Ecosystem Services (collection)
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Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services, such as food and water; regulating services, such as regulation of floods, drought, and disease; supporting services, such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services, such as recreational, spiritual, and other non-material benefits. These benefits may or may not be fully perceived by people. Most are outside the market exchange system and are best thought of and managed as public goods (the commons). Ecosystems are experiencing serious degradation in regard to their capability of providing services. At the same time, the demand for ecosystem services is rapidly increasing as populations and standards of living increase.
What are Ecosystem Services?
Categories of ecosystem services
- Provisioning services
- Regulating services
- Supporting services
- Cultural services
Valuation techniques
- Avoided costs
- Replacement costs
- Factor income
- Travel costs
- Hedonic pricing
- Contingent valuation
- Group valuation
- Marginal product estimation
Spatial characteristics of ecosystem services
Services in various ecosystems
Modeling and mapping of ecosystem services
- German cultural history of forestry and forest functions since the early 19th century
- Challenges of modeling and valuing of ecosystem services
- Potentials of ecosystem service accounting at multiple scales
- Modelling system for estimating the value of ecosystem services
- Maps of ecosystem services, supply and demand
Major assessments of ecosystem services
- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
- The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
Locational examples
