Well-being and the use of ecosystem services by rural households of the Río Cruces watershed, southern Chile

- We analyse human well-being and ecosystem services in a degraded watershed.
- We compare the results with those obtained in a semi-pristine watershed.
- There is a positive correlation between components of well-being and some services.
- Comparison between watersheds agree with the environmentalist's expectation.
- We develop a conceptual model for well-being and services for rural areas.

The main objective of this article is to analyse the relationship between human well-being (HWB) and ecosystem services (ES). We studied the Río Cruces watershed (Chile) as a social-ecological system by means of a social survey and compared the results with those previously obtained at the Aysén watershed. We surveyed six localities characterized by different types of habitat. HWB was assessed by means of two indicators (material conditions and quality of life) and ES through the analysis of provisioning and regulating services. Results for Río Cruces show no significant HWB differences between localities, with the exception of life satisfaction (lower on isolated localities). The use of provisioning and regulating services did not differ between localities, with the exception of two components (wood and soil fertility), and we only found a significant positive correlation between regulating services and HWB material conditions. The comparison between watersheds show that changes in HWB material conditions and both types of ES are positively correlated. We conclude that the relationship between human well-being and ecosystem services seems to be contextual to the analysed social-ecological system and that generalizations across systems may not be possible.