Biology subjects

Gonzalez-Garcia, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Gonzalez-Garcia, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Accounting for social feasibility in landscape-scale scenarios for restoring nature beyond protected areas

1. Global restoration targets, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the European Union's Nature Restoration Regulation, call for extending restoration beyond protected area boundaries to reconnect isolated ecosystems, yet implementing these landscape-scale interventions forces trade-offs between biophysical effectiveness and social feasibility. 2. In the Grenoble region of the French Alps, we used a gradient analysis of 12 ecosystem services across protected area interfaces to design and compare two restoration scenarios. Both were built from the same set of co-selected interventions but differed only in their spatial allocation: a 'Technical' scenario targeting areas of low ecosystem service continuity around protected areas, and a 'Participatory' scenario co-designed with local stakeholders. 3. Both scenarios physically modified about 14.5% of the landscape, mostly through a forest-based adaptation strategy, yet their effects reached up to more than 60% of the territory for the most connectivity-dependent services, showing that benefits propagate well beyond the area directly modified. 4. The two scenarios diverged mainly in how they treated agricultural land. The Technical scenario reduced abrupt drops in ecosystem service provision at the protected area edge nearly twice as often as the Participatory one (46% versus 26% of the sharp declines it addressed), and at six locations removed them entirely. However, it concentrated over 99% of its non-forest effort in agricultural diversification, such as diversifying crops and adding hedgerows, the action stakeholders ranked hardest to implement, whereas the Participatory scenario favoured more feasible actions such as river restoration, which met less resistance but missed several critical discontinuities in ecosystem service supply. 5. These contrasts show that biophysical potential and social feasibility can pull restoration in different directions, and that the more effective spatial configuration is not necessarily the more implementable one. 6. Closing the implementation gap for nature-based solutions depended less on expanding the area restored than on where interventions were placed. Gradient-based diagnostics appear most useful not as fixed prescriptions but as tools to steer existing sectoral funding in agriculture, urban planning and forestry toward high-impact locations, an approach transferable to other regions working to reconnect protected areas with their surrounding landscapes as coupled social-ecological systems.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2026

Ecosystem service gradients at protected area borders reveal multiple patterns and prevalent management conflicts

Protected areas cannot halt biodiversity loss in isolation; integrating them with surrounding human-dominated landscapes is critical. However, this integration is challenged by substantial landscape heterogeneity at their borders, hindering our understanding of cross-border changes in ecosystem service provision. We introduce a novel framework for characterizing these dynamics by analyzing ecosystem service gradients along protected area borders. For 16 protected areas in the French Alps, we assessed 12 ecosystem services using a mix of established biophysical models and novel connectivity-based models for mobile species. These were aggregated into three stakeholder-driven domains reflecting respectively rural, cultural, and urban management priorities. Automated polynomial regression analysis classified borders into five gradient types. The most common were Decreasing Gradients, representing a decline in ecosystem services outside the protected area, and Increasing Gradients, with the opposite pattern. Our analysis reveals these patterns are driven by specific landscape configurations, uncovering frequent trade-offs between the three management priorities, where, for instance, landscapes supporting rural priorities often degrade cultural and urban ones. We also identify key opportunities for synergies, by identifying areas where ecosystem services for all three priority domains increase simultaneously outside the protected area. This spatially explicit typology provides a powerful diagnostic tool for designing targeted interventions, such as prioritizing habitat restoration where ecosystem services decline or managing agricultural landscapes to mitigate conflicts across management priorities, supporting a more effective integration of protected areas into the wider landscape. Article impact statementDetermining ecosystem service gradients at protected area borders reveals management trade-offs, guiding targeted spatial planning.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Disparities in climate risk-mitigation and recreation services in Grenoble (France)

Urban green spaces provide cultural and climate risk-mitigation ecosystem services (ES) critical for the well-being of urban residents. Yet these benefits are not equally shared across social groups, and environmental segregation - i.e., the spatial separation of population groups between areas of contrasted environmental quality - is common. For instance, environmental justice studies have shown that green space acreage and quality are typically lower in low-income neighbourhoods. However, more detailed assessments integrating a range of ES and the diverse needs of multiple groups are needed to effectively inform equitable urban planning. Here, we combine socio-demographic spatial data with ES modelling to assess social disparities in the distribution of three ES - heatwave mitigation, flood regulation, and urban recreation - in the Grenoble metropolitan area, France. Our results show that low-income households generally benefit from lower climate risk mitigation, but from equal or slightly greater urban recreation opportunities. We also identify mismatches between ES supply and demand from vulnerable groups, which are particularly acute in disadvantaged neighborhoods. These findings highlight the importance of integrating social needs and vulnerabilities into urban greening strategies. Policies that move beyond generic measures of green space provision and explicitly consider multiple ES can help ensure that urban green infrastructure delivers fair and effective benefits across diverse communities.

ecology↗