ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to evaluate whether dynamic feedback between land-use change and hydrologic models are improve performances of the respective models and/or whether it is produce a more realistic quantification of catchment ecosystem services. It discusses the effect of dynamic feedback between two respective models: Simulation of Terrestrial Environments and Soil and Water Integrated Model. The approach is applied to the Thukela catchment, South Africa, as a continuation of prior experiment on the identification, valuation and mapping of various ecosystem services in the catchment. The chapter investigates the effect of model coupling on the sustainability of one of the common ecosystem services of grasslands in the catchment, namely grazing. The model integration/coupling exchanges annual aboveground biomass from the hydrologic model to the land-use model and land-use maps from the land-use to the hydrologic model. The effect of dynamic feedback between hydrology and land-use change was shown more clearly to affect quantification of ecosystem services.