Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services is a collective term to describe the range of valuable benefits that the natural environment provides for people, either directly or indirectly. These services fall into four basic categories: (1) the provision of food, water, fuel, and other materials; (2) the regulation of natural processes such as climate, water supply, and water or air quality; (3) the cultural services that natural systems contribute to our quality of life or spiritual well-being by providing beautiful landscapes and opportunities for recreation or education; and finally, (4) the supporting services that are essential to all of the other ecosystem services, such as soil formation, photosynthesis or nutrient cycling, the maintenance of biodiversity, and the space to build and maintain our supporting infrastructure. Recognition of the economic value of ecosystem services or the cost of replacing them provides an opportunity to assess the wider impacts of a particular development.

Rudolf de Groot initially defined ecosystem functions as “the capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy human needs, directly and indirectly,” and identified 23 functions, grouping them into the four primary categories of regulation, habitat, production, and information. Each of these represent a subset of ecological processes and ecosystem functions, the result of natural processes and the complex interactions between living organisms and the chemical or physical components of ecosystems through the universal driving forces of matter and energy. A range of ecosystem goods and services were identified to result from each of these functions and the ecosystem processes and components involved. For example, the regulation function of soil formation involved the processes of weathering of rock and accumulation of organic matter, resulting in ecosystem goods and services such as the maintenance of productivity on arable land or the maintenance of natural productive soils.

Regulation functions relate to the capacity of natural and semi-natural ecosystems to regulate essential ecological processes and life support systems through bio-geochemical cycles and other biospheric processes, namely:

• Gas regulation
• Climate regulation
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• Disturbance prevention (i.e., structures to buffer or limit environmental disturbances)
• Water regulation
• Water supply
• Soil retention
• Soil formation
• Nutrient regulation
• Waste treatment
• Pollination
• Biological controls

In addition to maintaining a healthy biosphere and ecosystems, these regulation functions provide many direct and indirect benefits to humans, such as clean air, water, and soil.

Habitat functions relate to the role of natural ecosystems to provide a refuge and reproduction habitat for wild plants and animals, namely:

• Refugium function (a suitable living space for wild plants and animals)
• Nursery function (a suitable reproduction habitat)

In this way, they conserve biological and genetic diversity and accommodate evolutionary processes.

Production functions relate to the process of photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, producing living organisms and a variety of materials for human consumption, namely:

• Food
• Raw materials
• Genetic resources
• Medicinal resources
• Ornamental resources

Information functions relate to the role of the natural environment as a reference point to the habitat where human evolution took place, providing an opportunity for cognitive development, primary health, and well-being, namely:

• Aesthetic information
• Recreation
• Cultural and artistic information
• Spiritual and historic information
• Science and education

Regulation and habitat functions are fundamental to natural processes, and they are a prerequisite for the production and information functions. From a human perspective, these functions thus represent not only valuable but essential goods and services. These values can be recognized as falling into ecological, sociocultural, and economic categories, mirroring the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainable development. Clearly, the capacity of many ecosystem services is limited by the necessity to maintain sustainable use levels.

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