Minimizing impacts of land use change on ecosystem services using multi-criteria heuristic analysis

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 2015-06, Vol.156, p.23-30
• Main Authors: Keller, Arturo A., Fournier, Eric, Fox, Jessica
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Biodiversity; Carbon Sequestration; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Decision making; Decision making models; Ecosystem; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Environmental impact; Heuristic; Heuristics; Humans; InVEST; Land management; Land use; Modeling; Models, Theoretical; Pollination
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.03.017

Development of natural landscapes to support human activities impacts the capacity of the landscape to provide ecosystem services. Typically, several ecosystem services are impacted at a single development site and various footprint scenarios are possible, thus a multi-criteria analysis is needed. Restoration potential should also be considered for the area surrounding the permanent impact site. The primary objective of this research was to develop a heuristic approach to analyze multiple criteria (e.g. impacts to various ecosystem services) in a spatial configuration with many potential development sites. The approach was to: (1) quantify the magnitude of terrestrial ecosystem service (biodiversity, carbon sequestration, nutrient and sediment retention, and pollination) impacts associated with a suite of land use change scenarios using the InVEST model; (2) normalize results across categories of ecosystem services to allow cross-service comparison; (3) apply the multi-criteria heuristic algorithm to select sites with the least impact to ecosystem services, including a spatial criterion (separation between sites). As a case study, the multi-criteria impact minimization algorithm was applied to InVEST output to select 25 potential development sites out of 204 possible locations (selected by other criteria) within a 24,000 ha property. This study advanced a generally applicable spatial multi-criteria approach for 1) considering many land use footprint scenarios, 2) balancing impact decisions across a suite of ecosystem services, and 3) determining the restoration potential of ecosystem services after impacts. [Display omitted] •Methods for balancing impacts across a suite of ecosystem services are presented.•A multi-criteria approach for selecting from hundreds of footprints is presented.•Consideration of the restoration potential of ecosystem services is included.•The method is applicable anywhere that many footprint options need to be optimized.