Linkages between ecosystem services and human wellbeing

Abstract

Ecosystems provide benefits to people, and, in turn, people individually and collectively affect the functioning and wellbeing of ecosystems. Interdependencies between ecosystem services and human wellbeing are critical for the sustainable future of ecosystems and human systems alike, but they are not well understood. We offer an account of these interdependencies from the perspective of social psychology. Using the Nexus Webs framework (Overton et al., 2013), we explore how a fuller knowledge of coupled social-ecological systems will benefit resource management and decision-making in contested spaces. We challenge the tacit notion that ecosystem health and human wellbeing are linearly related, and suggest human wellbeing may affect ecosystem health. We outline the multiple construals of the construct ‘wellbeing’, and identify additional psychological constructs of importance. We examine how the benefits of ecosystems for human wellbeing may accrue differently across regions and across people. Four areas for future research are identified. Show more