Nexus Seminar No. 22 - Multi-Scale Assessment and Land-Use Dependent Valuation of Hydrologic Ecosystem Services

Understanding the impacts of land-cover / land-use change (LCLUC) on the provision of hydrologic ecosystem services (HES) is key for effective watershed management. However, this understanding is hampered by multiple factors: including the difficulty of making assessments across varying temporal and spatial scales, by multiple sources of uncertainty inherent in the analysis (e.g., data input, model structures / parameters), and by the multidisciplinary nature of making an end-to-end assessment of environmental impacts. These challenges can limit the utility of hydrologic analysis in the effective development and implementation of environmental policies.

This seminar will discuss some of the state of the art analysis methods which are used to address these challenges; including statistical, modelling, and economic valuation methods. The application of these methods are demonstrated by a case study in the Vouga Basin, located in the north-central region of Portugal, which has undergone substantial land-cover change in the twentieth century and has ongoing challenges with respect to LCLUC and HES.

This research was conducted as part of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Programme; and is acollaboration between the TU Dresden, Institute of Soil Science and Site Ecology; the University of Aveiro, Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies; and the University of Padova, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture, and Forestry.