Flood mitigation ecosystem service in landscapes of Argentina's Pampas: Identifying winning and losing farmers

Abstract

Ecosystem services are only able to make a contribution to human well-being if they reach the users or beneficiaries. Therefore, it is important to differentiate the potential contributions of ecosystems (ecosystem service supply) from the fraction of the supply that is captured or used. This is even more relevant when the supply and capture of the service occur in different locations. In this case, propagation models are needed to identify who wins and who loses when land-use policies are applied. In this study, we developed an integrated approach for the analysis of supply, propagation and capture patterns of flood-mitigation ecosystem service in rural landscapes and we illustrated how to apply it for the identification of winning and losing farmers under alternative land-use scenarios. The proposed approach allowed us to differentiate farms according to their flood mitigation capacity and to estimate how that capacity could be affected by changes in land use. It also highlights the importance of considering the propagation and capture of ecosystem services in evaluations. Reliable methodological developments are scarce. Therefore, flexible tools such as this proposal are necessary to fit the available information and the context to be analyzed.