ServAlp

Dynamics of socio-ecosystems in a changing world

Animator : Sandra LAVOREL

Ecosystem services are defined as the benefits that ecosystems provide directly or indirectly to society. They are positioned at the interface between ecosystems and their biodiversity, and socio-systems. Through their land use and management decisions, humans drive the production of some ecosystem services, but also have impacts on biodiversity and other ecosystem services.

It is essential to distinguish and quantify the specific contribution of ecosystems to societal benefits, to identify the role of human interventions in the production of ecosystem services, and to understand the demand for ecosystem services by different social groups. Ultimately, the flow of ecosystem services to society, and the economic and social values they derive from them, is the result of all these components and associated processes.

Assessing ecosystem services is therefore a delicate undertaking, at the intersection of ecology, social sciences and also geography, particularly when it is intended to represent the spatial distribution of ecosystem services to inform the management of natural or productive environments, and decisions, for example for territorial planning or the management of natural or productive environments.

ServAlp’s objectives are to quantify ecosystem services and understand their interrelationships, past, present and future. The notion of a package of ecosystem services refers to all positively associated services, which are therefore observed together repeatedly in a given ecosystem type at a given management level. On the other hand, knowledge of antagonisms between services makes it possible to identify services that are incompatible with each other.

Our activities are divided into three complementary areas :

1. Quantifying and spatially modelling ecosystem services based on knowledge of the ecological mechanisms that determine the distribution of organisms, their interactions, and their effects on ecosystem functioning.
2. Analysis and understanding of the mechanisms underlying service packages, and thus the antagonistic or synergistic relationships between different ecosystem services, and with biodiversity.
3. Analysis of the temporal trajectories of ecosystem service packages. Historical analyses and the formulation and quantification of future scenarios provide an understanding of the combined effects of environmental, particularly climate, and socio-economic changes, and ecological and social co-adaptation mechanisms.

 

All this interdisciplinary research is carried out in close partnership with natural area managers, agricultural and forestry professionals and decision-makers. Our preferential land belongs to the Zone Atelier Alpes.

 

Who is involved ?

Researchers / Professors :

– Sandra LAVOREL

Research assistants :

– Marie-Pascale COLACE
– Karl GRIGULIS
– Julien RENAUD

 

What are the ongoing projects ?

Projects
248