Mapping ecosystem services in protected areas. A systematic review

Protected areas (PAs) supply ecosystem services (ES) essential for human wellbeing. Mapping is a critical exercise that allows an understanding of the spatial distribution of the different ES in PAs. This work aims to conduct a systematic literature review on mapping ES in PAs. In order to carry out this systematic review, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses method was applied. The results showed an increase in the number of works between 2012 and 2023, and they were especially conducted in Europe and Asia and less in North America, South America, and Oceania. Most studies were developed in terrestrial areas, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature classified them into types II and IV. Most of the works followed the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment classification and were mainly focused on the supply dimension. Regulating and maintenance and cultural ES were the most mapped dimensions in PAs. The most frequent provisioning ES mapped in PAs were Animals reared for nutritional purposes and Cultivated terrestrial plants grown for nutritional purposes. In regulating and maintenance, Maintaining nursery populations and habitats and Regulation of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans were the most analysed. For cultural ES, Characteristics of living systems that enable activities promoting health, recuperation, or enjoyment through active or immersive interactions and Characteristics of living systems that enable aesthetic experiences were the most mapped ES in PAs. Most works followed a quantitative approach, although the number of qualitative studies is high. Finally, most of the works needed to be validated, which may hamper the credibility of mapping ES in PAs. Overall, this systematic review contributed to a global picture of studies distribution, the areas where they are needed, and the most popular dimensions and sections as the methodologies were applied.

Assessing Sustainability Priorities of U.S. Food Hub Managers: Results from a National Survey

Food hubs have emerged as innovative alternatives to the conventional United States food system. As aggregators of small local farms, food hubs hold the potential to transform food production, distribution, and consumption, while fostering environmental sustainability and social equity. However, assessing their contributions to environmental sustainability and social equity is challenging due to the diverse structures and practices of U.S. food hubs. This study presents the findings of a national survey of food hub managers conducted in 2022 to assess the sustainability objectives and practices of food hubs across the United States. Our survey questions were designed based on a comprehensive framework of social and environmental sustainability criteria. Our results reveal that food hubs make valuable contributions in supporting small producers and providing healthy local food options. However, there is room for improvement in their environmental sustainability practices, as they only meet 47% of the defined environmental sustainability goals. Addressing food insecurity is a high priority for food hubs, although not their top priority, and many offer fresh food access to low-income households. Food hubs also contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing food transportation, promoting healthy food production methods, and minimizing waste. While food hubs meet 67% of the defined social sustainability goals, there are opportunities for improvement in reaching important institutional stakeholders and enhancing consumer education on healthy nutrition and lifestyles. Expanding technical assistance for farmers is also critical. By addressing these opportunities for improvement, food hubs can drive progress towards a more resilient and equitable food system in the United States.

A typology of U.S. metropolises by rent burden and its major drivers

Scholarly work on rent burden, a rather scantily discussed topic within the broader realm of declining housing affordability, still lacks a firm theory. This article seeks to address this gap by developing a typology of U.S. metropolises which centers on their rent burden status and serves as an initial step toward theory building. We employ principal component and cluster analyses to identify seven distinct types of metropolises and their potential drivers of rent burden. An examination of these seven types suggests that rent burden has spatial randomness to it, since some metropolises in the seven types do not confine to specific geographies. Metropolises with pronounced specializations in education/medicine, information, and arts, recreation, and entertainment exhibit higher rent burden, whereas older Rust Belt metropolises have lower burden. Interestingly, emerging new-economy metropolises exhibit lower rent burden as well, likely reflecting the benefits of newer housing and a diverse economic base. Finally, rent burden, besides being an outcome of the housing demand/supply mismatch, is also a manifestation of income potentials that are affected in complex ways by local labor markets and regional economic specializations.

Defining features of diverse and productive agricultural systems: An archetype analysis of U.S. agricultural counties

Prior research suggests that greater spatial diversity in crops and land use is associated with higher crop yields and improved ecosystem function. However, what leads to the emergence of agricultural systems that meet both productivity and ecological health goals remains an open question. Understanding the factors that differentiate these places from other agricultural systems is key to understanding the mechanisms, pathways, consequences, and constraints to employing diversification as a tool for increasing agricultural sustainability. In this study, we employ archetype analysis to examine the factors uniquely associated with the conjoint existence of high crop diversity and high crop productivity. We identify five agricultural system classes that represent a range of diversity and productivity combinations using k-means cluster analysis then use random forests analysis to identify factors that strongly explain the differences between the classes—describing different agricultural production regimes. Our exploratory analysis of the difference in agricultural system factors across classes suggests (1) crop diversity and its preconditions are associated with the highest yields, (2) biophysical conditions bound diversity-productivity realities, (3) productivity comes at a petrochemical cost, and that (4) crop rotations are a key diversification strategy. Overall, our results suggest that despite clear biophysical constraints on transitions to high diversity—high productivity systems the role of actionable factors on crop production regimes is stronger, providing reason to be hopeful about transitions to agricultural production regimes fit for new climate realities.

Grassland songbird abundance is influenced more strongly by individual types of disturbances than cumulative disturbances associated with natural gas extraction

Grassland birds have undergone widespread global population declines due to loss and degradation of native grasslands. Activities associated with non-renewable energy derived from oil and natural gas extraction have substantially increased on grasslands. The cumulative disturbance generated by natural gas development creates a network of non-linear (e.g., bare ground and exotic plant species) and linear (e.g., roads, trails, pipelines) features that may degrade habitat quality for grassland species. We quantified grassland songbird abundance in two areas of southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada, to determine whether variation in abundance 1) depended on the type and amount of disturbance at two spatial extents, and 2) was more affected by the cumulative impacts of natural gas development than any single type of disturbance. We found that specific types of disturbances impacted the abundance of most species to varying degrees. The cover of different types of linear disturbance had the strongest effect on the most species. Natural gas disturbance within 450 m of point counts was more influential than disturbance within 200 m for nearly all species in both areas. Only Savannah sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis) abundance was most strongly influenced by the cumulative amount of disturbance with abundance decreasing with increased disturbance. Overall, we detected few consistent patterns among species, or within species between our two study areas. Our results indicated that the impact of natural gas infrastructure can extend beyond the local influences associated with well sites and that relatively small amounts of disturbance (<2%) may impact grassland songbird abundance. We recommend that researchers use caution when studying well-density effects or combining individual types of disturbance without understanding the separate effects each type of disturbance has on the species or community of interest. Not doing so may lead to investing resources into management practices that do not have the greatest possible benefit for grassland songbirds.

Machine learning based estimation of field-scale daily, high resolution, multi-depth soil moisture for the Western and Midwestern United States

Background

High-resolution soil moisture estimates are critical for planning water management and assessing environmental quality. In-situ measurements alone are too costly to support the spatial and temporal resolutions needed for water management. Recent efforts have combined calibration data with machine learning algorithms to fill the gap where high resolution moisture estimates are lacking at the field scale. This study aimed to provide calibrated soil moisture models and methodology for generating gridded estimates of soil moisture at multiple depths, according to user-defined temporal periods, spatial resolution and extent.

Methods

We applied nearly one million national library soil moisture records from over 100 sites, spanning the U.S. Midwest and West, to build Quantile Random Forest (QRF) calibration models. The QRF models were built on covariates including soil moisture estimates from North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS), soil properties, climate variables, digital elevation models, and remote sensing-derived indices. We also explored an alternative approach that adopted a regionalized calibration dataset for the Western U.S. The broad-scale QRF models were independently validated according to sampling depths, land cover type, and observation period. We then explored the model performance improved with local samples used for spiking. Finally, the QRF models were applied to estimate soil moisture at the field scale where evaluation was carried out to check estimated temporal and spatial patterns.

Results

The broad-scale QRF model showed moderate performance (R² = 0.53, RMSE = 0.078 m³/m³) when data points from all depth layers (up to 100 cm) were considered for an independent validation. Elevation, NLDAS-derived moisture, soil properties, and sampling depth were ranked as the most important covariates. The best model performance was observed for forest and pasture sites (R² > 0.5; RMSE < 0.09 m³/m³), followed by grassland and cropland (R² > 0.4; RMSE < 0.11 m³/m³). Model performance decreased with sampling depths and was slightly lower during the winter months. Spiking the national QRF model with local samples improved model performance by reducing the RMSE to less than 0.05 m³/m³ for grassland sites. At the field scale, model estimates illustrated more accurate temporal trends for surface than subsurface soil layers. Model estimated spatial patterns need to be further improved and validated with management data.

Conclusions

The model accuracy for top 0-20 cm soil depth (R² > 0.5, RMSE < 0.08 m³/m³) showed promise for adopting the methodology for soil moisture monitoring. The success of spiking the national model with local samples showed the need to collect multi-year high frequency (e.g., hourly) sensor-based field measurements to improve estimates of soil moisture for a longer time period. Future work should improve model performance for deeper depths with additional hydraulic properties and use of locally-selected calibration datasets.

Crop diversification in Idaho's Magic Valley: the present and the imaginary

The simplification of agricultural landscapes, particularly in the United States (US), has contributed to alarming rates of environmental degradation. As such, increasing agrobiodiversity throughout the US agri-food system is a crucial goal toward mitigating these harmful impacts, and crop diversification is one short-term mechanism to begin this process. However, despite mounting evidence of its benefits, crop diversification strategies have yet to be widely adopted in the US. Thus, we explore barriers and bridges to crop diversification for current farmers, focused on the Magic Valley of southern Idaho-a region with higher crop diversity relative to the US norm. We address two main research questions: (1) how and why do farmers in this region enact temporal and/or spatial strategies to manage crop diversity (the present) and (2) what are the barriers and bridges to alternative diversification strategies (the imaginary)? Through a political agroecology and spatial imaginaries lens, we conducted and analyzed 15 farmer and 14 key informant interviews between 2019 and 2021 to gauge what farmers are doing to manage crop diversity (the present) and how they imagine alternative landscapes (the imaginary). We show that farmers in this region have established a regionally diversified landscape by relying primarily on temporal diversification strategies-crop rotations and cover cropping-but do not necessarily pair these with other spatial diversification strategies that align with an agroecological approach. Furthermore, experimenting with and imagining new landscapes is possible (and we found evidence of such), but daily challenges and structural constraints make these processes not only difficult but unlikely and even "dangerous" to dream of. Therein, we demonstrate the importance of centering who is farming and why they make certain decisions as much as how they farm to support agroecological transformation and reckoning with past and present land use paradigms to re-imagine what is possible.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-022-00833-0.

Experimental evaluation of biological regeneration of arable soil: The effects of grass-clover leys and arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculants on wheat growth, yield, and shoot pathology

Wheat yields have plateaued in the UK over the last 25 years, during which time most arable land has been annually cropped continuously with short rotations dominated by cereals. Arable intensification has depleted soil organic matter and biology, including mycorrhizas, which are affected by tillage, herbicides, and crop genotype. Here, we test whether winter wheat yields, mycorrhization, and shoot health can be improved simply by adopting less intensive tillage and adding commercial mycorrhizal inoculum to long-term arable fields, or if 3-year grass-clover leys followed direct drilling is more effective for biological regeneration of soil with reduced N fertiliser. We report a trial of mycorrhization, ear pathology, and yield performance of the parents and four double haploid lines from the Avalon x Cadenza winter wheat population in a long-term arable field that is divided into replicated treatment plots. These plots comprised wheat lines grown using ploughing or disc cultivation for 3 years, half of which received annual additions of commercial arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) inoculum, compared to 3-year mown grass-clover ley plots treated with glyphosate and direct-drilled. All plots annually received 35 kg of N ha^-1 fertiliser without fungicides. The wheat lines did not differ in mycorrhization, which averaged only 34% and 40% of root length colonised (RLC) in the ploughed and disc-cultivated plots, respectively, and decreased with inoculation. In the ley, RLC increased to 52%. Two wheat lines were very susceptible to a sooty ear mould, which was lowest in the ley, and highest with disc cultivation. AM inoculation reduced ear infections by >50% in the susceptible lines. In the ley, yields ranged from 7.2 to 8.3 t ha^-1, achieving 92 to 106% of UK average wheat yield in 2018 (7.8 t ha^-1) but using only 25% of average N fertiliser. Yields with ploughing and disc cultivation averaged only 3.9 and 3.4 t ha^-1, respectively, with AM inoculum reducing yields from 4.3 to 3.5 t ha^-1 in ploughed plots, with no effect of disc cultivation. The findings reveal multiple benefits of reintegrating legume-rich leys into arable rotations as part of a strategy to regenerate soil quality and wheat crop health, reduce dependence on nitrogen fertilisers, enhance mycorrhization, and achieve good yields.

Can Moderate Agricultural Scale Operations Be Developed against the Background of Plot Fragmentation and Land Dispersion? Evidence from the Suburbs of Shanghai

Agricultural scale management has become the inexorable trend of modern agricultural development. Plot consolidation and centralized land management are traditionally viewed as the premise and foundation of agricultural scale operations in Europe, India, and China. In order to quantitatively verify whether this view is suitable for Shanghai suburbs, this paper measured the dynamic evolution characteristics of agricultural land and agricultural operations scale in suburban Shanghai at the plot level and peasant household level, using landscape metrics and agricultural statistics methods, respectively. At the city or regional level (the suburbs of Shanghai), the driving mechanism of the change of landscape aggregation degree of farmland was revealed using principal component analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. The results show that (1) in the suburbs of Shanghai, the expansion of the plot scale is restricted by various objective conditions, and the plot fragmentation pattern is inevitable and will exist for a long time; (2) the degree of land management dispersion exhibits an overall increasing trend; (3) moderate scale operations at the peasant household level generally demonstrate an increasing trend and are not obviously correlated with changes in the plot scale; and (4) service scale operations represent the main remedy for future agricultural development; (5) the improvement of agricultural mechanization level was positively correlated with the cultivated land aggregation index (AI), but economic development, industrial restructuring, and urbanization were negatively correlated with the AI of cultivated land. The results show that the appropriate scale of management of agriculture can still be developed in the suburbs of metropolis against the background of land fragmentation and dispersion. Of course, it is essential to change the concept and path of agricultural scale management development.

Land use change and collaborative manureshed management in New Mexico

Agricultural communities of New Mexico regularly redistribute manure nutrients from dairies to nearby croplands to fulfill agronomic nutrient needs and protect water quality. Yet competition for water resources can result in land use change that affects these cooperative manure transfers. Focusing on three clusters of New Mexico dairy farms and their surrounding lands (three manuresheds), we calculated the magnitude of land use changes in 2008-2019 and the balance between manure nutrient supply and crop demand in 2019 to assess how past change may predict future prospects for sustainable management. The overall magnitude of change was small, with each manureshed experiencing a different complement: an exchange of cropland and rangeland in the Roosevelt manureshed (7,975 ha rangeland to cropland; 7,624 ha cropland to rangeland), a 464-ha gain in cropland but a 1,187-ha loss of "spreadable" land (cropland, rangeland, fallow) to developed land in the Doña Ana manureshed, and relatively minor changes in the Chaves manureshed. Nutrient supply and demand were mainly in balance, but a surplus of manure phosphorus (P) in the Chaves manureshed and a thin margin of P assimilation by croplands in the Roosevelt manureshed point to the need for preserving existing croplands and understanding of effects of dairy manure on shortgrass rangeland. Our assessment suggests that an ideal scenario would entail manure being generated in landscapes with portfolios of productive lands that can sustainably use the manure nutrients to minimize environmental quality concerns and agronomic tradeoffs. Coordinated, participatory, and interdisciplinary research and planning are needed.

Perspective: Soybeans Can Help Address the Caloric and Protein Needs of a Growing Global Population

Feeding a growing global population with projected rising socioeconomic status will require additional sources of calories and especially protein. These sources need to align with the Sustainable Development Goals established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The soybean is uniquely positioned to meet this challenge based on the following criteria: (1) Global soybean production exceeds by ~4 times the production of all pulses combined (2) Soybeans are higher in protein than other legumes and soy protein quality is similar to animal protein quality (3) Soybeans are an excellent source of healthy fat, including both essential fatty acids (4) Soybeans, like other legumes, symbiotically fix atmospheric nitrogen thereby reducing the need for fertilizer inputs (5) Greenhouse gas emissions per unit protein are lower than for nearly all other foods (6) Soybeans, like other legumes, are also recognized as an affordable food that can be incorporated into diverse diets regardless of economic standing and (7) The range of foods produced from soybeans constitutes an important position in historic and contemporary cuisines, cultures and emerging consumer trends for plant-based protein. Although most soybeans are currently used for animal feed, soybean use is dictated by consumer demand. Therefore, soybeans are well positioned to meet future global needs for energy and protein. Armed with this knowledge, health professionals can feel justified in encouraging greater consumption of soyfoods for both personal and planetary reasons.

The State of US Farm Operator Livelihoods

In nine of the last 10 years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that the average funds generated on-farm for farm operators to meet living expenses and debt obligations have been negative. This paper pieces together disparate data to understand why farm operators in the most productive agricultural systems on the planet are systematically losing money. The data-driven narrative we present highlights some troubling trends in US farm operator livelihoods. Though US farms are more productive than ever before, rising input costs, volatile production values, and rising land rents have left farmers with unprecedented levels of farm debt, low on-farm incomes, and high reliance on federal programs. For many US farm operators, the indicators of a “good livelihood”—stability, security, equitable rewards for work—are largely absent. We conclude by proposing three axes of intervention that would help US agriculture better sustain all farmers' livelihoods, a crucial step toward improving overall agricultural sustainability: (1) increase the diversity of people, crops, and cropping systems, (2) improve equity in access to land, support, and capital, and (3) improve the quality, accessibility, and content of data to facilitate monitoring of multiple indicators of agricultural “success.”

Interplay between Competing and Coexisting Policy Regimens within Supply Chain Configurations

Competing and coexisting policies (CACPs) may arise from the incompatibility of incentives, standards, and regulatory models between a local state and a federal government, or between two government jurisdictions across which supply networks operate. Traditional studies of supply chain dynamics typically explore the impact of policy regimens as standalone instruments. This study explores how the interplay between CACP regimens can affect the supply dynamics between producers, customers, and their intermediaries. We use a supply network configuration lens to assess implications for supply chain actors and system-level outcomes. Our work is motivated by the federal-state dissonance in the current dispute between India's farmers and the federal government regarding new laws that impact agricultural supply chains in India. In this case, alternative and coexisting policy interventions, ostensibly aimed at modernizing and transforming production and distribution, can lead to significant supply chain netting and inventory pooling reconfigurations in terms of material, information, and financial flows among Indian agricultural stakeholders, along with inventory repositioning and market creation options. In addition, of significance is the consequent shift in the balance between state/nation and federal/supranational equity and bargaining power, an increasingly relevant context where supply chains operate across a common but multi-jurisdictional territory, and implications for system-level outcomes, in this particular case equity, welfare economics, and food security. We conclude by pointing to the implications of CACP regimens, and their interplay, for the broader field of operations management and supply chain research.

Comparison of random forest and multiple linear regression to model the mass balance of biosolids from a complex biosolids management area

The use of biosolids as a soil amendment provides an important alternative to disposal and can improve soil health; however, distribution for water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) in the United States can be challenging due to decreasing cropland, increased precipitation, variable plant operations, and financial constraints. Although statistical modeling is commonly used in the water sector, machine learning is still an emerging tool and can provide insights to optimize operations. Random forest (RF), a machine learning model, and multiple linear regression (MLR) were used in this study to model the mass balance of biosolids from a complex biosolids management area. The RF model outperformed (R²  = 0.89) the MLR model (R²  = 0.49) and showed that rainfall was a major factor impacting distribution. Storage for dried biosolids would help decouple drying operations from wet weather and increase distribution. This study demonstrated how machine learning can assist in decision-making processes for long-term planning at WRRFs. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Random forest predicted the 7-day average mass balance of biosolids from a complex biosolids management area. Decoupling biosolids drying operations from wet weather was identified as the highest operational priority. Machine learning outperformed multiple linear regression and can be an important tool for the water sector.

Land-use change and rodent-borne diseases: hazards on the shared socioeconomic pathways

Land-use change has a direct impact on species survival and reproduction, altering their spatio-temporal distributions. It acts as a selective force that favours the abundance and diversity of reservoir hosts and affects host-pathogen dynamics and prevalence. This has led to land-use change being a significant driver of infectious diseases emergence. Here, we predict the presence of rodent taxa and map the zoonotic hazard (potential sources of harm) from rodent-borne diseases in the short and long term (2025 and 2050). The study considers three different land-use scenarios based on the shared socioeconomic pathways narratives (SSPs): sustainable (SSP1-Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6), fossil-fuelled development (SSP5-RCP 8.5) and deepening inequality (SSP4-RCP 6.0). We found that cropland expansion into forest and pasture may increase zoonotic hazards in areas with high rodent-species diversity. Nevertheless, a future sustainable scenario may not always reduce hazards. All scenarios presented high heterogeneity in zoonotic hazard, with high-income countries having the lowest hazard range. The SSPs narratives suggest that opening borders and reducing cropland expansion are critical to mitigate current and future zoonotic hazards globally, particularly in middle- and low-income economies. Our study advances previous efforts to anticipate the emergence of zoonotic diseases by integrating past, present and future information to guide surveillance and mitigation of zoonotic hazards at the regional and local scale. This article is part of the theme issue 'Infectious disease macroecology: parasite diversity and dynamics across the globe'.

Farmers' adoption and perceived benefits of diversified crop rotations in the margins of U.S. Corn Belt

Monoculture and simplified two-crop rotation systems compromise the ecosystem services essential to crop production, diminish agricultural productivity, and cause detrimental effects on the environment. In contrast to the simplified two-crop rotation, diversified crop rotation (DCR) refers to rotation systems that contain three or more crops. Despite multiple benefits generated by DCR, its usage has dwindled over the past several decades. This paper examined determinants of farmers' adoption decisions and perceived benefits of DCR in the west margins of the U.S. Corn Belt where crop diversity has declined. We analyzed 708 farmer responses from a farmer survey conducted in the eastern South Dakota in 2018, accounting for county-level climate variables, as well as cropland data, soil and topographic variables in close proximity of the farm. Our findings indicated that farmers were more likely to utilize DCR as an adaptive strategy to cope with water deficit and reduce soil erosion on marginal land. Additionally, livestock integration and organic farming helped necessitate DCR adoption and magnify its benefits. Producer concerns towards lack of equipment and new crop profitability diluted producers' interests in DCR practice and compromised its benefits. Enhanced technical and policy support, along with infrastructure and market development, could help producers fully utilize DCR benefits and expand DCR usage to more regions.