The relevance of stakeholders’ perceptions of ecosystem services in a rural-urban watershed in Mexico City

Alya Ramos, Julieta Jujnovsky and Lucía Almeida-Leñero

Ecosystem Services, 2018, vol. 34, issue PA, 85-95

Abstract: Despite the term ecosystem services (ES) being important for the study of the relationship between ecosystems and society, it is still not clear how to incorporate the socio-cultural dimension. Therefore, it is important to analyze the environmental perceptions of stakeholders and their relationships with ES. This paper aims to identify the ES perceived by groups of stakeholders in a rural-urban area immersed in a complex socio-environmental dynamic and how those perceptions influence their decision making. Hydrological services are found to be the only ES perceived by all groups of stakeholders; nevertheless, the meaning associated with this and the other ES differs among stakeholder groups. There is a relationship between the perceived ES, the current activities or uses the stakeholders associate with the ES and the policies that aim to regulate the activities carried out within the study area. The implementation of policies aimed at regulating these activities and uses could modify the perception of the stakeholder groups. We consider a paradigm shift in the way activities and policies are being carried out to be necessary due to the effect they could have regarding the use of certain services, which could eventually compromise the generation of others.

Keywords: Decision making; Public policies; Qualitative approach; Magdalena River Watershed, Mexico City (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221204161730548X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:34:y:2018:i:pa:p:85-95

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.10.003

Access Statistics for this article

Ecosystem Services is currently edited by Leon C Braat

More articles in Ecosystem Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().