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Abstract The Upper Missouri River Basin (UMRB) was used as a study region to examine how the spatial distribution of social values (SVs) people hold for their landscapes overlaps with ecoregions of the UMRB and how the results can be interpreted to inform regional‐scale strategic landscape management for optimizing the production of ecosystem services. The methods include a survey of residents about their landscape SVs across the UMRB and a multistage spatial analysis of eleven georeferenced SVs linked to ecosystem services and human activities in the region. The results show agriculture, recreation, and conservation are, respectively, the most significant activities that people value in landscapes of the UMRB. An overlapping area was identified between hotspots of recreation, tourism, and cultural activities on the one hand and conservation on the other hand. A large overlap was found between landscapes of social importance (i.e., landscapes where residents value the land) and ecoregion junctions (i.e., the meeting points of ecoregions). More than one‐fourth of the mapped points were no more than 5 km from the meeting points of ecoregions, meaning ecoregion junctions are highly attractive to residents, and therefore, subject to a variety of human activities. It was also shown that although distance to the place of residence may influence the spatial distribution of mapped points, proximity to ecoregion junctions is a stronger factor for predicting the locations people value on landscapes. These findings have important implications for food and energy production, cultural ecosystem services, and biodiversity across landscapes of the UMRB. |
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