shallow Lakes: A Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-16, December.
    9. Hyun-Jung Hong & Choong-Ki Kim & Hyun-Woo Lee & Woo-Kyun Lee, 2021. "Conservation, Restoration, and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity Based on Habitat Quality Monitoring: A Case Study on Jeju Island, South Korea (1989–2019)," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-15, July.
    10. Crépin, Anne-Sophie & Biggs, Reinette & Polasky, Stephen & Troell, Max & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2012. "Regime shifts and management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 15-22.
    11. William A Brock & Stephen R Carpenter, 2012. "Early Warnings of Regime Shift When the Ecosystem Structure Is Unknown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-10, September.
    12. Tatiana Baumuratova & Simona Dobre & Thierry Bastogne & Thomas Sauter, 2013. "Switch of Sensitivity Dynamics Revealed with DyGloSA Toolbox for Dynamical Global Sensitivity Analysis as an Early Warning for System's Critical Transition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-12, December.
    13. Zejie Zhou & Boleslaw K Szymanski & Jianxi Gao, 2020. "Modeling competitive evolution of multiple languages," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-16, May.
    14. de Zeeuw, Aart, 2017. "Integrating Economics and the Environment," Other publications TiSEM 8c8f2f81-5797-4429-9066-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Steven J. Lade & Alessandro Tavoni & Simon A. Levin & Maja Schl�ter, 2013. "Regime shifts in a social-ecological system," GRI Working Papers 105, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Juan Miguel Rodriguez Lopez & Katja Tielbörger & Cornelia Claus & Christiane Fröhlich & Marc Gramberger & Jürgen Scheffran, 2019. "A Transdisciplinary Approach to Identifying Transboundary Tipping Points in a Contentious Area: Experiences from across the Jordan River Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, February.
    17. Krishnadas M. & K. P. Harikrishnan & G. Ambika, 2022. "Recurrence measures and transitions in stock market dynamics," Papers 2208.03456, arXiv.org.
    18. Margaret V. du Bray & Rhian Stotts & Melissa Beresford & Amber Wutich & Alexandra Brewis, 2019. "Does ecosystem services valuation reflect local cultural valuations? Comparative analysis of resident perspectives in four major urban river ecosystems," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 21-33, January.
    19. Maebe, Laura & Dufrêne, Marc & Claessens, Hugues & Maréchal, Kevin & Ligot, Gauthier & Messier, Christian, 2023. "The Navigate framework: How the ecosystem services and resilience concepts can help us navigate in the current crises," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Kiran D’Souza & Bogdan I Epureanu & Mercedes Pascual, 2015. "Forecasting Bifurcations from Large Perturbation Recoveries in Feedback Ecosystems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:7:p:2418-:d:157412. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.