As population increases and urbanization occurs, watershed management will be critical in the protection of water resources in North Central Texas. By 2040, Denton County will nearly double its 2010 population. The Upper Hickory Creek Watershed lies west of Denton and empties into Lake Lewisville. Lake Lewisville provides drinking water for Denton, Dallas, and other neighboring cities. Mitigation of non-point source pollutants as a result of urban and agricultural practices is essential to protecting Lake Lewisville water resources. A common best management practice used to mitigate pollutants is the protection of riparian ecotones that occupy river corridors; however, recent agricultural and urban practices are diminishing these ecosystems and their services. In this paper, the riparian buffer delineation equation (RBDE) is used to assess the current state of Upper Hickory Creek Watershed to aid in the monitoring of the riparian buffers along stream corridors. While the RBDE was used as pre-assessment tool for the riparian buffer effectiveness in the watershed, a new form of the equation was used to evaluate riparian buffer improvement potential (BP) in conjunction with Denton County parcel data to provide insights into buffer effectiveness and identify areas for improvement on a landowner scale.

Ecosystem services are the varied goods and benefits provided by ecosystems that make human life possible. This concept has fostered scientific explorations of the services that nature provides to people with the goal of sustaining those services for future generations. As the world becomes increasingly urban, ecosystems are reshaped, and services are degraded. Provisioning and regulating ecosystem services, landscape planning, decision making, and agricultural systems and technologies play a distinctive role in feeding and sustaining the expanding urban population. Hence, the integrated assessment of these coupled components is necessary to understand food security and sustainable development. Nevertheless, frameworks that incorporate ecosystem services, urbanization, and human wellbeing are still scarce due to several conceptual and methodological gaps that challenge this assessment. As a consequence, these frameworks are not operationalized, and ecosystem services rarely receive proper attention in decision making. This dissertation seeks to improve our understanding of the role of ecosystem services at the landscape level and provides an approach for operationalizing decisions that affect sustainable practices and human wellbeing.

Grazing by large herbivores has the potential to provide multiple ecosystem services, depending on multiple factors. Through a range of interdisciplinary methods, including literature reviews, case studies, and semi-structured interviews, I seek to assess how grazing can contribute to sustainable landscape management, as well as how sustainable practices can be incentivised. In chapter one, I focus on the role of grazing in wildfire prevention. Through a systematic literature review, I uncover new insights into the effectiveness of large herbivores in mitigating wildfires. I find that large herbivores can reduce wildfire frequency by promoting grass-dominated landscapes and reduce fire intensity by consuming vegetation and creating landscape features that reduce fuel loads. However, the effectiveness of large herbivores depends on the type of vegetation and diet preferences of the animals, and management practices associated with livestock grazing can also influence fire ignition. In chapter two, I investigate the relationship between grazing management and ecosystem services through a literature review, focusing on synergies and trade-offs between them. I identify management practices that are beneficial to multiple ecosystem services as well as policy mechanisms that can incentivise them. In the third chapter, I use case studies to investigate the role of domestic animals in rewilding projects. I describe how domestic and semi-wild herbivores can contribute to rewilding projects and make them more inclusive for rural and indigenous communities. In the fourth chapter, I aim to identify the challenges faced by land users in performing sustainable grazing management through semi-structured interviews with 88 land users from eight case studies in Europe. I gain insights into land users' determinants of behaviour towards sustainable grazing practices using the Behaviour Change Wheel framework. Overall I suggest that grazing can be a potential solution to the challenges of the Anthropocene, but only when done in the right way. I emphasize the importance of an interdisciplinary approach in grazing research and considering socio-ecological systems. I also highlight the potential of rewilding and semi-wild grazing systems especially in areas undergoing land abandonment. The results imply a shift in meat production and consumption and potential new pathways for human-livestock relations. Finally, agricultural policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) can play a crucial role in incentivizing sustainable grazing management and should be improved to support extensive grazing and extensification.:Table of Contents i. General Introduction 6 i.i Context 7 i.i.i European grazed landscapes can provide high biodiversity and supply various ecosystem services 7 i.i.ii Challenges for European grazed systems 9 i.ii Thesis methods and outline 13 i.ii.i Literature reviews (chapters 1 & 2) 13 i.ii.ii Case studies (chapters 3 and 4) 13 i.ii.iii General approach and methodological considerations 18 i.ii.iv Research aims and questions 18 i.ii.v Thesis outline 19 i.iii Graphical abstract 21 1. Chapter One 22 1.1 Introduction 23 1.2 Literature search 25 1.3 Overall effects of herbivores on wildfire risks 26 1.3.1 Effects of herbivores on wildfire frequency 26 1.3.2 Effects of herbivores on fire intensity or severity 30 1.4 Effects of herbivores on fuel loads and fire hazard 30 1.5 Effects of vegetation characteristics on fire regimes 33 1.6 Effects of grazing-associated management on wildfires 33 1.7 Implications for management 34 1.8 Implications for policy 36 1.9 Conclusions and future challenges 37 2. Chapter Two 38 2.1 Introduction 39 2.2 Literature review: general methods 42 2.3 Results 44 2.3.1 Effects of grazing on biodiversity 44 2.3.2 Effects of grazing on climate change and its mitigation 46 2.3.3 Effects of grazing on soil quality 48 2.3.4 Effects of grazing on wildfire mitigation 49 2.3.5 Effects of grazing on cultural ecosystem services 51 2.3.6 Synergies and Trade-offs of different grazing practices and ecosystem services 52 2.3.7 Recommendations: optimizing ecosystem multifunctionality in grazed systems 55 2.4 Outlook 59 3. Chapter Three 60 3.1 Introduction 61 3.2 The Broader Theory of Rewilding and Potential Role for Livestock 64 3.2.1 Stochastic Disturbance Regimes 64 3.2.2 Trophic Complexity 65 3.2.3 Interacting Processes 66 3.3 General Case Studies 67 3.3.1 Reindeer Engineer in Swedish Lapland 67 3.3.2 Livestock Fire Brigade and Free Running Horses in the Côa Valley, Portugal 68 3.3.3 Ecotourism and Sustainable Meat at Knepp Estate, England 70 3.3.4 Oostvaardersplassen: The “Wild Experiment” 71 3.4 Conclusions 73 4. Chapter Four 77 4.1 Introduction 78 4.2 Methods 80 4.2.1 Interviews 80 4.3 Findings from interviews: Determinants of sustainable grazing decisions 81 4.3.1 Physical capability: the impact of the ‘rural exodus’ 81 4.3.2 Psychological capability: access to knowledge and understanding of administrative rules influences how land users conduct their management 82 4.3.3 Physical opportunity 83 4.3.4 Social opportunities 85 4.3.5 Motivation 85 4.4 Discussion 87 4.4.1 Intervention functions to support sustainable grazing, and associated policies 88 4.5 Conclusions and outlook 92 5. Discussion 93 5.1 Importance of the scientific, social and political context of the research 93 5.2 Societal relevance of the thesis 93 5.3 Policy relevance of grazing research 94 5.4 The value of transdisciplinary research 94 5.5 Contribution of the research 95 5.5.1 Contribution of chapter 1: large herbivores and wildfire mitigation 95 5.5.2 Contribution of chapter 2: grazing and multiple ecosystem services, trade-offs and synergies in a European context 96 5.5.3 Contribution of chapter 3: domestic livestock and rewilding 97 5.5.4 Contribution of chapter 4: drivers of decision making for sustainable grazing 98 5.5.5 Interdisciplinary approach to grazing research, grazing areas as socio-ecological systems 99 5.6 Limitations 100 5.6.1 The framework of ecosystem services 100 5.6.2 Limitations to rewilding research 101 5.6.3 The challenge of addressing different socioecological and administrative scales 101 5.6.4 Practical limitations 103 6. Outlook 104 6.1 Future research needs 104 6.2 Pathways for sustainable grazing 104 7. Conclusion 107 References 110 Summary 135 Zusammenfassung 139 Appendix 143 Appendix Chapter One 144 Appendix Chapter Two 145 Appendix Chapter Four 149 Acknowledgements 153 Author contribution statement 155

Spatially explicit ecosystem service valuation (ESV) allows for the identification of the location and magnitude of services provided by natural ecosystems to human activities along with a measure of their significance based upon economic valuation. While ESV has been used to provide new insight into land use management, few studies have identified the connections between the values of ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity to nitrogen loading despite a growing body of ecosystem service literature. This research combines a GIS-based, value transfer approach to map ecosystem services in the Lower Yakima River Basin (LYRB), Washington, USA, along with estimates of nitrogen loading to identify how nitrogen management may affect ecosystem services in the basin. This analysis combines values of ecosystem services with estimates of nitrogen loading and identifies subwatersheds and specific parcels within a Groundwater Management Area (GWMA) most susceptible to reductions in ecosystem services due to excess nitrogen loading. Based on the benefit transfer analysis, wetlands and forested areas have disproportionately high values of ecosystem services when compared to their land area in the LYRB, while pasture and cultivated crops contribute much less to the total value of ecosystem service flows in proportion to the total area in the LYRB. Across the study area estimated nitrogen loads are strongly driven by the location of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and cultivated crops. Areas of particularly high nitrogen loading and high ESV may highlight specific areas for achieving immediate success in increasing or maintaining ecosystem services through appropriately focused regulatory mechanisms. The land cover analysis however, completely neglects the values and importance of subsurface processes and groundwater resources in ecosystem service assessment, and therefore an econometric model is applied to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) to maintain safe nitrate levels in private wells. Through the incorporation of WTP estimates for groundwater quality, a more complete economic and ecological perspective on the effects of landscape N loading in the study site is highlighted. The results of these estimates clearly indicate that ecosystem services from groundwater should be considered to have significant value in the LYRB. Further economic valuation data on specific land cover types and the value of groundwater quality, whether from primary studies or meta-analysis, is needed to refine relative measures of ecosystem service values and more confidently describe these values in specific dollar amounts. Additionally, limits in spatial data resolution may contribute to errors in location and magnitude of ecosystem services, and is an area in need of further development. Despite these potential limitations, this analysis highlights a promising direction for combining spatially explicit ecosystem service valuation with nutrient loading data to identify the location and potential magnitude of effects on ecosystem services from management practices. / Graduation date: 2013

Syfte: Städer behöver grönska, ekosystem och ekosystemtjänster. Grönytefaktor (GYF) är ett verktyg som säkerställer grönska i urbana miljöer. Jönköpings kommun ska som del i sin stadsutveckling av Södra Munksjön inkludera GYF i sin grönstrukturplan. För att utforma en GYF-modell måste man veta platsens förutsättningar och målbilden för staden. Denna studie syftar till att kartlägga de ES som finns i området idag samt vilka som bör skapas, skyddas, stärkas eller rent av skippas i den nya stadsdelen. Vidare studeras även hur den lokala GYF-modellen kan användas i andra områden i Jönköpings kommun. Metod: En kvalitativ studie har genomförts med hjälp av metoderna litteraturstudie, dokumentanalys, observation och intervjuer. Med utgångspunkt i Ekosystemtjänster i stadsplanering - en vägledning framtagen av ℅ city har ekosystemtjänster identifierats. Intervjuer har genomförts med landskapsarkitekter som arbetat med GYF i sammanhang som liknar det Södra Munksjön och Jönköpings kommun står inför. Resultat: Kartläggningen av ekosystemtjänster i Södra Munksjön visar att de flesta tjänsterna på ℅ citys lista kan identifieras och att de kulturella tjänsterna bör premieras i den GYF-modell som ska utformas för området. För att den lokala GYF-modellen ska kunna appliceras på andra områden underlättar det om modellens formuleringar är generella och kompletteras med separat platsspecifik information. För att GYF ska ge bra resultat är dock uttalade och formulerade mål att styra mot den viktigaste faktorn. Konsekvenser: Genom god planering kan en och samma lösning gynna flera ekosystemtjänster samtidigt, vilket rekommenderas i stadsmiljö. Slutsatsen är därför att fokus bör ligga på kulturella ekosystemtjänster och mångfunktionalitet som resulterar i att alla tjänster gynnas. Då GYF är ett nytt verktyg för Jönköping är det av stor vikt att inkludera berörda aktörer och byggherrar i ett tidigt skede. Begränsningar: Den kartläggning av ekosystemtjänster som gjorts i Södra Munksjön har utgått från en geografisk plats och dokument knutna till denna vilket gör att resultatet är begränsat till Södra Munksjön. Av den analys och diskussion som förs gällande hur en GYF-modell kan tas från ett aktuellt område till att appliceras på andra platser kan dock tas vidare av städer som planerar att använda GYF eller vill utveckla en befintlig GYF-modell. / Purpose: Cities need greenery, ecosystems and ecosystem services. Green area ratio (GAR) is a tool that ensures greenery in urban environments. As a part of its urban development of the new city area Södra Munksjön the municipality of Jönköping will include GAR in the local plan for green structure. In order to design a GAR model, one must know the conditions of the site and vision of the city. This study aims to map the ecosystem services located in the area today as well as the ecosystem services that can be created, protected, strengthened or skipped in the new city area. Furthermore, it is also investigated how the local GAR model can be used in other areas in Jönköping municipality. Method: A qualitative study has been conducted with the help of literature studies, document analysis, observation and interviews. With starting point in the model of guidance on ecosystem services in city planning from ℅ city ecosystem services has been identified. Interviews have been conducted with landscape architects with experience from working with GAR in a context similar to the one in Jönköping. Findings: The mapping of ecosystem services in the area of Södra Munksjön shows that most services from ℅ city can be identified and that the cultural ecosystem services should be premiered in the GAR model designed for the city area. In order for the local GAR model to be applied in other areas, it's easier if the formulations in the model are general and supplemented with separate site-specific information. However, in order for GAR to produce good results the most important factor is to have stated and well formulated goals to aim for. Implications: Through good planning, one solution can benefit several ecosystem services at the same time, which is recommended in urban environments. Thus the conclusion is that focus should lay on cultural ecosystem services and multi-functionality that result with all services benefiting. Since GAR is a new tool for Jönköping, it is of great importance to include stakeholders and building contractors at an early stage. Limitations: The mapping of ecosystem services made in Södra Munksjön has been based on a geographical location and documents linked to this place, which means that the results are limited to Södra Munksjön. However, the analysis and discussion of how a GAR model can be taken from a current area to be applied elsewhere could be taken on by cities that are planning to use GAR or want to develop an existing GAR model.

Denna rapport behandlar utvärdering av urbana ekosystemtjänster på stadsdelsnivå. Eftersom ökad urbanisering leder till ökad belastning på urbana ekosystem är det viktigt att både exploatering och etablering av grönområden sker på ett hållbart sätt där ekologiska, sociala och ekonomiska faktorer inkluderas. Detta kan delvis uppnås genom att villkor i verktyg och certifieringssystem inkluderar aspekter för urbana ekosystemtjänster. Det undersökts hur certifieringssystemen BREEAM Communities och CASBEE for Urban Development samt verktyget Grönytefaktormetoden behandlar sådana urbana ekosystemtjänster. Analysen utgår från en föreslagen kategorisering av urbana ekosystemtjänster. Detta kompletteras med ett eget ramverk som utvidgar och förtydligar otillräckligt hanterade ekosystemtjänster och närliggande aspekter. Resultatet visar att ytterligare ekosystemtjänster kan inkluderas i de undersökta metoderna och en kategorisering av urbana ekosystemtjänster förslås. / This report discusses assessment of urban ecosystems services in the scale of city districts. Since intensified urbanisation increases the pressure on urban ecosystems it is of importance that development projects in green areas is sustainable with inclusion of ecological, social and economic aspects. This can in part be achieved through requirements in tools and certification systems that include aspects for urban ecosystem services. An investigation of how the certification systems BREEAM Communities and CASBEE for Urban Development as well as the tool Grönytefaktormetoden deal with such urban ecosystem services is made. The analysis is based on a suggested categorisation of urban ecosystem services. This is complemented by an own framework that expands and clarifies insufficiently treated ecosystem services and adjacent aspects. The result shows that further ecosystem services can be included in the investigated methods and a categorisation of urban ecosystems services is suggested.

Under global urbanization backgrounds with physical population migrations and relocations, corresponding consequences in society developments, cultural transformations, technology inventions and interactions between regions and countries, etc. are considered as having a huge impact on normal urban dwellers. For human beings always have intentions towards managements and benefits from natural surroundings, urban dweller demands under the modern challenges and their interactions are necessary to be concerned about. Urban ecosystem is considered as a highly developed civilization, but also with features of resources and energy demands and pollution and distributional exports. As the only natural element in this ecosystem, UGI (urban green infrastructures) is considered as an important human-environment interaction provider with urban ecosystem services (UES) largely focused by academic scholars, urban planners and policy managers. As one of the fastest urbanizing cities in the world, Shanghai is considered as having huge cultural and social developments combined with socioeconomic acceleration. Under the unique background of policy planning and traditional Confucian culture transformation, the impacts to urban dweller demands, whether these newly developed modern demands can be satisfied by UES provided by UGI and how the understandings of these normal dwellers to UGI in Shanghai are necessary for academic researches. By considering the interactions with urban dwellers, six urban parks in the center of Shanghai are chosen as research sites in this study. Combined with factors of urbanization processes and observed patterns of visitor interactions, the indicator of “park age” is concerned with three old parks (older than 25 years old) and three new parks (younger than 25 years old). With methodologies of fieldwork mapping, questionnaires, indicator based evaluation system constructions, etc., the quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out to habitat diversity, cultural and regulation UES results, and the background reasons caused by political and financial influences are subject to further discussion. The visitors to urban parks of Shanghai are classified into four sorts: “retired dwellers”, “dwellers for children care”, “tourist visitors” and “other visitors”, we found out that related demands and interactions with urban parks have significant differences. After detailed discussions, it could be figured out that the visitors demands play a significant role, and the interactions between visitors and UES in Shanghai are comprehensively influenced by multiple factors of “visiting objectives”, “park cultures (ages, popularities, etc.)” and “personal identities (educations, incomes, etc.)”. Based on this, the detailed differences of policy, finance, Confucian culture, nature understanding, and community society between old and new parks were further discussed. With all aspects of physical, mental, psychological and other demand aspects especially focused on, the typical features in Shanghai are also highly concentrated on dominant activities. For China is suffering from national environmental and urbanization problems but lack in related concerns combined with dweller demands, this research work may make certain efforts on model assessment methodologies constructions and national implementations. Also, with a combined background of top-down policy systems and natural understandings under socioeconomic duress, this research could also make significant efforts in dweller-UES interactions researches in similar cases of other countries and newly developed urban ecosystems in the world.

Santiago is the 7th largest major city of Latin America with almost 8 million inhabitants and is situated in a fairly closed watershed, surrounded on the eastern side by the high Andean mountain chain with altitudes of 5,000 m. From the Andean mountains, the Mapocho River and a set of large and small streams transport -often torrentially- water and sediment. In thirty years, Santiago has increased its size two fold, replacing previous agricultural lands, native forests and shrubs with urban land uses, and occupying rivers beds and streams. These land use and cover changes have had dramatic environmental consequences. The mentioned urban dynamic has produced a city in constant collision with the natural system. This structural disarticulation produces many environmental problems such as an increase in city’s surface and air temperatures, an accelerated disappearance of vegetation, a major interruption in wind, sediment and water flows, and finally, increasing people’s exposure to environmental hazards. Since streams, canals and rivers are structural components of Santiago’s landscape, they can function as key links between the urban-social and natural system and provide multiple ecosystem services, helping to reduce environmental problems and ensure long-term urban sustainability. Traditionally, the analysis of river and streamsides has been focused on rural and natural landscapes as well as on environmental protection and nature conservation. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest and necessity to understand the environmental status, functions and possibilities of riparian zones in urban environments in order to delineate and plan greenways, which provide social and ecological benefits. Green infrastructure such as urban greenways is a key component of sustainable cities. Few studies have been conducted to evaluate the socio-ecological status of urban riparian zones and even fewer to assess these areas in terms of their potential as multifunctional greenways. New efforts should be conducted to develop analytical application-oriented frameworks in the green infrastructure field. This research elaborates and proposes a transferable conceptual-methodological framework for evaluating the potential for multifunctional riparian greenway development. An analytical application-oriented framework to assess the potential for multifunctional green infrastructure development is proposed by articulating and improving three analyses hitherto used separately: multicriteria, least cost path and opportunities-challenges. The Mapocho River was selected for the application and testing of the proposed conceptual-methodological framework to contribute to multifunctional green infrastructure planning in Santiago as a city representative of the structure and processes of megacities in Latin America. First, the main ecological and social characteristics of the Mapocho’s riparian zone are analyzed, making a synthesis of the socio-ecological status. Second, the suitability to provide multiple ecosystem services of the riparian zone is spatially explicitly modelled, first separately, as mono-functional suitability, and then, integrated into a multifunctional suitability evaluation. Third, the opportunities and challenges perceived by government actors are identified and analyzed as well as those derived from an institutional and regulatory analysis. Finally, the assessment phase concludes with a discussion on the main potential for the development of a greenway, resulting from the synthesis and integration of the most relevant findings of the suitability and opportunities analysis The socio-ecological status of the riparian zones is characterized by being highly altered in ecological terms, diverse in social terms, and highly used by the metropolitan transport infrastructure with a concentration of green areas in a few municipalities. This means that the riparian zone provides limited physical support for important social and ecological functions characteristic of these zones in urban environments: habitat, aesthetic, cooling, transport route and flood mitigation. The results reveal a significant east-west gradient in the socio-ecological status of riparian zone, which gradually decreases from east to west. The riparian zone of the Mapocho River in Santiago has good suitability as a wind corridor, providing a cooling effect and to mitigate flood hazards. The main challenges for the development of a multifunctional urban greenway in the Mapocho River corresponds to low levels of inter-jurisdictional and inter-sectoral coordination and cooperation, maintenance costs and the existence of urban highways in the zone. On the contrary, the main opportunities are the existence of important sectors of vacant land, increased political and social importance of urban green areas and the existence of a set of consolidated riparian parks. In synthesis, the assessment developed in the Mapocho River identifies the most important aspects to be considered and the greatest potentialities to capitalize in planning a multifunctional greenway along the Mapocho River. This is key when thinking about a possible master plan for the Mapocho River that returns the river to the city and values it as an axis for urban integration. The development of a multifunctional greenway in Santiago can considerably contribute to the social and ecological connectivity and thereby mitigate the socio-ecological segregation and disconnection characteristic of cities in the region. It may also contribute significantly to reconcile urban growth with ecological health and people’s quality of life, maintaining functions and key ecosystem services and mitigating the negative effects of urbanization.

This research examined whether microfinance-assisted developmental mechanisms can integrate ecological objectives alongside social and economic ones—thus promoting sustainability. The specific focus was to test the ability of microenterprises operated by community-entrepreneurs in supporting local ecosystem services. To this end, the research: elucidated the nature and dynamics of linkages between communities and the local ecosystems with the lens of coupled social-ecological systems, i.e. illustrated ecological modernization of microenterprises in a developing country context; tested how community-based enterprises transform upon application of green microfinance strategy; and then recognized how social learning is promoted through such community-based intervention mechanisms, e.g. microfinance. The research used case study and participatory approaches. The case study comprised two components: i) a green microfinance program, and ii) communities in a riparian, and a wetland ecosystem in Bangladesh engaged in entrepreneurship. The major tools that the study employed for data collections were: household surveys, participatory land -use surveys, semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, multi-stakeholder workshops, field observations, and document reviews. The research findings reveal that the green microfinance strategy, in the short and medium terms, catalyzes entrepreneurial and social innovations, and combine the embedded economic and social objectives of the classic microfinance with the new ecological objectives towards sustainability. The strategy applied by Microfinance Institution (MFI) and adopted by community enterprises transformed the ventures—helping them to go green and reducing greenhouse gas emission. Besides, the partnerships that occur between non-governmental organization (NGO) and community-based organization (CBO) in the process of implementing developmental programs—result social learning and innovations in the communities. The research review found grassroots developmental initiatives as an evolving phenomenon over time. With this view, and with its observation through this cross-sectional study, the research proposes a framework entitled ‘community-based developmental enterprise (CBDE)’. The framework proposes community level entrepreneurial ventures, associated NGO-MFIs, CBOs and other development partners to consider ecosystem services and wellbeing components in entrepreneurial design and actions. / October 2016

The need to protect diverse biological resources from ongoing development pressures is one of today's most pressing environmental challenges. In response, "ecosystem services" has emerged as a conservation framework that links human economies and natural systems through the benefits that people receive from nature. In this dissertation, I investigate the science-policy interface of ecosystem services in order to understand the use of ecosystem service decision support tools and evaluate the pathways through which ecosystem services knowledge impacts decisions. In the first paper, I track an ecosystem service valuation project in California to evaluate how the project changes the social capacity to make conservation-oriented decisions and how decision-makers intend to use ecosystem services knowledge. In a second project, I analyze a global sample of cases and identify factors that can explain the impact of ecosystem services knowledge on decisions. I find that the perceived legitimacy of knowledge (whether it is unbiased and representative of many diverse viewpoints) is an important determinant of whether the knowledge impacts policy processes and decisions. For the third project, I focus on the global use of spatial ecosystem service models. I analyze country-level factors that are associated with use and the effect of practitioner trainings on the uptake of these decision support tools. Taken together, this research critically evaluates how ecosystem service interventions perform. The results can inform the design of boundary organizations that effectively link conservation science with policy action, and guide strategic efforts to protect, restore, and enhance ecosystem services.