GIS and evaluating ecosystem services

Jim QuinnInformation Center for the Environment

UCDavisjfquinn@ucdavis.edu

Economic Outputs of Sustainably Managed Ecosystems

• Marketed goods– Food and fiber– Recreational opportunities– Water– Coming – Carbon Sequestration

Economic Outputs of Sustainably Managed Ecosystems

• Costs avoided– Health impacts of air and water pollution– Fire– Flooding

• Non-market values– Wildlife– Stewardship values, etc.

Big money

• New York City– $4.5 billion in water treatment avoided

• Millennium Assessment – Hundreds of billions of savings to cities in

water supply and water quality alone

• Just because large amounts of money are hard to measure doesn’t mean they should be ignored

Charge to land use agencies, planners, and NGOs

• A land use plan that provides an effective portfolio of production and ecosystem values

• Institutional framework so beneficiaries reimburse providers

What do we know pretty well?

• Land use and land cover

• Drinking water quality

• Watershed management projects

Habitat TypesElkhorn Slough Watershed

Drinking Water Sources for Public Water Systems* in California

Statewide Assessment ResultsGroundwater Sources

Watershed Protection Natural Resources Project Inventory

Where do we need better information?

• Non-point-source threats– (e.g. nutrients and pathogens from septic

systems)

• Groundwater recharge zones

• Water delivery and pricing

What can we model?

• Future land use

• Watershed exports

• Economic performance of competing land use scenarios (as in the Blueprint process)?

Future Land UseSJ Valley Growth Scenarios (UPlan)

• Many Different types:– Compact– Species Protection– Ag. Protection– Urban Cores– Economic

Development

Digital Elevation Model10 meter resolution

Riparian Corridor Delineation200 meter radius from streams1996 Aerial Photographs

Hourly Solar Incidence for Critical Date: July 22

Vegetation DistributionConverted to Height by DBH Class& Percent Hardwood / Conifer

Reach Averaged Values attributed to linear hydrographic network for Current Conditions & Potential Conditions

Restoring Impaired WaterwaysRiparian-Topographic Shading Model

RipTopo & Aquatic Conservation

RipTopo Riparian Corridor

CurrentShadingConditions

PotentialShadingConditions

RipTopo Model Results