Scaling Policy Conflicts in Ecosystem Services Governance: A Framework for Spatial Analysis

Abstract

Effective governance for ecosystem services (ES) is not only challenged by trade-offs between services’ provision and conflicts among policies aimed at enhancing individual services, but also by the problem of scale. This paper's objective is to introduce a framework for the systematic analysis of scale issues in ES governance, and to illustrate its application in a case study of bioenergy production. The research questions are: (i) How can the concepts of scale be integrated in an assessment of ES governance? (ii) Which scale effects can be identified in a case study analysis of bioenergy governance? Building upon the DPSIR (driving forces, pressures, state, impacts, and responses) model, a framework for systematically assessing scale effects in ES governance is developed and applied in a nested case study in the region of Hanover, Germany. The case study is the first such study to spatially illustrate scale effects in ES trade-offs and policy conflicts. The results contribute to our understanding of scalar issues in the governance of ES with a differentiated typology of scale effects and their spatial implications within the DPSIR model. The approach supports ex post and ex ante assessments of governance designs, and helps actors considering across-level impacts of policy options in practice.

Key Words:

• Scale
• landscape planning
• environmental planning
• ecosystem services
• governance
• policy
• DPSIR

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the guest editors and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback which has greatly improved the quality of the paper. We would like to thank Sylvia Herrmann for very helpful advice and Louise von Falkenhayn for polishing the language. Johannes Hermes conducted the GIS-analyses and Christoffer Lange-Kabitz helped in the revision—their help is also gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Christian Albert http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2591-4779

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Education and Culture (MWK) in support of the project ‘Biomasse im Spannungsfeld’.