Understanding ecosystem service bundles and their social-ecological patterns in a Swedish landscape

Sammanfattning: Managing landscapes in a way that ensures sustainable development and the continued production of benefits to a diverse set of people requires an understanding how people use, modify, and depend on their local environment. This thesis uses the concept of ecosystem service bundles to articulate the social-ecological dynamics that define landscapes. In particular, this thesis focuses on how social and ecological factors create patterns of ecosystem service bundles and how well we can predict these patterns. It also explores ecosystem service bundles as a concept and how it can be better operationalized.In the first paper, I explore how well different theories of human-nature interaction predict the distribution of ecosystem services in the Norrström drainage basin in Sweden. Traditionally, land use is the accepted driver of ecosystem service production. However, by including social, economic and geographic variables, I show that this broader social-ecological set of drivers are better at predicting the presence of ecosystem services and their configurations in the landscape. This paper bridges empirically based ecosystem service mapping with theory driven modeling and highlights a need for the development of a coherent social-ecological theory of human-nature interaction.In the second paper, I investigate different conceptualizations of ecosystem service bundles. The paper highlights three key areas of focus uniquely important for assessing ecosystem service bundles and comparing them across cases – namely 1) scale – extent and units of observation 2) chain of production, and 3) mechanisms and drivers.