Dataset Information

Making ecosystem services approach operational: Experiences from Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya.

ABSTRACT: Payment for ecosystem services (PES) has emerged as a promising tool to participatory natural resource management and sharing of benefits among the stakeholders. However, very few successful models of PES are available for replication. This study deals with an analysis of a PES model currently operational in the Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya, where upstream villagers are paid for maintaining the spring-shed that supplies drinking water to the downstream township. To understand the flow of various ecosystem services (ES), institutional mechanism, and governance, we conducted an in-depth analysis of this project. The study identified lack of monitoring and weak governance as factors affecting smooth operation of PES. To revamp the PES model more effectively at the present and new sites in future stakeholder integration, valuation of ES and inputs in terms of capacity building of primary and secondary stakeholders would be critical.

SUBMITTER: Uniyal A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7568746 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Making ecosystem services approach operational: Experiences from Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya.

Uniyal Anjali A Uniyal Sanjay Kr SK Rawat Gopal S GS

Ambio 20200508 12

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) has emerged as a promising tool to participatory natural resource management and sharing of benefits among the stakeholders. However, very few successful models of PES are available for replication. This study deals with an analysis of a PES model currently operational in the Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya, where upstream villagers are paid for maintaining the spring-shed that supplies drinking water to the downstream township. To understand the flow of v ...[more]

PMID: 32385808

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Project description:The ecosystem services (ES) concept has emerged and spread widely recently, to enhance the importance of preserving ecosystems through global change in order to maintain their benefits for human well-being. Numerous studies consider various dimensions of the interactions between ecosystems and land use via ES, but integrated research addressing the complete feedback loop between biodiversity, ES and land use has remained mostly theoretical. Few studies consider feedbacks from ecosystems to land use systems through ES, exploring how ES are taken into account in land management decisions. To fill this gap, we carried out a role-playing game to explore how ES cognition mediates feedbacks from environmental change on farmers' behaviors in a mountain grassland system. On a close to real landscape game board, farmers were faced with changes in ES under climatic and socio-economic scenarios and prompted to plan for the future and to take land management decisions as they deemed necessary. The outcomes of role-playing game were complemented with additional agronomic and ecological data from interviews and fieldwork. The effects of changes in ES on decision were mainly direct, i.e. not affecting knowledge and values, when they constituted situations with which farmers were accustomed. For example, a reduction of forage quantity following droughts led farmers to shift from mowing to grazing. Sometimes, ES cognitions were affected by ES changes or by external factors, leading to an indirect feedback. This happened when fertilization was stopped after farmers learned that it was inefficient in a drought context. Farmers' behaviors did not always reflect their attitudes towards ES because other factors including topographic constraints, social value of farming or farmer individual and household characteristics also influenced land-management decisions. Those results demonstrated the interest to take into account the complete feedback loop between ES and land management decisions to favor more sustainable ES management.

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Dataset Information

Making ecosystem services approach operational: Experiences from Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya.

Publications

Making ecosystem services approach operational: Experiences from Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya.

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