Like little lagoons
Have you ever considered that even a small part of an ecosystem can significantly contribute to the overall ecosystem services supply of the entire ecosystem, providing benefits that extend far beyond the actual point where ecological processes take place?
If you’re curious about this unique relationship, check out this paper—one of the first published during my doctoral research. We investigated confined, man-managed areas within the largest lagoon in the Mediterranean and discovered that these ‘little lagoons inside a greater lagoon’, often overlooked due to their apparent insignificance and small surface extent, substantially contribute to the ecosystem services of the larger ecosystem they’re connected to.
It’s as if there’s a ‘spill-over effect,’ where benefits flow from within the boundaries of these extensive capture-based aquaculture facilities to the broader, open lagoon.
Managing Nature: a question of side-effects?
A difficult question to answer is: do we, as humans, need or have to manage Nature through artificial interventions, or is it better to let Nature take care of its own biophisical processes?
The most reasonable answer, perhaps, is: it depends. And it depends on a series of factors – such as the type of Nature we are talking about, the origin of the ecological system, its history, and its co-evolution with the social system, among others.
There are indeed cases when certain ecosystems are maintained in a particular state precisely because of the artificial interventions they have received. One might say that the state of such ecosystem is biased and ruled by the human use of that area. However, if the management strategy aims at leveraging on natural processes, and the core business is strongly linked to the persistence and resilience of the naturalness of the area, artificial management may be the only way to protect that “piece on Nature” from excessive pressures and exploitation.
The Venice lagoon, the largest Mediterranean lagoon and one of the most impacted by anthropogenic pressures, offers a compelling case study of this paradoxical need for human intervention in conserving some habitats of the lagoon. This is represented by some artificially managed capture-based and extensive aquaculture facilities located at the interface between land and lagoon waters, known in Italy as valli da pesca. We analysed a series of landscape indicators along with ecosystem services indicators and were able to highlight some surprising side-effects of the artificial management of natural areas.
Landscapes tales
Evolution, in biology, unfolds along trajectories that take a long time, but it is not gradual at all. Similarly, the co-evolution between Nature and culture, as well as between local economy and landscape, develops over long periods and brings surprises, leaps, regime changes, and sudden shifts.
Studying how an ecosystem has changed, how much these changes have been caused by human intervention, and how, in turn, these changes have had feedback effects on the area’s ecosystem structure and services – and subsequent human actions – becomes extremely interesting.
If you want to learn more – and if you’d like to see an application of a machine learning technique for land cover classification in coastal lagoon areas using aerial photos, including historical ones – take a look at our work here:
Nature at our doorstep
Even though it should be obvious, it’s only recently that we have evidence showing that children grow and “function” better when they have the opportunity to be in contact with Nature. This happens especially if they are guided by an expert figure who allows exploration while also providing support and guidance when needed.
Many studies have since begun to focus on these effects, both from a psychological and physical standpoint. However, few studies have investigated whether there is enough Nature for children, or rather, whether there is enough Nature that is accessible to them.
We have attempted to do so, using northern Italy as our first case study.
Talking Ecology 