People in Ecosystems Watershed Integration (PEWI)

Gergel and Turner 2016 Learning Landscape Ecology Chapter 19

Understanding Land-Use Feedbacks and Ecosystem Service Trade-Offs in Agriculture
Lisa A. Schulte and John C. Tyndall

This material constitutes the online portion of Chapter 19 from Gergel and Turner’s (2016) Learning Landscape Ecology textbook. In this lab, you will work with an interactive online tool “People in Ecosystems Watershed Integration,” or PEWI, to evaluate feedbacks and trade-offs between agricultural land uses and environmental factors, including patterns in topography, soil, and rainfall in a realistic spatial simulation environment. Additional economic and social survey data will be used to determine how landowners and society value ecosystem services derived from different land-use configurations. This lab is designed to help students:

  1. Understand the impacts of common agricultural land uses on the delivery of ecosystem services
  2. Explore how land use interacts with spatial and temporal factors to influence the level of ecosystem services produced
  3. Interpret, anticipate, and manage ecosystem and human system feedbacks
  4. Visualize and simulate the coproduction and trade-offs among specific ecosystems services
  5. Examine how individuals and societies value ecosystem services differently

Working independently, students will design an agricultural watershed within PEWI to balance delivery of ecosystem services, including conventional crop and biomass production, clean water, soil carbon sequestration, and habitat for biodiversity. In Part I, you will familiarize yourself with the levels of ecosystem services associated with different land uses and create your ideal watershed. Class discussion associated with this section will help you understand how different people value and trade off ecosystem goods differently. In Part II, you will design the watershed to produce specific, predetermined ecosystem service outcomes. Finally, in Part III, you will use additional data to determine the economic value of the ecosystem services produced. You’ll need a computer installed with either Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox as a web browser and an internet connection to complete the lab. In all exercises you will use the PEWI tool. We encourage you to watch this brief PEWI tutorial video before you get started.

PART I – 

Creating and Evaluating Your Dream Watershed (PDF)

PART II – 

Creating a Watershed to Meet Established Environmental Goals (PDF)

PART III –

Monetizing Private Watershed Benefits (PDF)