Uncertainty analysis of ecosystem services and implications for environmental management – An experiment in the Heihe River Basin, China

• Published in: The Science of the total environment Vol. 821; p. 153481
• Main Authors: Wang, Bei, Li, Xin, Ma, Chun-Feng, Zhu, Gao-Feng, Luan, Wen-Fei, Zhong, Jun-Tao, Tan, Mei-Bao, Fu, Jing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 15-05-2022
• Subjects: China; Conservation of Natural Resources; Economic valuation; Ecosystem; Endorheic basins; Extended Fourier amplitude sensitivity test; Global sensitivity analysis; Monte Carlo simulation; Rivers; Uncertainty; China; Global sensitivity analysis; Endorheic basins; Economic valuation; Extended Fourier amplitude sensitivity test; Monte Carlo simulation
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153481

Integrating the economic values of ecosystem services provided by different land uses into decision analysis is critical to achieving effective environmental management in endorheic basins. However, policymaking often ignores the uncertainty related to the variability of parameters in ecosystem service values. To this end, we identified sensitive parameters in the ecosystem service values under four land uses using the global sensitivity analysis method and quantified the potential monetary outcomes based on the Monte Carlo method. The results indicated that only a few sensitive parameters, such as water yield (Qi) and treatment costs per unit of nitrogen (Cost_N), were the primary sources of uncertainty. Therefore, we suggest that improving the precision of sensitive parameters is essential for reducing uncertainty in the total ecosystem service value. Additionally, the overall monetary outcomes for cropland exhibited negative values and had higher risk and lower benefits than those for forest from the standpoint of ecosystem services. In addition, the nonmarketed service of landscape aesthetic made the monetary outcomes of water bodies higher than those of cropland, yet the value of landscape aesthetic was highly uncertain. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve total monetary outcomes by decreasing the negative values in food provisioning of cropland and the uncertainty in landscape aesthetic for water bodies. The sensitivity analysis and uncertainty analysis provide important guidelines for quantifying and reducing the related uncertainty and provide policy information for environmental management based on a comprehensive consideration of the potential ecosystem service values for various land uses.
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•Policies to improve ESs often neglect the uncertainty in assessing ESs.•The potential outcomes of ESV for various land uses were quantified using Monte Carlo.•The sensitive parameters in the ESV were identified using global sensitivity analysis.•The overall ESV for forest had a lower risk and higher return than that for cropland.•Reducing the uncertainty of food supply and aesthetic information could increase the ESV.