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Critical zone services: Expanding context, constraints, and currency beyond ecosystem services

Vadose Zone Journal, ISSN: 1539-1663, Vol: 14, Issue: 1
2015
  • 78
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 161
    Captures
  • 1
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Citations
    78
    • Citation Indexes
      78
  • Captures
    161
  • Mentions
    1
    • News Mentions
      1
      • News
        1

Most Recent News

Soil Signals Tell of Landscape Disturbances

Studying the Critical Zone • Critical Zone Science Comes of Age   • Life Teems Below the Surface   • Soil Signals Tell of Landscape Disturbances   • Demystifying Critical Zone Science to Make It More Inclusive   • Next Steps for the Critical Zone   We live in the Anthropocene, a time when the intensity and frequency of disturbances to Earth’s ecosystems are increasing as humanity’s footprint grows

Article Description

Processes within the critical zone—spanning groundwater to the top of the vegetation canopy—have important societal relevance and operate over broad spatial and temporal scales that often are not included in existing frameworks for ecosystem services evaluation. Here we expand the scope of ecosystem services by specifying how critical zone processes extend context both spatially and temporally determine constraints that limit provision of services, and offer a potentially powerful currency for evaluation. Context: A critical zone perspective extends the context of ecosystem services by expressly addressing how the physical structure of the terrestrial Earth surface (e.g., parent material, topography and orography) provides a broader spatial and temporal template determining the coevolution of physical and biological systems that result in societal benefits. Constraints: The rates at which many ecosystem services are provided are fundamentally constrained by rate-limited critical zone processes, a phenomenon that we describe as a conceptual "supply chain" that accounts for rate-limiting soil formation, hydrologic partitioning, and stream-flow generation. Currency: One of the major challenges in assessing ecosystem services is the evaluation of their importance by linking ecological processes to societal benefits through market and nonmarket valuation. We propose that critical zone processes be integrated into an evaluation currency useful for valuation, by quantifying the energy flux available to do thermodynamic work on the critical zone. In short, characterization of critical zone processes expands the scope of ecosystem services by providing context, constraints, and currency that enable more effective management needed to respond to impacts of changing climate and disturbances.

Bibliographic Details

Jason P. Field; David D. Breshears; Darin J. Law; Juan C. Villegas; Rachel E. Gallery; Shirley A. Papuga; Laura Lopez-Hoffman; Paul D. Brooks; Jennifer C. McIntosh; Thomas Meixner; Guo Yue Niu; Peter A. Troch; Jon Chorover; Rebecca A. Lybrand; Craig R. Rasmussen; Greg A. Barron-Gafford; Marcy E. Litvak; Jon D. Pelletier

Wiley

Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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