Helge Å

Managing bundles of ecosystem services with multiple users in Helge å catchment

The goal of this project is to contribute knowledge that will enable a meaningful integration of the ecosystem services concept into practical landscape management. The project focuses on the catchment area around Helge å River in Southern Sweden – a complex social-ecological system where competing land uses accentuate upstream-downstream challenges ecosystem services management. Funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the project is a collaborative effort between researchers at Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC) and practitioners at Kristianstad’s Biosphere Office (KBO).

Key features

To ensure a meaningful integration of the ecosystem services concept into decision-making, the project focuses on three key areas:

1. A better understanding of the ecological and social dimensions of the ecosystem services concept. This includes an understanding of how different ecological processes and human land management contributes in co-producing different ecosystem services, as well an understanding how different ecosystem services contribute to different aspects of wellbeing for different groups of people.
2. A better undertanding for how ecosystem services may interact and co-vary under different management regimes, forming specific bundles of services. This includes an understanding of how these bundles might change over time and what consequences this has for different groups of people and the relations between them.
3. A better understanding of processes that can facilitate adaptive co-management of ecosystem services bundles. This project specifically investigates the usefulness of resilience assessments as a tool for negotiations between different interest groups and joint exploration of management atrategies that reduces trade-offs and enhances synergies between different bundled ecosystem services.

Led by

• Elin Enfors (Stockholm Resilience Center)
• Albert Norström (Stockholm Resilience Center)
• Lisen Schultz (Stockholm Resilience Center)