Abstract
Ecosystem services (ES) accounts are essential to quantify and monitor the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being. The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting – Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) is the first attempt to provide a set of standards to compile ecosystem accounts. We argue for the inclusion of an ecological perspective in the SEEA EEA that considers ecosystems to be more than input providers to the economy. Ecosystems can act as accounting units capable of producing, consuming and recording changes in regeneration and absorption rates. To account for that we propose (i) to identify ES typologies according to the way in which energy, biomass and information is released to generate services; (ii) to use these typologies to define the concepts of ES potential, ES potential flows, ES demand and ES actual flows; and (iii) to build the ES capacity accounts in monetary terms based on these concepts. These arguments are illustrated with case studies for water purification and crop pollination accounts in European countries. Extending the production boundary would allow the measurement of the sustainable use of ES and the establishment of causality between the use of ES and the value accrued by the economic actors and households.
Highlights
Natural capital accounts include accounting for natural biotic and abiotic resources, and accounting for ecosystems and ecosystem services (ES)
After briefly describing how the context of ecosystem service accounts was developed to show the evolution that has been taking place (Section 2), we structure the methodology section as follows: first, as starting point we frame the role of ecosystems in providing services (Section 3); second, depending on the role of ecosystems, we describe Ecosystem services (ES) flows from an accounting perspective (Section 4); third, based on the typologies of ecosystem service flows, we show how the extended production boundaries would affect the current accounting frame, especially when assessing capacity (Section 5)
To measure and account for this, we introduce the concept of ecosystem services potential flow (ES potential flow) as the maximum flow of services that the ecosystem type can provide while ensuring its provision through time
Summary
Natural capital accounts include accounting for natural biotic and abiotic resources, and accounting for ecosystems and ecosystem services (ES). The hypothesis we propose and test throughout this paper is to upgrade ecosystem units to fully active actors able to produce, consume and record changes in a similar way to what happens for other economic entities that is to consider ecosystem units as institutional units This possibility was outlined in the SEEA EEA (Annex 6 in UN et al, 2014b): the two hypotheses there described are to consider ecosystems as ‘quasi-sectors’ and to include ecosystem management as an activity of economic sectors responsible for them. Considering ecosystems as ‘sectors’ implies extending the production boundary by including ecosystem types in the accounting process as ‘producer units’ (institutional units) (Bartelmus, 2014) In this way, relevant concepts from the field of ecology (such as ecosystem service potential) can be properly integrated within the accounting framework. The conclusion summarises the main outcomes and foresees the way forward (Section 8)
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