Humanity is facing challenges of sustainably producing enough food for a growing population without further eroding the world’s ecosystems. Transformation of natural habitats into agriculture has resulted in opportunities for civilization, but has also led to land degradation and loss of biodiversity, threatening the generation of ecosystem services. A better understanding of interlinkages and trade-offs among ecosystem services, and the spatial scales at which services are generated, used and interact, is needed in order to successfully inform land use policies. This includes the need to develop transdisciplinary tools that can disentangle the relationships between the supply of and demand for ecosystem services. This thesis investigates agricultural landscapes as complex social-ecological systems, and uses a multi-method approach to assess ecosystem service generation from different types of agricultural landscapes and to examine the social-ecological nature of these services. More specifically, the thesis discusses the importance of appropriate spatial scales, explores landscape change, integrates stakeholder knowledge and develops tools to investigate supply and demand of multiple ecosystem services.  Paper I reviews the literature on ecosystem service mapping, revealing that services were mostly mapped at intermediate spatial scales (municipality and province), and rarely at local scales (farm/village). Although most of the reviewed studies used a resolution of 1 hectare or less, more case-specific local scale mapping is required to unravel the fine-scale dynamics of ecosystem service generation that are needed to inform landscape planning. To explore future uncertainties and identify relevant ecosystem services in a study area, paper II builds alternative scenarios using participatory scenario planning in the Upper Thukela region, South Africa. The paper compares methods to select services for an ecosystem service assessment showing that scenario planning added limited value for identifying ecosystem services, although it improved knowledge of the study area and availed useful discussions with stakeholders. Papers III and IV combines social and biophysical data to study the supply and demand of ecosystem services at farm- and landscape level, through participatory mapping and expert assessments in the Upper Thukela region, South Africa (paper III), and through in-depth interviews and biophysical surveys in Uppsala County, Sweden (paper IV), including small-scale and large-scale farmers. Both papers find apparent differences between the farmer groups in terms of the supply and the demand of services, and also the capacity of the farmers to influence the generation of services (paper III). Paper IV further establishes the importance of using multiple indicators combining social and biophysical data to quantify and investigate the complex social-ecological nature of ecosystem services. A cross-case comparison of ecosystem service bundles, using data from papers III and IV, finds similarities in bundles generated in the large-scale systems, while the small-scale agriculture bundles varied. This thesis provides new insights into the social-ecological generation of ecosystem services at fine scales such as farm and landscape levels, and shows the importance of including the knowledge of various stakeholders, combining different methods and tools to increase the understanding of supply and demand of ecosystem services. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

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No. of bitstreams: 1 notice_j_dr_rcla.pdf: 13535853 bytes, checksum: f853cc8c929efcbfca0c1bbd3e6891cd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-11-10 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Esta pesquisa resulta da perspectiva de verificação dos efeitos degradantes da ação das mineradoras concessionadas para a exploração do carvão em Moatize, Moçambique, com objetivo de analisar os impactos adversos sobre as comunidades locais de Cateme, fruto da relação direta entre livrar-se da pobreza que o país se encontra mergulhado desde a sua independência, e o quadro legal do processo em território moçambicano, que envolvessem investimentos privados, nacionais e estrangeiros, suscetíveis de contribuir para o desenvolvimento e o bem-estar social do país. A hipótese é de que as comunidades locais de Moatize acreditam na possibilidade do aparecimento de mais empresas, tal como a Vale Moçambique, para a extração dos recursos naturais nos seus lugares de origem, gerando assim piores condições de vida para elas. A metodologia do interacionismo simbólico, articulado principalmente por uma abordagem etnográfica, nos permitiu junto das populações abrangidas pelo processo de reassentamento em Cateme, mesmo nas cidades de Moatize e Tete, constatar a situação deplorável derivada da exploração desequilibrada e não sustentável do carvão na província de Tete. Diante disso, como forma de oferecer informações para o resgate da concordância e o conforto das comunidades locais, trabalhamos com a presente tese, fundamentados nas teorias de resiliência de comunidades e dos sistemas socioecológicos, justificada no contexto de um processo atual que envolve a superação de condições adversas das comunidades locais em suas vidas, fortalencendo os processos de resiliência comunitária. Entendemos, ao partirmos deste estudo, buscar uma relação socioecológica mais justa e responsável, contemplando a sustentabilidade das diversas comunidades locais, por meio de uma gestão ambiental participativa e adaptativa, integrando as instituções governamentais, as multinacionais e a população, na tomada de decisões e de políticas públicas voltadas à conservação dos recursos naturais e à preservação das raízes socioculturais tradicionais, cooperando no desenvolvimento da resiliência das comunidades envolvidas, a fim de proporcionar uma qualidade de vida e ambiental adequada para a população em Moçambique, diante das transformações referentes às multifuncionalidades de suas paisagens. / This research results from the perspective of verifying the degrading effects of coal mining operations in Moatize, Mozambique, in order to analyze the adverse impacts on the local communities of Cateme, as a result of the direct relationship between getting rid of poverty The country has been immersed since its independence and the legal framework of the process, in Mozambican territory, involving private investments, national and foreign, likely to contribute to the development and social welfare of the country. The hypothesis is that the local communities of Moatize believe in the possibility of the appearance of more companies, such as Vale Moçambique, to extract natural resources in their places of origin, thus generating worse living conditions for them. The methodology of symbolic interactionism, articulated mainly by an ethnographic approach, allowed the populations affected by the resettlement process in Cateme, even in the cities of Moatize and Tete, to note the deplorable situation derived from the unbalanced and unsustainable exploitation of coal in the province of Tete. Therefore, as a way to offer informations to the recovery of the concordance and comfort of local communities, we work with the present thesis, based on the resilience theories of communities and socioecological systems, justified in the context of a current process that involves overcoming conditions Local communities in their lives, strengthening community resilience processes. We intend to seek a more just and responsible socioecological relationship, taking into account the sustainability of the various local communities, through participatory and adaptive environmental management, integrating governmental institutions, multinationals and the population, in decision-making and of public policies aimed at the conservation of natural resources and the preservation of traditional socio-cultural roots, cooperating in the development of the resilience of the communities involved, in order to provide a suitable quality of life and environmental for the population in Mozambique, in face of the transformations regarding the multifunctional Its landscapes. / CNPq: 190668/2013-0