Assessing ecosystem services in protected areas: trade-offs and hotspots in Friuli Venezia Giulia region (northeastern Italy)

Protected areas (PAs) are expected to provide multiple ecosystem services (ESs), but quantitative assessments on their effectiveness in maintaining ESs are often lacking. This work aims to assess the effectiveness of PAs in delivering multiple ESs compared to non-protected areas (NPAs), while exploring trade-offs and synergies between ESs and their hotspots. To this end we quantified, mapped and analysed four forest-related ESs in a mountainous region of northeastern Italy, which includes several PAs of the Natura 2000 network. We found higher values of habitat provision and recreation supply ESs in PAs than in NPAs, but lower C storage and erosion control. No extreme trade-offs between ESs were observed, and hotspots were identified both inside and outside PAs. Our results suggest that landscape composition in terms of land use and cover as well as geo-climatic characteristics greatly influenced PAs’ and NPAs’ ability to provide ESs.

保护区（Protected Areas, PAs）本应提供多重生态系统服务（Ecosystem Services, ESs），但当前针对其维持生态系统服务效能的量化评估往往较为匮乏。本研究旨在对比保护区与非保护区（Non-protected Areas, NPAs）在提供多重生态系统服务方面的效能，并探究生态系统服务间的权衡与协同关系及其热点区域。为此，我们在意大利东北部一片包含多个自然2000（Natura 2000）网络保护区的山地区域内，对四项与森林相关的生态系统服务开展了量化、制图与分析工作。研究发现，保护区内的生境供给与休闲供给类生态系统服务价值显著高于非保护区，但碳储存与侵蚀控制服务价值则相对更低。本研究未观测到生态系统服务间存在极端权衡关系，且在保护区内外均识别出了生态系统服务热点区域。结果表明，土地利用与覆被格局以及地理气候特征，对保护区与非保护区提供生态系统服务的能力均产生了显著影响。