Abstract
ABSTRACT Ecosystem accounting has become one of the key components in the revision of international statistical standards. Expansion of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for ecosystem services follows the rapid progress of science in this area as well as expanding applications to sustainability challenges. In this contribution, we discuss approaches to accounting of ecosystem assets as a natural capital basis that is critical for ecosystem service delivery. Based on examples from the Czech Republic, a Central European country, we illustrate the construction of ecosystem extent accounts based on the methodology of Land and Ecosystem Accounting. This analysis is complemented by monetary ecosystem asset accounting through quantification of the present value of future ecosystem service flows. Ecosystem condition is represented by the Mean Species Abundance indicator, which gauges the direction of ecosystem naturalness. Based on the demonstration of approaches to ecosystem asset accounting, we discuss selected aspects of ecosystem condition measurements, valuation, and policy implications of ecosystem asset accounting at the national level.
Highlights
During the past several years, substantial effort of both international organizations and scientific community has been devoted to the development of Experimental Ecosystem Accounting within the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) within the United Nations Statistical Division (Obst 2015; UN 2014a, 2014b)
This definition is consistent with the definition of ecosystem which is in SEEA EEA defined in accordance with the Convention on Biological Diversity as “a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their nonliving environment interacting as a functional unit” (UN 2014b)
In the Czech Republic, there are 870 possible changes between land cover categories, i.e., changes that could occur based on a combination of all types of land cover change (LCC)
Summary
During the past several years, substantial effort of both international organizations and scientific community has been devoted to the development of Experimental Ecosystem Accounting within the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) within the United Nations Statistical Division (Obst 2015; UN 2014a, 2014b). The SEEA framework was developed as a tool for analyzing the environment and its relationship to economic and other human activities (UN 2014a). It aims to integrate environmental data into standard measures of economic activity as recorded by the System of National Accounts (SNA). The SEEA CF starts from the perspective of the economy and its economic units and incorporates relevant environmental information concerning natural inputs, residual flows, and environmental assets. SEEA EEA starts from the perspective of ecosystems and links ecosystems to economic and other human activities It complements the SEEA CF as it reports flows of ecosystem services and changes in ecosystem assets and links this information to economic and other human activities
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