Paddy Fields as Green Infrastructure: Their Ecosystem Services and Threatening Drivers

Abstract

AbstractThe paddy field is a typical ecosystem in monsoon Asia. The main purpose of a paddy field is food production (i.e., a provisioning ecosystem service), but it also has several other ecosystem services. Therefore, we can consider paddy fields as components of green infrastructure (GI) that are already widely distributed. To maintain and improve the value of paddy fields as GI, we should strive to maintain and improve other ecosystem services besides provisioning services. However, issues that reduce the value of paddy fields as GI remain, and these are related to the consolidation and abandonment of paddy fields in recent years. In this paper, we focus on two ecosystem services of paddy fields, other than the provisioning service: (1) the habitat service and (2) the regulating service. Both these services are relatively well-evaluated ecosystem services of paddy fields in Japan. We discuss the effects of both consolidation and abandonment on these ecosystem services as well as their corresponding countermeasures. Based on this, we also discuss the challenges in applying and expanding the idea of paddy fields as GI.