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Global map of the value of ecosystem services. See Supplementary Information and Table 2 for details.
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The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem s...
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... Table 2 for details. data were from ref. 17 as summarized in ref. 4 with additional information from a number of sources [18][19][20][21][22] . We also used data from ref. 23, as a cross-check on the terrestrial estimates and refs 24 and 25 as a check on the marine estimates. The 32 landcover types of ref. 17 were recategorized for Table 2 and Fig. 2. The major assumptions were: (1) chaparral and steppe were considered rangeland and combined with grasslands; and (2) a variety of tropical forest and woodland types were combined into 'tropical ...
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The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem s...
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Ecosystems are capital assets: they supply a stream of vital benefits such as food, fuel, clean water, flood control, and inspiration. These goods and services, produced by the conditions and processes of ecosystems, are called ecosystem services. Recognizing how and how much ecosystems benefit people is critical to understanding the complex enviro...
Citations
... In 1864, the German scholar Ebmayer studied the evapotranspiration dispersion of the soil surface in Bavaria [4], indicating interest in studying this field of water conservation. In 1997, Constanza [5] defined the concept of ecosystem services, after which research on water conservation gradually began to enter the development stage. As the research on water conservation has developed, academics have also constructed a variety of assessment systems and models to analyze the capacity and sustainability of water harvesting [6]; its concept has been clarified, and the evaluation methods of water conservation have been continuously enriched. ...
... In addition to reducing environmental impacts, incorporating strategies such as LID into land conversion processes helps preserve all the ecosystem services provided by natural systems. Ecosystem services are those produced by ecological systems that contribute directly and indirectly to human welfare and represent part of the planet's economic value (Costanza, d'Arge, de Groot, Farber et al. 1997). An important ecosystem service provided by LID practices is the reduction of runoff volumes from a catchment area, which mitigates local flooding and the potential for erosion and sedimentation, particularly along riverbanks. ...
Rapid urbanization presents daunting challenges to the conservation of our natural resources and environment, particularly in cities where sprawl becomes the dominant development model. Sprawling cities with newly built neighborhoods, where green fields used to be, place extensive demands on infrastructure systems. The high cost of extending these systems into peri-urban areas is more often than not passed on to homeowners, thus greatly impacting housing affordability. In addition, there is an aesthetic impact since we observe that the natural features of entire regions are all but eliminated and the developed landscape bears no resemblance to what it was prior to development.
... The academic community has engaged in fairly comprehensive discussions on the theory and practice of ecological compensation. In the 1990s, Costanza et al. (1997) and the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) initiated a new era in exploring ecological compensation. Ecological compensation shares similarities with the internationally utilized Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES). ...
... According to Wunder (2015), it is characterized as a voluntary exchange between a service provider and a service consumer to produce off-site services under the terms of established guidelines for the management of natural resources. Externality theory (Pigou, 1920), public goods theory (Samuelson, 1954), property rights theory (Coase, 1960), ecosystem service value theory (Costanza et al., 1997), and game models Gao et al., 2019) are just a few of the pertinent economic concepts that are applied in the literature that is currently available. This research addresses compensation subjects in ecological compensation (Qu and Sun, 2014;Smith, 2023), compensation methods (Wunder et al., 2018;Yang and Zheng 2021), compensation standards Su et al., 2020), compensation value accounting (Liang and Zhu, 2019;Canessa et al., 2023), compensation mechanisms (Cabo et al., 2014;Sheng et al., 2020), and multi-party safeguards (Cui et al., 2020). ...
The uneven distribution of ecological and economic factors within basins has led to issues such as wage disparities for similar work and significant development gaps. As a systemic mechanism to promote the realization of ecological product value and address the externalities of ecological protection, ecological compensation plays a pivotal role in advancing green urban development within river basins. This study investigates the ecological compensation practices in 11 typical trans-provincial river basins in China, Using urban panel data from 2008 to 2021 and a multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach, the research identifies and examines the impact of trans-provincial basin ecological compensation (TBEC) policies on urban green development and their underlying mechanisms. The findings reveal that TBEC significantly enhances the level of urban green development through structural and technological effects, leading to an increase of 0.026 units in green total factor productivity (GTFP). The effectiveness of these policies is influenced by factors such as the involvement of the central government, the relative location within the basin, and the financial pressures faced by local governments. Finally, the study proposes policy recommendations, including expanding the scope of ecological compensation, enhancing its effectiveness, and improving the precision and diversity of policy implementation.
... The former was promoted by Costanza to measure the monetary values of ecological functions such as the regeneration of natural resources, air and water purification, and pollination, so as to adjust economic activities to ecosystem dynamics. 85 The latter was proposed by Canadian ecologist William Rees, whose career shared many similarities with Holling, Berkes, and Costanza. Receiving his PhD in ecology at the University of Toronto, Rees taught environmental assessment at the UBC since 1969. ...
Responding to recent criticism of resilience as a neoliberal rhetoric, this paper examines the career of Canadian ecologist Crawford Holling from 1950 to 2000 and illustrates the diverse contexts from which the theory emerged. Resilience was first applied by Holling to pest control and resource management, before following Holling’s travel to Austria and Sweden between the 1970s and the 1990s. By studying networks and cases in which the theory was debated prior to its global popularization in the 2000s, this paper shows how resilience theory embodies a tension between technocratic quantification of socio-ecological properties and a reflexive research process.
... Two decades ago, the ecosystem goods and services provided by mangroves were valued at more than US$1.6 billion per year (Costanza et al. 1997(Costanza et al. , 2014. By 2050, the annual economic benefits of mangroves are projected to reach US$2.2 billion (Sina et al. 2017). ...
Mangrove forests provide a wide range of services to coastal communities worldwide. These services include carbon sequestration and coastal protection, both of which are critical in the context of climate change. However, these wetlands are still experiencing destructive anthropogenic impacts in many areas. Senegal and Colombia, two countries in the Atlantic-East Pacific biogeographic region, both have abundant mangrove cover and share several mangrove species. This study assessed the use of mangrove resources (fuelwood, timber, and other non-timber forest products) by local communities in both countries. A total of 210 semi-structured ethnobotanical questionnaire-based interviews were conducted in Sokone and neighboring villages bordering the Sine-Saloum Delta in Senegal (110) and in the Cispata lagoon system in Colombia (100). The results for Senegal indicate that individuals residing near the Sine-Saloum Delta in neighboring villages rely more on mangroves compared to those living in Sokone. In Colombia, reliance on mangroves was associated with occupational activities. Despite lower species diversity compared to the Indo-West Pacific biogeographic region, mangroves provide various services in both areas, underscoring their significance to local communities and their livelihoods. Finally, the Indigenous and local knowledge emphasizes the need for alternatives to mangrove resources and the promotion of sustainable harvesting practices to ensure the conservation of mangroves and the continued provision of essential services.
... • Provisioning ES: Physical goods, such as food and water • Regulating ES: Conditions that provide a livable environment, such as water quality and air quality • Cultural ES: Psychological and spiritual benefits, such as recreation and education • Supporting ES: Internal ecosystem processes, such as nutrient cycling, that facilitate the production of other ES categories Extensive ES research over the past three decades has produced a wealth of classification systems, methodological guidelines, and case studies (Barrios, 2007;Dominati et al., 2010;Grizzetti et al., 2016;Jenssen et al., 2021a;Williams and Hedlund, 2013;Adhikari and Hartemink, 2016;Costanza et al., 1997), developing the ES concept into a viable framework for general evaluations of the state of the environment. ...
... For example, the amount of "green area" in a study region and the proportion of forested land were both employed as indicators for EH. Land cover has been used as an indicator for multiple ES (Costanza et al., 1997), although the method is not always accurate or scalable (Eigenbrod et al., 2010;Masood & Garwin, 1998). In this review, where green area was explicitly tied to a specific ES, the green area indicator was recorded under that service's code. ...
... In the past, attempts to convert naturalness into a measurable goal, often by comparing the current state of the environment to presettlement conditions (Anderson, 1991;Suter II, 1993), ran up against two major critiques. Firstly, idealizing wilderness ignores historical management of ecosystems by people, particularly indigenous people (Costanza et al., 1997;Redman, 1999). Secondly, naturalness does not allow for any resource use by humans (Paetzold et al., 2010), making it unrealistic as a standard for modern ecosystems. ...
... Ecosystem services (ESs) refer to the benefits provided to humans by ecosystems through their structures, functions, and operational processes [1][2][3]. The sustainable development of human society is inseparable from the essential support provided by ecosystems [4,5]. ...
... Coral reefs, on the other hand, create habitat for numerous marine species (Fisher et al., 2015) and provide shoreline protection, which in turn ensures low energy currents into seagrass beds and mangrove forests (Guannel et al., 2016). Consequently, these interconnected habitats not only play a key role in biogeochemical fluxes (e.g., Cobacho et al., 2024) but also offer essential ecological services and important socio-economic benefits, such as tourism and fisheries (Costanza et al., 1997;Spalding et al., 2017;Torre-Castro & Rönnbäck, 2004). However, despite their importance, mangrove, seagrass, and coral reef habitats have experienced extensive deterioration over the past century due to the combined effects of global and local stressors, including climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, coastal development, and low water quality (e.g., Collier and Waycott, 2014;Gilman et al., 2008;Hughes et al., 2017aHughes et al., , 2017b. ...
Tropical coastlines featuring mangrove, seagrass, and coral habitats are of immense ecological and socio-economic importance, supporting biodiversity, carbon storage, coastal protection, fisheries, and tourism. However, climate change, coastal development, and low water quality increasingly threaten these interconnected coastal ecosystems, particularly in semi-enclosed bays where the impacts of these stressors are often amplified. Yet, physicochemical conditions are rarely assessed at sufficient temporal resolution (i.e., diel and seasonal variation) and time-integrated pollution monitoring is rarely performed. Here, we used a multi-disciplinary approach to assess >20 abiotic parameters characterizing two mangrove- and seagrass-dominated inland bays and two nearby coral reefs in Curaçao (southern Caribbean) during the cool, dry season and warm, wet season. This was combined with time-integrated pollution monitoring using bioindicators to assess nutrients and trace metal pollution (inland bays only), and passive samplers and bioassays to assess organic chemical pollution (all four sites) during the wet season. This approach revealed a previously undocumented extent of strong diel and seasonal environmental variability in Curaçao's inland bays, with temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen frequently reaching values predicted under moderate-to-severe future climate scenarios as outlined by the IPCC (2021). In addition, the inland bays had greater nutrient concentrations (especially ammonium) and potential ecotoxicological risks than the nearby reefs during the wet season due to run-off and anthropogenic activities. These findings emphasize the importance of high-resolution monitoring to understand risks across appropriate temporal scales and establish an environmental baseline against which future monitoring can be benchmarked. Moreover, our study provides a robust water quality assessment framework that can be used by natural resource managers to monitor reef-associated habitats and conserve their high ecological and socio-economic value. Overall, our work highlights the urgent need to improve monitoring, water quality, and protection of these valuable reef-associated habitats.
... Humans and nature are not separate from each other but integral components of a single social-ecological system (Folke et al. 2016;Dearing et al. 2014;Ostrom 2009). This planetary system comprises the lithosphere of core, mantle, and crust that drives tectonic and volcanic forces; the atmosphere that provides life support and the dynamics of weather; the hydrosphere of ocean, rivers, and rain that shapes landscapes and harbours countless organisms; the cryosphere of glaciers and ice sheets that regulate our climate; and the biosphere that teems in every environmental niche and makes our planet the richly diverse world that it is (Pörtner et al. 2022(Pörtner et al. , 2019Costanza et al. 1997;Steffen et al. 2018). ...
... Ecosystem services (ESs) are the various tangible and intangible benefits humans derive from ecosystems, typically organised into provisioning services, regulating services and cultural services (Costanza et al. 1997;Daily 1997;Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Given their close links to the quality of human life, ESs have progressively accumulated broad scholarly engagement, becoming a research focus in disciplines such as geography, ecology, economics, management and environmental sciences (Alkemade et al. 2014;Boithias et al. 2014). ...
... Quantitative methods have been extensively employed in evaluating the supply of ESs. The main approaches applied are the energy value assessment method (Costanza et al. 1997), the value quantity assessment method, and the physical quality assessment method. The common quantitative model of ES supply includes InVEST, SOLVES, ARIES and SWAT (Dennedy-Frank et al. 2016;Sherrouse, Semmens, and Ancona 2022). ...
Ecosystem services (ESs) are a pivotal interface between ecological and societal systems. Comprehending the balance between what nature offers and society demands is indispensable for fostering human prosperity. This study seeks to fill the gaps in existing knowledge, including inconsistencies in terminology, limited exploration of driving mechanisms, and the lack of a comprehensive management strategy framework in ES supply and demand research. The article comprehensively reviews the conceptual connotations and assessment methods related to ES supply and demand. The paper delves into the specific traits of studies examining the interplay between supply and demand, focusing on relationship identification, driving mechanisms, threshold effects and management strategies. And the review articulates a theoretical framework to examine the interplay of ES supply and demand as well as emphasises directions for further research. The results show that: (1) a unified definition for ES supply and demand has yet to be agreed upon. The critical part played by humans in ES supply is often neglected, and there is a corresponding scarcity of demand evaluations for such services. (2) Previous research has identified trade-offs and synergies, analysed underlying forces and threshold effects, and proposed management strategies for the dynamics between ES supply and demand based on quantitative assessment. (3) Prospectively, the beneficiaries need to be considered more. Additional research is required to explore in-depth the underlying processes of multi-scale ES supply and demand. Adaptive management provides opportunities for ecosystem management.
