Human-driven landscape changes strongly influence landscape functionality and aesthetics. While landscape planners have access to biophysical data for decision-making, they often do not have the necessary information about social variables, such as aesthetic tastes, feelings, or functions of a place. Visualizing future landscapes under alternative management scenarios could be a valuable tool for aiding land management decisions. Towards these ends, empirical, quantitative ecological data on vegetation composition, pattern, and processes in a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Israel were integrated into a computerized, 3-D representation of current and future landscapes.

Our objectives were (1) to visualize landscape-shaping processes, such as wildfire, grazing, and species colonization, that can assist managers, planners, and the public to envision the long-term visual significance of management alternatives and (2) to validate the similarity between the 3-D model and reality. The visual model we developed is based on 30 years of scientific knowledge and ecological data describing vegetation processes in Ramat Hanadiv, a case study of ecological conditions and processes relevant to the Mediterranean and other complex ecosystems worldwide.

Before studying the role of the 3-D model in decision-making, validation was performed by comparing ‘current state’ model representation with real-world photos from the perspective of the observer. The model was found to be a valid representation of reality.

Looking to the future, we suggest that the ability to create future landscapes using scientific data can assist to improve decision-making processes, balancing ecological and social needs.

Forest fires in Mediterranean ecosystems are increasingly affecting the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Here, in fire-prone regions, the concentration of people and buildings leads to significant losses, posing new challenges for dealing with disaster risk. We investigated the literature on fire risk at the WUI to identify potential sources of risk and potential coping and adaptation strategies. We then analyzed the case of forest fire at the WUI in Haifa, Israel. We interviewed 13 fire experts and analyzed additional expert lectures given in university symposia in the aftermath of a major fire that affected the city in November 2016. We identified major factors of risk and areas of the city at relatively higher risk, as well as potential adaptation strategies. We conclude this chapter by suggesting that, at the WUI, two, presently separate, cultures of fire risk need to be brought together: that of fire in the urban setting and that in the open forest. A mix of ecosystem management and social and technological solutions are thus needed to deal with fire risk at the WUI in an effective and lasting way.

Forest fires at the wildland-urban interface are generating increasing losses due to the expansion of cities into adjacent forests. At the same time, urban green open spaces are highly valuable as sources of recreational, educational and aesthetic benefits. Tradeoffs may arise between the desire to preserve peri-urban forests for cultural ecosystem services and the need to manage them to enhance the regulatory capacity of the ecosystem and reduce fire risk. In this paper, we assess cultural services and fire regulating services in the urban forest of the city of Haifa (Israel) using participatory GIS mapping, and we look at tradeoffs between these services. We interviewed intensive users of the green spaces of the city and fire experts regarding the location of these services and preferences about selected vegetation management strategies to reduce fire risk. Green space users promoted the idea of a pristine environment and its conservation, mainly for recreational purposes, while fire experts suggested that vegetation management is needed although this would bring about changes in the landscape. Tradeoffs between cultural and regulating services can thus generate conflicts. We conclude by suggesting ways seemingly opposing objectives can be reconciled to reduce fire risk at wildland-urban interface and in a lasting way.

In the Mediterranean region, human and economic losses due to forest fires at the urban-wildland interface have increased in the past decades. To counter this trend, economic and human resources are generally invested to combat and suppress wildfires, with much less invested to adapt through ecosystem-based management. Ecosystem services for fire regulation are rarely accounted for in the literature and are generally excluded from ecosystem service classifications. This gap causes fire-regulating services to be overlooked in socio-ecological assessments and in economic valuations, potentially further hampering the design and implementation of ecosystem-based approaches. We review the literature on fire risk reduction related to ecosystem management to define and characterize fire-regulating services and disservices. We then suggest indicators for the assessment of these services and disservices, and we propose a conceptual framework linking fire risk, ecosystem services and ecosystem management practices. In the second part of the paper, we apply these concepts to the historical development of the social-ecological system of the Haifa-Mount Carmel region in Israel, including pre- and post-fire forest management practices. To inform the case study we investigate reports, relevant scientific articles, and policy documents, all corroborated with information from expert lectures on the topic. We conclude by suggesting that human capital should become an integral part of the description and definition of fire-regulating services and disservices, especially for highly modified urban and peri-urban environments.

Green areas in and around the city have often been used by urban inhabitants as a source of food and timber, for recreation, cultural and aesthetic purposes, or as a source of fresh air and other health benefits. More recently, their hazard regulating functions are increasingly valued and acknowledged as a desirable strategy goal to reduce risk to climatic and hydro-meteorological hazards. However, this often generate tradeoffs. Most of the literature on ecosystem services’ tradeoffs has concentrated on provisioning versus cultural and regulating services. The potential tradeoffs arising between managing nature for recreational, spiritual, mental benefits and for hazard regulating functions in urban and peri-urban areas have rarely been explored. In this paper we assess cultural and regulating services in the Carmel peri-urban forest of Haifa (Israel) using participatory mapping GIS-based methods. We interview local stakeholders and users of the Carmel peri-urban forest area. We explore tradeoffs between cultural and regulating services (in particular for fire mitigation) and we link these tradeoffs to different understanding and uses of nature. We find that the stakeholders preferences for cultural purposes and the preservation of the forest often clashes and increases hazard and fire risk. The idea of a cultivated forest landscape has in fact emerged as a strong cultural ecosystem service in Israel, while the transformation of the forest from a less cultivated type improves regulating services, reduces especially fire risk. We conclude that the tradeoffs between cultural and regulating services are a potential measure of hazard risk.

In the Mediterranean region, the number of forest fires and the total area burnt has increased since the 1960s. To counter this trend, large resources are generally invested to combat and suppress forest fires, though much less is done to adapt to fires using ecosystem-based approaches. We define ecosystem services and disservices related to the regulation of the frequency and intensity of forest fires. We then analyse historical, pre-and post-fire forest management practices in the Haifa-Mount Carmel region (Israel), as reflected in reports, scientific articles and policy documents. We also gather expert opinions to identify the criticalities of the social-ecological system with respect to fire risk. We derive that intensive afforestation, interspersed with managerial neglect, has introduced ecosystem disservices, and inadvertently generated and increased the risk of forest fires on the Haifa-Mount Carmel region. We explore opportunities for ecosystem-based approaches to fire risk reduction in the region. We conclude that ecosystem need to be sustainably managed to enhance fire regulating services, especially at the urban-wildland interface and in periurban parks, to render them less susceptible to large and catastrophic fire events. We suggest that human capital should become an integral part of the description and definition of fire regulating services and disservices if we want to reduce fire risk in the long term.

Socio-ecological research, as conducted within the Long Term Ecological Research network in Europe (eLTER), is a relatively young field that studies coupled ecological and social systems to advance solutions for contemporary challenges in human-nature interactions. While many research and applied projects have been launched using a socio-ecological conceptual framework, there are few tested protocols to evaluate the effectiveness of such efforts at meeting their goals, e.g., goals relating to knowledge integration and influence on policy and practice, which distinguish this type of research. We suggest that such socio-ecological research may be conceptualized as an expression of the broader trend in science favoring transdisciplinarity, an approach that calls for research that fuses knowledge and methods from academia, practice, and broader society, with the goal of addressing shared public problems.

We conducted a literature review of definitions of transdisciplinarity, and used these definitions to distill the core characteristics of transdisciplinary research. From these characteristics, we developed a list of guiding questions for conducting a second literature review, this time to select evaluation frameworks deemed suitable for assessing transdisciplinary research whose content was socio-ecological in nature.

The resulting evaluative approaches were categorized into five groups: questionnaire models; mixed methods; staged environmental policymaking process review; the Research Embedment and Performance Profile approach; and case studies. Selected elements from these approaches were compiled and synthesized to create a six-stage framework for the assessment of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary socio-ecological research projects and programs. The framework begins with qualitative analysis, followed by: quantitative analysis; data synthesis and visualization; the use of focus groups to reflect on interim conclusions, and, culmination with a final data synthesis and conclusions customized to the intended audience(s) of the evaluation. We provide an example of testing the first two stages of this framework using two Romanian Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platforms.

Human impacts on natural landscapes through urbanization and agricultural expansion have left a deep and enduring imprint on almost every dimension of the natural world. Throughout history, fire has almost always been associated with this human expansion, from field clearance and the burning of fossil fuel biomass to human-induced conflagrations. “The arrival of a fire-wielding species,” observes Stephen J. Pyne, “was a monumental moment in the natural history of Earth” (Pyne 2010, xvii). These fires, whether anthropogenically sparked or lightning-ignited, have not only shaped where and how humans have settled, but how ecosystems themselves function in fundamental ways. This chapter examines the role of fire in the socio-ecological history of Mediterranean-type ecosystems, with an emphasis on the dynamic interaction between fire and climate, and the efforts of humans to live with and control fire regimes.

The environmental history of Israel is as intriguing and complex as the nation itself. Situated on a mere 8,630 square miles, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, varying from desert to forest, Israel’s natural environment presents innumerable challenges to its growing population. The country’s conflicted past and present, diverse religions, and multitude of cultural influences powerfully affect the way Israelis imagine, question, and shape their environment. Zionism, from the late nineteenth onward, has tempered nearly every aspect of human existence. Scarcities of usable land and water coupled with border conflicts and regional hostilities have steeled Israeli’s survival instincts. As this volume demonstrates, these powerful dialectics continue to undergird environmental policy and practice in Israel today...