MobilES - Using mobile-phone technology to capture ecosystem service information

Despite being vital for human well-being, ecosystem services (ES) - nature's contributions to people - are increasingly threatened by human activities (e.g. overexploitation and degradation). The importance of ES is globally recognised. For example, 127 United Nation member states have signed up to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES; www.ipbes.net). Cambodia (a rapidly developing nation with a high reliance on the agricultural sector but experiencing increasing urbanisation) is among these signatories and has further demonstrated its willingness and commitment to work towards sustainable development by several national-level policies (e.g. National Policy and Strategic Plan on Green Growth). However, the Royal Government of Cambodia has identified a need for more information on how to better manage availability, access, utilisation and stability of ES, arising from a historical bias within ES science (implicitly a social-ecological system linking nature and people) towards ecology at the expense of social science.

We use mobile phone surveys administered along the rural-urban spectrum to investigate how people access and use ES, from which ecosystems, how such benefits contribute to people's well-being, how barriers prevent or reduce these benefits, the sustainability of each of these processes, and by identifying pathways to resilience. We will incorporate social science theories into flows and use of ES to transform existing ES models, establishing a step-change in ES research that shifts the focus from natural ecosystems to human beneficiaries.

Finally, as well as providing insight into ES access, use and resilience across the rural-urban spectrum, we will validate our technological, smartphone-based approach. Utilising mobile technology to distribute surveys has many potential benefits, including: 1) enabling participants to respond to surveys at a time that suits them , therefore allowing the inclusion of vulnerable groups who can ill afford time away from work to participate; 2) capturing spatially and temporally distinct links between people and nature, which may be unique to the individual and shift over time; and 3) having the potential to be up-scaled, enabling for the inclusion of social science 'big data' in ES models. Thus, once properly validated, the smartphone-based method of data collection is inherently scalable and so might enable social science data to be collected over large regions and incorporated into models to address questions about the impacts of ecosystem change on the multidimensional well-being of regional and social-economic groups across scales.

In partnership with decision-makers, the advances suggested here could help to ensure ES research contributes to and informs ongoing policy processes (e.g. IPBES) and facilitates the development of ES indicators for monitoring of human well-being and building pathways to resilience in Cambodia and beyond.

Our proposed work will have broader impacts in two key areas, namely:

i) International capacity development - This project increases access to mobile networks and mobile internet for the ~480 participants in our program. This mode of participant engagement, developed by project investigators, channels project resources historically allocated to the fuel and lodging costs of multiple survey waves, into the provision of goods that are currently valued (mobile airtime) and growing in importance (mobile data). As part of our 'microtasks for micropayments' methodology, £23,040 in airtime and data will be distributed to project participants, as well as mobile phones worth £24,000. Furthermore, by validating smartphone survey methods against traditional survey methods, we hope to increase the global capacity to undertake large-scale, high-frequency social surveys.

ii) Informing resource access & use policy - This project focuses on issues of critical relevance to current global policymaking: ecosystem services, sustainable development and pathways to resilience. These issues are at the forefront of Cambodian policy-making and the Royal Government of Cambodia's National Strategic Development Plan 2014-18 highlights a need for more information in this area. Thus, our work has the potential to help close the gap between the current state of the ES literature (which demonstrates an ecological bias), and the insights and tools relevant to beneficiaries and policymakers. Whilst our findings may be applicable to the 16 million people within Cambodia, as well as an unknown number of ES beneficiaries in other developing nations, we will specifically target policy makers within Phnom Penh, and surrounding areas (3-5 million people).