Beyond the economic boundaries to account for ecosystem services

Area of Science:

• Environmental Accounting
• Ecological Economics
• Ecosystem Management

Background:

• Ecosystem services (ES) accounts are crucial for quantifying ecosystem contributions to human well-being.
• The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting - Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) provides initial standards for ecosystem accounting.
• Current frameworks may not fully capture the ecological dynamics of ecosystems as accounting units.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an enhanced ecological perspective for SEEA EEA.
• To redefine ecosystem services accounting by considering ecosystems as producers and recorders of change.
• To develop a framework for measuring ecosystem capacity and sustainable use in monetary terms.

Main Methods:

• Identifying ES typologies based on energy, biomass, and information flows.
• Defining concepts of ES potential, potential flows, demand, and actual flows.
• Constructing ES capacity accounts in monetary terms using these typologies and concepts.

Main Results:

• Case studies on water purification and crop pollination in Europe illustrate the proposed framework.
• The extended accounting boundary allows for measuring sustainable ES use.
• Causality between ES use and economic value accrued by economic actors and households can be established.

Conclusions:

• Integrating an ecological perspective enriches SEEA EEA by recognizing ecosystems' active roles.
• The proposed accounting framework enables better measurement of ecosystem capacity and sustainable utilization.
• This approach strengthens the link between ecosystem health, service provision, and economic valuation.