Using the Ecosystem Services assessment tool TESSA to balance the multiple landscape demands of increasing woodlands in a UK national park

Iversen, Sara, MacDonald, Michael, van der Velden, Naomi ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8969-1191 , van Soesbergen, Arnout, Convery, Ian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2527-5660 , Mansfield, Lois ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0707-2467 and Holt, Claire ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3635-5404 (2024) Using the Ecosystem Services assessment tool TESSA to balance the multiple landscape demands of increasing woodlands in a UK national park. Ecosystem Services, 68 . p. 101644.

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Abstract

Upland regions in the UK are increasingly under consideration as potential areas for the creation of woodlands. This is driven by a combination of factors, including the aims of UK forestry policy to increase woodland cover, changes in current upland land-use and management, agri-environment schemes in national and international policy and an increasing public awareness of the ecosystem service benefits landscapes can deliver for society. Creating new woodlands in upland areas is challenging, partly due to concerns of potential impacts from a change in land use and stakeholder interests. This study considers a 250 km2 Cumbrian (England) upland landscape dominated by sheep grazing and, using an established ecosystem service assessment tool (TESSA), estimates the provision of ecosystem services under plausible alternative woodland creation scenarios. The assessment focuses on key ecosystem goods and services, which are identified by stakeholders to be of high importance to the study area, and the potential changes to those under the scenarios. The results indicate that, under lower woodland percentage scenarios (10 %), minor benefits are expected. However, a more complex outcome would be expected from the higher percentage woodland scenarios (75 %) with the woodland cover of 50 % identified as providing the highest overall benefit to society.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Ecosystem Services
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	2212-0416
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > Forestry and Conservation
Additional Information:	Naomi van der Velden, Ian Convery, Lois Mansfield, Claire D.S. Holt - all of the Institute of Science and Environment, University of Cumbria, UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	29 Jul 2024 10:54
Last Modified:	29 Jul 2024 11:00
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/7818

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