WSC 2006: Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in the Yahara Watershed

Understanding spatial distributions, synergies and tradeoffs of multiple ecosystem
services (benefits people derive from ecosystems) remains challenging. We analyzed the
supply of 10 ecosystem services for 2006 across a large urbanizing agricultural watershed in
the Upper Midwest of the United States, and asked: (i) Where are areas of high and low
supply of individual ecosystem services, and are these areas spatially concordant across
services? (ii) Where on the landscape are the strongest tradeoffs and synergies among
ecosystem services located? (iii) For ecosystem service pairs that experience tradeoffs,
what distinguishes locations that are win win exceptions from other locations? Spatial
patterns of high supply for multiple ecosystem services often were not coincident locations
where six or more services were produced at high levels (upper 20th percentile) occupied
only 3.3 percent of the landscape. Most relationships among ecosystem services were
synergies, but tradeoffs occurred between crop production and water quality. Ecosystem
services related to water quality and quantity separated into three different groups,
indicating that management to sustain freshwater services along with other ecosystem
services will not be simple. Despite overall tradeoffs between crop production and water
quality, some locations were positive for both, suggesting that tradeoffs are not inevitable
everywhere and might be ameliorated in some locations. Overall, we found that different
areas of the landscape supplied different suites of ecosystem services, and their lack of
spatial concordance suggests the importance of managing over large areas to sustain multiple
ecosystem services. Documentation: Refer to the supporting information of the follwing paper
for full details on data sources, methods and accuracy assessment:  Qiu, Jiangxiao, and
Monica G. Turner. "Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing
agricultural watershed." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110.29 (2013):
12149-12154.