Against the background of climate change, current and future provision of ecosystem services (ES) will also change. The recording of current provision potentials and its development in future is important for adapted regional planning. ES assessments are frequently carried out in the context of expert-based surveys, which have, however, revealed little information to date about uncertainties. We present a novel approach that combines the ES matrix assessment with the Delphi approach, confidence ratings, standardized confidence levels, and scenario assessment.

Across the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia, millions of newly planted trees struggle to survive amid adverse ecological conditions. They were planted by a wide variety of actors in an attempt to protect, restore, or modify the local environment, despite evidence of their negative consequences upon local ecosystems. This paper investigates how these afforestation projects both challenge and affirm recent theoretical work on conservation, while also providing key insights into the decision-making framework of land management across the world’s third largest desert region.

The scientific understanding of climate change is firmly established; it is occurring, it is primarily due to human activities, and it poses potentially serious risks to human and natural systems. Nevertheless, public understanding of this phenomenon varies widely among farmers and the public, the two-target audience of this paper. This paper introduces two research questions: (1) How climate change is perceived by public-farmers’ nexus; and (2) How perception and populism (as a thin-ideology moved by social forces) interact?