The decision-making process for prioritizing areas in the context of Payment for Ecosystem Services Hydric, biodiversity, and carbon.

• Grant number: 23/08929-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy
• Principal Investigator: Roberta Averna Valente B Tolini
• Grantee: Roberta Averna Valente B Tolini
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias para a Sustentabilidade (CCTS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Sorocaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Iolanda Cristina Silveira Duarte ; Kaline de Mello ; Ricardo Hideo Taniwaki ; Timothy Randhir
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/17411-8 - Agricultural watersheds: Influence of their land use structure and composition on the hydric resources, BP.TT

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest's importance is imminent and aligned with the ecosystem services supported by then. Worldwide came together the importance of Payment Programs for Ecosystem Services (PSE) supported by scientific bases to be considered an incentive mechanism effectively. In this context, the present study aims to improve a geospatial decision-making model, already structured for agricultural landscapes, which allows for identifying priority areas for forest conservation in water PSE, aiming to maintain hydric resources and considering representative water, relief, and soil criteria. The project improvement will support us in distinguishing areas of the same priority level but with distinct socioeconomic and land-use characteristics, besides the diagnostic of these areas considering mechanisms of command and control, among other aspects. The second objective is to prioritize areas for support ES by prioritizing areas for forest restoration, considering criteria of landscape connectivity and others representative of landscape structure and functions, and still bringing scientific prerogatives established during the first project. The third objective brings an SE of regulation to the project, prioritizing areas that maximize the carbon stock, considering aboveground biomass reservoirs, belowground biomass, dead organic matter, and litter. In this way, there will be a decision-making model that supports the provision, support, and regulation SEs (following the Brazilian Policy for Payment for Environmental Services), which can be replicated in other agricultural landscapes under the Atlantic Forest domain and that identifies areas that maximize one or more SEs (AU)