Integrating Ecosystem Services into Spatial Decision-Making for Ensuring Water Security

Food, water, and energy systems are interconnected, and recognizing both the conflicting and compatible needs of these systems in this interrelatedness is critical to ensure the sustainability of all demands. The ecosystem services (ESs) approach has the potential to enlighten the interrelationships between these systems more comprehensively by allowing us to express the benefits provided by land in a multi-layered and multi-faceted manner and spatially to be explicit based on land use/land cover (LULC) information. In this study, three ESs related to water, food, and energy security, namely water flow regulation, crops, and biomass for energy are evaluated for four different scenarios and the current situation. The results show an increase in ES demand areas and a decrease in ES potential areas for the Business-as-Usual and Maximum Development Scenarios, and an increase in potential areas and a decrease in demand areas for Maximum Conservation and Climate Change Adaptation Scenarios. Due to the need for further studies on the integration of ESs into spatial decision-making and the fact that ES information to achieve water, food, and energy security is not yet widespread, this study is expected to contribute to the literature by providing suggestions on how ESs can be utilized in spatial decision-making in the context of water, food, and energy security.