2
of different ecosystem services is highly variable in nature, e.g., few ecosystem
services like food and timber have great values compared to services like pollination
or bioremediation.
Ecosystem services have been defined from various points of views. According
to Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003, 2005) the benefits that people obtain
from ecosystem including provisioning services such as food, timber, fresh water
fiber; cultural services that provide non-material benefits, such as places for recreation, meditation and inspiration; and regulating services such as flood control and
climate regulation together constitute the ecosystem services. This definition of ecosystem services encompasses gifts of nature like aesthetic beauty, carbon storage or
oxygen generation etc.
Several research papers have explored the spatial patterns of provision of multiple services across landscapes by mangroves. This unique floral community acts as
agent of shoreline protection in some areas, where as the same species plays significant role in bioremediation in some other zone (preferably in the coastal industrial
belts).
In the domain of ecosystem services ‘Driver’ is a very important term, which is
basically a factor often directly modified by human management and affects one or
more ecosystem services (Table 1.1). It has been observed that certain service of
ecosystem affects the other through synergistic or antagonistic mechanism, e.g.,
afforestation enhance the process of carbon sequestration but at the same time the
evapotranspiration increases the growth of the trees, which ultimately decreases the
water availability. Thus it is an example of antagonistic mechanism. Again by maintaining forest patches close to agricultural land generates two services simultaneously namely pollination and crop production. This is an example of synergistic
mechanism. It is therefore important to analyze the drivers and interactions among
the multiple services and find a road map to create synergies and avoid antagonistic
process by manipulating ecosystem service drivers.
Lot of works have been done on the valuation methods, data and classification
systems for ecosystem services for terrestrial ecosystems compared to the mangrove ecosystems in the coastal and estuarine regions of the world. Peer review
literature on global economic valuations of coastal forest like mangrove ecosystems, sea grass ecosystems is rather limited. Mangrove ecosystems are widely distributed at the land-sea interface and it has been projected that the number of people
living within 10 km of significant mangrove areas might rise to 120 million (Van
Bochove et al. 2014).
There are certain confusion to pinpoint the exact ecosystem services offered by
mangroves because the ecosystem is often overlapped or combined with tidal
marshes, sea grasses community, coral reefs etc. (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2).
Table 1.2 lists the ecosystem services categories identified by the mangrove
Delphi, grouped according to the Common International Classification of Ecosystem
Services (CICES).
The first five columns belong to the CICES framework and the results of the
Delphi technique are included in the last column. doi: 10.1371/journal.
pone.0107706.t001
1 Ecosystem Services of Mangroves: An Overview
of different ecosystem services is highly variable in nature, e.g., few ecosystem
services like food and timber have great values compared to services like pollination
or bioremediation.
Ecosystem services have been defined from various points of views. According
to Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003, 2005) the benefits that people obtain
from ecosystem including provisioning services such as food, timber, fresh water
fiber; cultural services that provide non-material benefits, such as places for recreation, meditation and inspiration; and regulating services such as flood control and
climate regulation together constitute the ecosystem services. This definition of ecosystem services encompasses gifts of nature like aesthetic beauty, carbon storage or
oxygen generation etc.
Several research papers have explored the spatial patterns of provision of multiple services across landscapes by mangroves. This unique floral community acts as
agent of shoreline protection in some areas, where as the same species plays significant role in bioremediation in some other zone (preferably in the coastal industrial
belts).
In the domain of ecosystem services ‘Driver’ is a very important term, which is
basically a factor often directly modified by human management and affects one or
more ecosystem services (Table 1.1). It has been observed that certain service of
ecosystem affects the other through synergistic or antagonistic mechanism, e.g.,
afforestation enhance the process of carbon sequestration but at the same time the
evapotranspiration increases the growth of the trees, which ultimately decreases the
water availability. Thus it is an example of antagonistic mechanism. Again by maintaining forest patches close to agricultural land generates two services simultaneously namely pollination and crop production. This is an example of synergistic
mechanism. It is therefore important to analyze the drivers and interactions among
the multiple services and find a road map to create synergies and avoid antagonistic
process by manipulating ecosystem service drivers.
Lot of works have been done on the valuation methods, data and classification
systems for ecosystem services for terrestrial ecosystems compared to the mangrove ecosystems in the coastal and estuarine regions of the world. Peer review
literature on global economic valuations of coastal forest like mangrove ecosystems, sea grass ecosystems is rather limited. Mangrove ecosystems are widely distributed at the land-sea interface and it has been projected that the number of people
living within 10 km of significant mangrove areas might rise to 120 million (Van
Bochove et al. 2014).
There are certain confusion to pinpoint the exact ecosystem services offered by
mangroves because the ecosystem is often overlapped or combined with tidal
marshes, sea grasses community, coral reefs etc. (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2).
Table 1.2 lists the ecosystem services categories identified by the mangrove
Delphi, grouped according to the Common International Classification of Ecosystem
Services (CICES).
The first five columns belong to the CICES framework and the results of the
Delphi technique are included in the last column. doi: 10.1371/journal.
pone.0107706.t001
1 Ecosystem Services of Mangroves: An Overview