Browsing by Subject "Ecosystem services"
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Item Ecosystem services and Peter Calthorpe’s model of transit-oriented development : prospects and challenges for city planning(2012-05) Getchell, Julia Michelle; Steiner, Frederick; Dooling, Sarah; Kahn, TerryThis study explores the non-monetary values assigned by designers, planners, developers, and policy makers in integrating ecosystem services into the design and development of urban transit-oriented development (TOD). This thesis also investigates the theoretical and practical design strategies that incorporate ecosystem services into Urban TODs. Methods used for research and data collection included reviewing existing literature relevant to the subject matter, conducting interviews with policy makers, academics, and design professionals, and exploring two specific examples of progressive, urban, “green,” TODs in the Pacific Northwest. This study concludes with ideas for future research into the integration of ecosystem services into urban TOD planning, and potential urban environmental policies that can be adopted by municipalities to maintain and strengthen the ecosystem services of the growing metropolis.Item Ecosystem services and the Central Texas Greenprint for Growth : valuing nature through collaborative land conservation(2010-12) Borowski, Robert Henry; Paterson, Robert G.; Young, Kenneth R.This project explores the potential for integrating an ecosystem service approach with the Central Texas Greenprint for Growth process, a continuing and active stakeholder supported voluntary conservation effort The report provides an overview of the Greenprint process, ecosystem services, and the participatory stakeholder method of social network analysis or mapping. Each of these methods may be used to explore opportunities to enhance the collaborative land conservation planning activity in Central Texas. Conservation goals identified in the Greenprint process are evaluated in terms of ecosystem service and methods for measuring more complete environmental value can be identified. This evaluation focuses on three out of the six goals that the stakeholders have identified as having importance: protect water quality and quantity, preserve farms and ranchlands, and protect cultural resources. Community-based environmental planning or adaptive management processes such as the Greenprint process requires effective communication methods to address complex issues among diverse stakeholders. Social network mapping and analysis are illustrated as a method to evaluate how stakeholders communicate information about ecosystem services. A limited social network analysis is conducted as a pilot study with a stakeholder group in Bastrop, Texas. Natural resource professionals have used social network analysis to understand the structure of relationships and the pathways of communication in community planning processes. I will review this method and its potential for application. Through questionnaires, data gathered at a stakeholder meeting and is used to develop a preliminary social network matrix to demonstrate the method. It is envisioned that the report would advance understanding of how an ecosystem service approach can enhance an active ecological planning process and landscape scale conservation.Item Integrating systematic conservation planning and ecosystem services : an indicators approach in the Hill Country of Central Texas(2014-08) Fougerat, Matthew Gerald; Steiner, Frederick R.Ecosystem services are the aspects of the environment utilized to produce human well-being and are key elements of landscape sustainability. Increasingly, measures of ecosystem services are being incorporated into conservation decision making. However, a framework for evaluating systematic conservation planning ranked selection scenarios with indicators of ecosystem services has not been developed. Using the Central Texas counties of Blanco, Burnet, Hays, Llano, San Saba, and Travis as a study, a suite of spatially explicit modeling tools, Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), are used to quantify carbon storage, soil conservation, and water provision. A fourth service metric, ecosystem richness, is derived using Texas Parks and Wildlife ecological systems classification data. The values of these four services are then used to evaluate four conservation scenarios, developed in conjunction with a local conservation non-profit, Hill Country Conservancy (HCC), and derived using Marxan decision-support software. The evaluation process consists of both geographic information system (GIS) and statistical analysis. GIS based overlay analysis is used to identify areas of multiple ecosystem service overlap. Spearman correlation tables are used to test the spatial relationship among ecosystem services, as well as the relationship among each of the four conservation scenarios. Wilcox-Mann-Whitney U tests (WMW) are used to assess the statistical significance of each scenario’s ecosystem service values as compared to the values of a random control scenario. The results of this work reinforce the findings that there is often significant variability in the spatial congruence of multiple ecosystem services and their provision across a landscape. This work also supports the conclusion that the targeting of ecological phenomena for conservation concurrently targets areas supporting multiple ecosystem services. More distinctively, the results verify the capacity of ecosystem service indicators to effectively inform an iterative systematic conservation planning process. At the local landscape-scale, this work provides HCC with defensible support of their conservation decisions based not only on organizational priorities, but also on ecosystem service values. More broadly, this work provides a framework for evaluating conservation scenarios with spatially explicit values of ecosystem services which can be replicated across a wide range of project scales and objectives.Item The San Juan and Espada acequias : two historic cultural landscapes preserved, restored and adapted as contemporary urban agriculture(2018-07-11) Alvarado, Daniel Joseph; Lierberknecht, Katherine E.This report assesses the historic, current and future conditions two Spanish Colonial irrigation systems in San Antonio, Texas known as the San Juan and Espada acequias, respectively. The two acequias are the only functional remnants of what was once a city-wide system which supported thousands of early San Antonians. Today, the two acequias are managed separately, each in a way that reflects their complicated history and institutional structure. This report relates in detail those histories and parses out the complex institutional structures in the context of the rapid urban growth of San Antonio and wider challenges such as climate change and groundwater depletion. It demonstrates that the acequias democratic, derecho-based water and land allocation structure is a valuable institutional model for resilient resource management regimes, however their continued existence will require significant adaptation to contemporary legal, political and ecological realities. With this in mind, this report seeks to identify theoretical frameworks with which the acequias could be restored and adapted for these contemporary realities as urban agriculture system while maintaining aspects of their traditional water and land allocation structures. It identifies the acequias as social-ecological systems (SES) that could be incorporated into a broader ecosystem services valuation of the San Antonio River watershed. It argues that the National Park Service (NPS), a major stakeholder in the acequias, should adapt its definition of Cultural Landscapes to better support working lands within their purview. Finally, it identifies the development status of the 1,750 acres of land (broken down by parcels) potentially irrigatable by the acequias and quantifies the potential yield of those parcels as supporting 38,356 people’s recommended vegetable consumption per year.Item Urban growth in Central Texas : soils and single-family home development(2011-08) Fasnacht, Steven Benjamin; Moore, Steven A., 1945-; Dooling, SarahThis study investigates the potential impacts on soils from development practices associated with new single-family residential home construction in the extra territorial jurisdiction (ETJ) of Pflugerville, Texas. My research question is: Are regulations that directly focus on soil conservation advisable within Pflugerville’s ETJ, and what areas of development ought to be primarily targeted by these regulations in order to better ensure the long-term stability of soil health and the minimization of soil loss? The rationale for this question is based on the city’s projected future population growth, the projected future demand for single-family residences, as well as the development and management practices typically associated with new single-family residential development in the ETJ of Pflugerville. I hypothesize that due to Pflugerville’s proximity to Austin and Round Rock, in addition to the relative abundance of available land to the east of the city of Pflugerville, that it is likely to continue experiencing sustained population and residential development growth, particularly in the form of new single-family residences in the ETJ. A population projection was conducted up to the year 2030, which in conjunction with average persons-per-household and single-family home permitting data, estimates potential consumer demand for single-family residences. The imperative to prevent soil loss is conceptually linked to ecosystem service benefits resulting from healthy and intact soils, such as improved water quality and the regulation of peak flow rates during storm events. Single-family residential development is evaluated in terms of conventional on-the-ground construction practices gathered from interviews with developers of single-family homes in the Pflugerville ETJ, as well as planning and regulatory specialists. These analyses are intended to inform regulatory and decision making processes regarding the importance and potential integration of soil preservation and conservation at the individual construction site level.