Towards an understanding of the spatial relationships between natural capital and maritime activities: A Bayesian Belief Network approach

Jordan Gacutan, Ibon Galparsoro and Arantza Murillas-Maza

Ecosystem Services, 2019, vol. 40, issue C

Abstract: Economic activities are dependent upon natural capital (NC), which are responsible for ‘Ecosystem Services’ (ES). Understanding dependencies on NC provides insight into the ecosystem’s capacity to maintain and develop activities into the future. To determine ‘NC dependencies’, we present a framework linking maritime activities (bottom trawling, artisanal fisheries, aquaculture and tourism) to their demand for ES and further, to the NC components responsible for their production. The framework was operationalised using a spatially-explicit Bayesian Belief Network (BBN), using the Basque coast (SE Bay of Biscay) to illustrate our approach, in identifying trends in the strength and spatial distribution of NC dependencies. For example, benthic trawling was dependent on sedimentary habitats, with ‘moderate’ to ‘high’ dependency of 52% of the study area. The model can also extrapolate NC dependencies to a larger area where the activity currently does not operate, where benthic trawling was estimated to have higher utilisation of ES in deeper waters. When NC dependencies are combined with economic and legislative factors, the current spatial distribution of the activity can be explained, and the potential socio-economic impacts of management decisions could be predicted. The integrative approach contributes towards ecosystem-based spatial planning.

Keywords: Ecosystem-based management; Socio-economic activities; Ecosystem service cascade; Marine spatial planning; Blue Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041619301184
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:40:y:2019:i:c:s2212041619301184

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2019.101034

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 ().