Lab Seminar - Modeling ecosystem service conflicts in China's Lake Poyang
Xiurou Wu updated her research on the ecosystem service conflicts in China's Lake Poyang. Lake Poyang, China's largest freshwater lake, has provided ecosystem services in an uncoordinated fashion for centuries. Conflict among users has been shaped and moderated by various traditional systems of rights and customs. Recently, changing environmental and economic conditions have magnified some of those conflicts. This paper models one important conflict where long-standing local fisheries operations have increasingly impinged on winter habitat for endangered and threatened waterfowl. Using the model, we can determine optimal sub-lake drawdown under various bioeconomic conditions and examine the impact of profit maximizing fisheries decisions on crane populations. In the presentation, Xiurou shows there will be less cranes under profit maximizing fishery operation than under crane conservation due to timing conflict.