Understanding Ecosystem Services
Understanding the benefits people receive from ecosystems, how ecological systems support human well-being, and how environmental change and resource management influence those relationships.
Ecosystems support people in many different ways.
Ecosystems provide resources, ecological functions, and environmental benefits that support human societies. These relationships connect ecological processes with livelihoods, communities, and human well-being.
At the IHED Lab, ecosystem services are studied as part of interconnected socio-ecological systems. This perspective considers both the ecological processes that generate benefits and the human decisions, institutions, and resource-management practices that influence them.
Understanding these connections can help explain how changes in land, water, agriculture, and other natural-resource systems affect the benefits that people depend upon.
Studying ecosystem services through connected systems.
Our ecosystem-services perspective connects ecological processes with human decisions, resource management, landscapes, and community conditions.
Ecosystem Processes
Examining ecological processes and functions that support the continued provision of benefits from natural systems.
People & Nature
Exploring relationships between ecosystem conditions and the benefits that people and communities receive from nature.
Resource Systems
Understanding ecosystem services within broader natural-resource systems involving land, water, agriculture, and communities.
Landscape Change
Investigating how changing landscapes can influence ecological functions and the services available to people.
Resource Management
Considering how management practices and human decisions shape ecological systems and their associated benefits.
Environmental Equity
Considering how environmental benefits and resource conditions affect different communities, particularly marginalized and under-resourced populations.
Connecting ecological functions with social systems.
Ecosystem services cannot be fully understood by examining ecological processes alone. Human decisions, institutions, livelihoods, management practices, and environmental conditions all influence how ecosystem benefits are generated and experienced.
IHED Lab uses an interdisciplinary perspective that brings together ecological science, social theory, field research, and systems approaches.
- Ecological science and environmental processes
- Human dimensions of natural-resource management
- Field-based environmental research
- Socio-ecological systems thinking
- Integration of social and natural science perspectives
What can ecosystem services tell us?
How do ecosystems support human well-being?
Examining the ecological functions and resources that contribute to human well-being and community conditions
How does environmental change affect ecosystem services?
Investigating how changes in land, water, ecosystems, and resource systems can influence ecological functions and the benefits associated with them.
How do human decisions influence ecosystem services?
Considering how land-use decisions, management practices, institutions, and human behavior influence environmental systems and the benefits they provide.
How are ecosystem services connected to land and water systems?
Exploring relationships between landscapes, watersheds, agricultural systems, ecological processes, and the services associated with them.