Participatory mapping of cultural ecosystem services for landscape corridor planning: A case study of the Silk Roads corridor in Zhangye, China.

Cultural landscape corridors provide opportunities for recreation and other cultural ecosystem services (CES). Currently, many local governments are preparing cultural landscape corridor (CLC) proposals along China's Silk Roads, which include many notable features of historical human activity and communication between different cultures. However, public values and perceptions of these projects have been largely excluded from the planning processes. This study presents a spatial pattern analysis of public perceptions of the impact of a CLC in Zhangye, China. CES were used as a framework for participatory mapping, interviews, and a structured survey of public perceptions, and correspondence analysis was used to identify resident perceptions of the corridor's expected impact, especially as related to CES. Our results show that aesthetic values, cultural heritage values, and recreation were valued most highly. These values varied according to respondents' employment and land-use rights. The riverside was the most highest-valued area for CES. Respondents expressed concerns about the project's potentially negative impact, especially on the spiritual values of land. These concerns could be the source of conflict during project implementation. We conclude that linking participatory mapping with CES has the potential to improve corridor proposals and assist in the management of conflicts between planners and public stakeholders.

Current use of impact models for agri-environment schemes and potential for improvements of policy design and assessment.

Agri-Environment Schemes (AES) to maintain or promote environmentally-friendly farming practices were implemented on about 25% of all agricultural land in the EU by 2002. This article analyses and discusses the actual and potential use of impact models in supporting the design, implementation and evaluation of AES. Impact models identify and establish the causal relationships between policy objectives and policy outcomes. We review and discuss the role of impact models at different stages in the AES policy process, and present results from a survey of impact models underlying 60 agri-environmental schemes in seven EU member states. We distinguished among three categories of impact models (quantitative, qualitative or common sense), depending on the degree of evidence in the formal scheme description, additional documents, or key person interviews. The categories of impact models used mainly depended on whether scheme objectives were related to natural resources, biodiversity or landscape. A higher proportion of schemes dealing with natural resources (primarily water) were based on quantitative impact models, compared to those concerned with biodiversity or landscape. Schemes explicitly targeted either on particular parts of individual farms or specific areas tended to be based more on quantitative impact models compared to whole-farm schemes and broad, horizontal schemes. We conclude that increased and better use of impact models has significant potential to improve efficiency and effectiveness of AES.