Ecosystem services

The development of appropriate tools for a correct management of the environment depends upon the integration of ecological and economic elements within an interdisciplinary framework. The structure below is a general conceptual framework to get the identification and quantification of the functions, goods and ecosystem services.

Ecosystem functions are defined as the capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy human needs, directly or indirectly.

 
modified after De Groot, 1992                
 

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), the most comprehensive and thorough systematization of knowledge acquired to date on the status of the world's ecosystems, has provided a useful classification dividing ecosystem functions into 4 main categories:

  • Supporting: these functions collect all those services necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services and contribute to the conservation (in situ) of biological and genetic diversity and evolutionary processes.

  • Regulating: in addition to maintaining the health and functioning of ecosystems, the regulatory functions collect many other services that involve direct and indirect benefits to humans (such as climate stabilization, waste  recycling), usually not recognized until the moment in which they are not lost or degraded;

  • Provisioning: these functions collect all those services for the supply of resources that natural and semi-natural ecosystems produce (oxygen, water, food, etc.).

  • Cultural: natural ecosystems provide an essential "function of consultation" and contribute to the maintenance of human health through the provision of opportunities for reflection, spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, recreational and aesthetic experiences.

These ecosystem functions contain the goods and services used by human society to satisfy their own welfare. Based on these functions the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment identified the (potential) useful aspects of natural ecosystems to the human race in the form of goods and services, calling them by the general term of ecosystem services: the multiple benefits provided by ecosystems to the human race.

PROVISIONING: The following are some of the products provided by ecosystems

    Food: natural ecosystems are an almost unlimited source of edible plants and animals.

  • Raw materials: for humanity and other species, nature is an irreplaceable source of natural resources such as timber, minerals, metals, fibres (jute, cotton, hemp, silk and wool), resins up to fossil fuels used as energy sources.

  • Biological variability: biodiversity is based on the enormous number of living species and on the genetic variability within them, which allows us to have natural substances and active ingredients, allowing the plant reproduction and the animal breeding.

  • Fresh water: ecosystems ensure the provision of clean natural water, with rivers, lakes and underground aquifers, which are a freshwater tank essential to all living species' life.

REGULATING: The following are some benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes include:

  • Air quality maintenance: ecosystems affect the adjustment of the gas both chemicals to and extract chemicals from the atmosphere, influencing many aspects of air quality.

  • Climate regulation: ecosystems influence climate both locally and globally. For example, at a local scale, changes in land cover can affect both temperature and precipitation. At the global scale, ecosystems play an important role in climate by either sequestering or emitting greenhouse gases.

  • Water regulation: the timing and magnitude of runoff, flooding, and aquifer recharge can be strongly influenced by changes in land cover, including, in particular, alterations that change the water storage potential of the system, such as the conversion of wetlands or the replacement of forests with croplands or croplands with urban areas.

  • Erosion control: vegetative cover plays an important role in soil retention and the prevention of landslides.

  • Protection against landslides: ecosystems contribute to stem hydrogeological disruption due to the rains and wind. This allows maintaining agricultural productivity by reducing the loss of fertile soil.

  • Pollination: the service is done by many animal organisms, as well as by wind and water, which allows the fertilization of plants and therefore also the production of food, including fruits and other materials of vegetable origin: without the pollinator species many wild plant species become extinct and the current levels of productivity could be maintained only in very high costs through artificial pollination.

  • Habitat for biodiversity: in providing habitats, areas of refuge and protection to wild plants and animals (especially during the reproductive phase) for both residential and transient species (migratory), natural ecosystems are essential for the maintenance of biological and genetic diversity on earth. Natural ecosystems can be seen to this as a storehouse of genetic information. In this "genetic library" of adaptations to environmental information acquired on more than 3.5 billion years of evolution are stored in the genetic material of millions of species and subspecies.

CULTURAL: The non-material benefits that people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences include:

  • Inspiration for culture, arts, educational, and spiritual values, sense of identity: ecosystems provide a rich source of inspiration for art, folklore, national symbols, architecture, advertising and provide the basis for the formal and informal education in many societies.

  • Aesthetic values: many people enjoy the scenery of landscapes and natural areas in which they look for the beauty or aesthetic value, as reflected in the preference that many people have to live in environments aesthetically pleasing; in the demarcation of the "scenic roads; in the support to the parks and in the selection of locations for accommodation".

  • Recreational values: through the aesthetic qualities and almost unlimited variety of landscapes, natural environments provide many opportunities for recreational, tourism, leisure and sporting activities: walking, hiking, camping, fishing, swimming, and nature study.

It can be observed therefore that ecosystems provide to humanity a wide variety of services and benefits, and even though their real value, in the long term, is not "counted" in the economic forecasts of the society. While the question of ecosystem services has grown significantly since 1960, at the same time it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of these services are in decline.

Over the past 50 years, man has changed ecosystems with a speed and force that had never been seen in the previous periods; the main causes have been the increasing need for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and energy sources: this impact is causing an irreversible loss of biodiversity across the planet and in particular, it has been estimated that 60% of the planet's ecosystem services have been compromised.

It is therefore clearly become fundamental the integration of the concept of functions and ecosystem services in management decisions and planning so that local administrators can control the pressures that threaten the ecosystem and their functionality, improve their effectiveness and "build" a governance model that is based on tools such as payments for ecosystem services.