The importance of urban natural areas and urban ecosystem services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Urban, peri-urban forests and other natural areas provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to people known as ecosystem services. Access to these areas has been linked to benefits for physical and mental health of local populations. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced many governments to impose a set of restrictions including the closure of businesses, cancelation of public events and schooling, social distancing, limitations on the size of social gatherings, and travel restrictions. During this period of restrictions, we conducted a study assessing the importance of urban and peri-urban forests and other natural areas to people living in and around the city of Burlington, Vermont, USA. We evaluated the self-reported use and changes in personal importance related to these natural areas before and during the period of restrictions. We received over 400 responses to our field survey. The results show that 69.0% of the respondents had increased or greatly increased their visitation rate to our natural areas and urban forests, and 80.6% of respondents considered that the importance of these areas, and access to them, either increased or greatly increased. Moreover 25.8% of the sample had either never, or very rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic, but 69.2% of the first time or infrequent visitors reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 as 'very important'. People reported that these areas were important for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding, but also reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos. Our results indicate the increasing demand and value of such areas in times of crisis such as COVID-19. Experts in zoonotic disease predict the potential for more frequent pandemic events, thus predicating the importance for continued funding for, maintenance of, and improved access to, natural areas to our largely urban civilization.

Landslides in the Andes: Forests can provide cost-effective landslide regulation services.

Landslides cause billions of dollars (USD) in damage and hundreds of life losses every year in mountainous areas globally, and these effects are exacerbated by climate change and increased human occupation of vulnerable areas. In many mountainous regions forests deliver slope stability, helping to prevent landslides. However, forests are progressively converted into other land uses in many mountainous regions. In this study, we focus on the Colombian Andes, the most populated and deadly landslide-prone part of Colombia. We aim to determine the difference in frequency of landslides from forested and non-forested areas, and subsequently, quantify the potential costs and benefits of protecting forest and of restoring forest from agricultural lands. To that end, we combine economic data with geographical information related to public and private infrastructure, land use, and landslide susceptibility. Analyzing the national landslide database of Colombia, we established that landslides are almost six times (581%) more likely to occur on non-forested lands than on forested lands. From an economic perspective, by preventing landslides, forests provide a net benefit through the provision of slope stability services. Our most conservative estimates indicate it is 16 times more cost-effective to promote forest corridors, via conservation or reforestation along roads by paying farmers and cattle herders their opportunity costs, than for the public to pay the expected value of landslide damage. Our analysis provides strong evidence that vegetated hillsides can provide a cost-effective ecosystem service approach to mitigate economic losses due to landslides in one of the world's most landslide prone areas.

A farewell to glaciers: Ecosystem services loss in the Spanish Pyrenees.

Glaciers are long-term freshwater reservoirs that contribute to the regulation of water availability throughout the year. In the Pyrenees mountain range, glaciers are predicted to disappear by the mid 21st century if current melting trends continue. The areas downstream from these glaciers have seen a gradual increase in water consumption since the 1980s, mainly due to the conversion of traditional crops to more water-demanding products, expansion of the irrigated agricultural area, and modernization of agricultural techniques that create incentives to spread water use. The steady increase of water consumption is not compatible with the predicted future scenario, where a reduced provision of water as an essential ecosystem service is expected, in particular during the dry summers. In this study, we present an up-to-date outlook on the evolution of the glaciers on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. We then calculate the melting rate (in volume) of these glaciers in order to estimate their water contributions to their respective watersheds. These results are combined with existing data on water consumption for each watershed, and aiming to offer a more sustainable future for the local population, we propose a set of adaptive measures that have been implemented in other regions where water availability has gradually become an issue. These measures are focused on diversifying the most water-consuming activity in the region (agriculture) to enable a future compatible with the ecosystem services the region is able to provide.