Journal
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Volume 26, Issue -, Pages 79-94Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.06.008
Keywords
Land-use change; Climate change; Ecosystem service resilience; Mountain farming; Permanent grassland
Categories
Funding
- ERA-Net BiodivERsA
- national funder Austrian Science Fund FWF, BiodivERsA call for research proposals (project REGARDS) [I 1056-B25]
- Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy HRSM - cooperation project KLIMAGRO
- TRY initiative on plant traits
- DIVERSITAS
- IGBP
- Global Land Project
- UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through its program QUEST (Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System)
- French Foundation for Biodiversity Research (FRB)
- GIS Climat, Environnement et Societe France
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Although the ecosystem services provided by mountain grasslands have been demonstrated to be highly vulnerable to environmental and management changes in the past, it remains unclear how they will be affected in the face of a combination of further land-use/cover changes and accelerating climate change. Moreover, the resilience of ecosystem services has not been sufficiently analysed under future scenarios. This study aimed to assess future impacts on multiple mountain grassland ecosystem services and their resilience. For a study area in the Central Alps (Stubai Valley, Austria), six ecosystem services were quantified using plant trait-based models for current and future conditions (in 2050 and 2100) considering three socio-economic scenarios. Under all scenarios, the greatest changes in ecosystem services were related to the natural reforestation of abandoned grassland, causing a shift from grassland to forest services. Although the high resilience potential of most ecosystem services will be maintained in the future, climate change seems to have negative impacts, especially on the resilience of forage production. Thus, decision makers and farmers will be faced with the higher vulnerability of ecosystem services of mountain grassland. Future policies should consider both socio-economic and environmental dynamics to manage valuable ecosystem services. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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