Ecosystem Services

Assignment description
In the final write-up for this course, the final assignment that you will submit for the quarter long project at the end of the term, you will be calculating a value for your system based upon ecosystem services.
That means you will need a detailed description of ecosystem services and a description of the services provided by your system of study in order to complete the value assessment. In this assignment you will describe ecosystem services and then explain the details of each ecosystem service that is provided by your system of study (Willamette river, Sandy river, or NYC watershed). This will be an important section of the final write-up because it will form the basis for your value assessment (which will be the topic of QLP 3). Because of its importance, make sure you include many details about the services provided by the system and how the system provides those services. It should include the following:

1. Ecosystem services: You need to start this assignment with a paragraph that explains the concept of ecosystem services and includes the four ecosystem services categories.
2. A description of the ecosystem services provided : you will need to read about the four ecosystem service types, then determine which specific services from each of those categories is provided by your system. For example, you might read that your system is important for nitrogen cycling, which is an important Supporting ecosystem service. If that service is provided by your system, you need to describe the details of that service and why/how it is important. Make sure you describe many specific services provided by your system and explain which major category each service belongs.
3. A description of the how the system provides the services you explained in part 1 (above): The second step is to describe how the system (Willamette river, Sandy river, or NYC watershed) provides those services. Because you will explain a lot of services that your system provides, you don’t need an extensive description for each service. You just need a brief and clear explanation of how each service is provided by the system that is the focus of your topic.

Technical details for this assignment
This document must be in paragraph form, should not include bullet points or lists, 12 pt font with regular margins (1 inch) and single spaced. You may need many paragraphs here to describe each service and how each service is provided (not a list of services). How you organize this section is ultimately up to you, but your organization and the clarity of your descriptions will directly affect your grade. Do not include section titles, just a single document with paragraphs and citations (Use the same citation format as you used for QLP1). Since there are three goals (as listed above) you need at least one paragraph per goal (3 paragraph minimum). However, there are 4 ecosystem service categories so it is reasonable if you have 5 or 6 paragraphs (do not exceed 6 paragraphs though) but do not exceed 2 pages. Remember, you are going to determine a value for your system based upon ecosystem services, so your paragraphs here are very crucial for establishing the importance of the ecosystem services provided by your system. Also, you need to reference the facts and details you include in this document and include a reference section at the end of the document. Complete the in-paragraph citations and reference section with the same format described for the QLP 1 assignment. You need to include at least 5 cited references for this assignment.

Assignment scoring details
Your assignment will be scored based upon the following point totals. To receive full points for each section, your explanations must be detailed and your citations correctly formatted.

• Description of ecosystem services and categories (5pts)
• A detailed description of the ecosystem provided by your system (5 pts)
• Explanation of how each ecosystem services is provided by your system (5pts)
• Correctly formatted citations and correctly formatted reference section (5 pts)
• Overall quality of the assignment – these points are determined by the TA (or LA) based upon the overall clarity of the writing, organization of the details and concepts within each paragraph, the flow of details and concepts between the paragraphs, and grammar and typo’s. (5pts)

The following rubric will be used to score each part of your paper:
Full credit (5) Partial credit (4) Partial credit (2-3) Low credit (0-1)
Ecosystem services description Fully describes the concept of ecosystem services and all 4 categories Describes ecosystem services but needs more detail about each category Describes ecosystem services, but not well and/or
without all four service categories Ecosystem services are described poorly or not at all with some/all
service categories lacking or missing
Full credit (5) Partial credit (4) Partial credit (2-3) Low credit (0-1)
Ecosystem services Fully explains the Explains the Services provided Services are not
provided by your services provided services provided by your system are explained or very
system by your system by your system but each needs more described by not well and without poorly explained, severely lacking in
detail necessary details examples/details
Full credit (5) Partial credit (4) Partial credit (2-3) Low credit (0-1)
Explanation of how Clearly explains Explains how each Explains how each Poorly explains
each services is how each services service is provided service is provided how your system
provided by your is provided by by your system, by your system, provides
system your system but not clearly or but not well and ecosystem services
not with enough detail lacks many details
Full credit (5) Partial credit (4) Partial credit (2-3) Low credit (0-1)
Clarity Writing style is Writing style is Writing style is not Writing style is
clear, concepts are good, but not very clear, many very hard to
connected completely clear, concepts are not follow, concepts
between most concepts are connected are disparate and
paragraphs, and connected and between not logically linked
support/examples logical but not all paragraphs and between
for each concept are logical of them statements are not logically organized paragraphs or supported
Full credit (5) Partial credit (4) Partial credit (2-3) Low credit (0-1)
References 5 references used, correctly cited in Either 3-4 full references used Either 2-3 full references used Either 1 full references used
the text, and and cited correctly and cited correctly, and cited correctly,
correctly or more than 4 or more than 3 or more than 2
formatted in the references used references are references are
reference section but not cited correctly used but not cited correctly used but not cited correctly

After you finish this assignment, save in the following format: ESM_355_Assignmentname_Lastname.doc Example: ESM_355_QLP2_Smith.doc
Upload it as a .doc or .docx document to the correct submission folder on D2L for QLP assignment