People in Ecosystems/Watershed Integration: A web-based learning tool for evaluating ecosystem service tradeoffs from watersheds

Excerpt

Society is increasingly demanding outcomes from our agricultural landscapes that include but extend well beyond crop production (Arbuckle et al. 2015; National Research Council 2010). In shifting to manage for a multifunctional agriculture, the agricultural community is developing and using innovative knowledge, information, and expertise to restore valuable ecological functions to the agricultural landscapes while also supporting vibrant farmer and rural livelihoods (Jordan et al. 2013; Liebman and Schulte 2015). Still, gaps persist in advancing a more comprehensive, applied understanding of how agriculture can become more multifunctional in character and produce the broader outcomes that society desires.

We suggest that an integrated ecosystem service tradeoffs framework provides an educational opportunity to demonstrate to various agricultural stakeholders how landscape designs can enhance multifunctional agriculture, mitigate risks to farmers and society, and help farmers maintain solid financial performance over longer time scales. At present, however, few accessible tools exist to guide the broader landscape design learning process and aid in the evaluation of how various changes to land management can affect the types and levels of goods and services that support humans. We created the People in Ecosystems/Watershed Integration tool (PEWI) to help fill this educational gap.

PEWI is a new, open…