Alessandra La Notte

European Dynamics

The aim of this report is to highlight the relevance of implementing an ecosystem-based approach in the marine ecosystem accounting. The evidences are based on non-exhaustive literature review and data and analyses present in non-public external study reports commissioned by Joint Research Centre (section 1, 2, 3), and are used to present a concept...

The European Union (EU) uses biodmass to meet its needs for food and feed, energy, and materials. The demand and supply of biomass have environmental, social, and economic impacts. Understanding biomass supply, demand, costs, and their associated impacts is particularly important for relevant EU policy areas, to facilitate solid and evidence-based...

Ecosystem accounting is a statistical framework that aims to track the state of ecosystems and ecosystem services, with periodic updates. This framework follows the statistical standard of the System of Environmental Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). SEEA EA is composed of physical ecosystem extent, condition and ecosystem service...

Europe is a leader in the tourism industry, with half of the world's international arrivals in 2018. Nowadays tourism activities related to the enjoyment of nature, Nature-based tourism (NBT), are amongst the main tourism markets worldwide. NBT represents both a challenge and an opportunity. In fact, on the one hand, it contributes to creating new...

Economy is embedded within nature, with all its risks and opportunities. There is the need for the financial system to channel public and private investments to enhance the stock of natural assets and encourage sustainable consumption and production activities throughout an ecological transition. However, an ecological transition may imply to prote...

The Integrated system for Natural Capital Accounting (INCA) was developed and supported by the European Commission to test and implement the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). Through the compilation of nine Ecosystem Services (ES) accounts, INCA can make available to any interested ecosyste...

There is a linkage between the condition of ecosystems and the services they provide. In the accounting framework set by the United Nations System of integrated Environmental Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA EA), two different sets of accounts assess and monitor ecosystem condition and ecosystem services, respectively. The former are...

Ecosystem services can be defined as the ecosystem’s contribution to human activities. According to recent assessments, the agricultural sector is one of the most important economic users of ecosystem services in Europe. To assess, value, and account for ecosystem services related to the agri-food system offers the possibility to measure and invest...

The purpose of ecosystem services accounting is to quantify the main transactions from ecosystems to society and economy and to report these transactions into accounting tables that are compatible with the structures and practices used in traditional economic accounting. The European Commission launched in 2015 the INCA (Integrated system for Natur...

Biodiversity is an intangible asset essential for ecosystem function and human wellbeing. The European Union is at the forefront of biodiversity management and policy implementation and has set ambitious strategies to better protect biodiversity and lead achievement of global biodiversity goals. However, biodiversity management entails balancing a...

The United States and European Union (EU) face common challenges in managing natural capital and balancing conservation and resource use with consumption of other forms of capital. This paper synthesizes findings from 11 individual application papers from a special issue of Ecosystem Services on natural capital accounting (NCA) and their applicatio...

This report summarises key results of the INCA project. INCA delivered an integrated system of ecosystem accounts for the EU. The report provides an introduction to ecosystem accounting and presents ecosystem extent accounts, initial ecosystem condition accounts and ecosystem services accounts for EU28, before the withdrawal of the UK. The report s...

The implementation of a Green Infrastructure (GI) involves several actors and governance scales that need adequate knowledge support. The multifunctionality of GI entails the implementation of a cross-scale approach, which combines assessments conducted at different levels and active stakeholder engagement. This paper provides a methodology to impl...

This report outlines the ecosystem accounting applications that have been presented in the Ecosystem Services World Conference in Hannover, Germany in 2019. Eight cases are summarized here; applications of ecosystem accounts in Europe, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Uganda, Bulgaria, Andalusia-Spain and Oslo-Norway. Most of these applications are...

Workshop BiodiverCities " Mapping nature-based recreation opportunities in urban ecosystems"

The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (SEEA AFF) offers the possibility to assess and report detailed accounts for primary industries while establishing important linkages with relevant ecosystem services, in line with the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA). In this paper, crop produc...

Ecosystem service accounts require quantifying the contribution of ecosystems to the society. However, estimation of the ecosystem service used (actual flow) remains still very challenging for regulating services. We developed an experimental ecosystem service account for flood control delivered by ecosystems including: 1) Biophysical modelling of...

The consumption of materials and products is one of the drivers of biodiversity loss, which in turn affects ecosystem functioning and has worldwide socio-economic consequences worldwide. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a reference methodology for appraising the environmental impacts of products along their value chains. Currently, a generally accept...

The EU Bioeconomy Strategy, updated in 2018, in its Action Plan pledges an EU-wide, internationally coherent monitoring system to track economic, environmental and social progress towards a sustainable bioeconomy. This paper presents the approach taken by the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) to develop such a system. To accomp...

The acronym LISBETH stands for LInking accounts for ecosystem Services and Benefits to the Economy THrough bridging. LISBETH is based on INCA (Integrated system for Natural Capital Accounting) and is meant to facilitate the use of INCA accounts in traditional economic analytical tools. Three practical examples are described and commented on. The fi...

Ecosystems deliver value to people and the economy through ecosystem services. The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has quantified the use of ecosystem services by the main economic sectors and households at EU level. In this paper, we downscaled the extraction of six ecosystem services for three Southern Italy regions in 2012: Camp...

Ecosystem services accounts are a useful tool that provides relevant information on the role of ecosystems in delivering services, and the society benefiting from them. This paper presents the accounting workflow for ecosystem services at the European Union level adopted by the Knowledge Innovation Project on an Integrated system for Natural Capita...

The integration of ecosystem services and accounting systems can help different stakeholders understand the economic implications of environmental impacts. Any such integration requires clear understanding of how ecosystem services may match and integrate with traditional accounts. The Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (EEA) of the System of Integrat...

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) represent a major threat to the biodiversity in Europe and worldwide, and can cause significant damages to the ecology, economy and livelihood of recipient countries. Recognising the need for a coordinated set of actions for the prevention, early eradication and management of IAS, the European Parliament and the Council...

Emission inventories are compiled at regional level. When these sources of information are used, uncertainty of emission estimates is never considered. In this paper, we propose an initial screening to identify whether and to what extent uncertainty related to emission inventories affects quantitative analysis used to set strategies and implement a...

Adjusting macroeconomic indicators to account for the depletion and degradation of natural capital has long been viewed as a way to show the linkages between nature and the economy and foster more sustainable paths of development. Here, we show how the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (EEA) can be...

An ecosystem services-based approach can constitute the analytical basis to develop a multipurpose framework able to identify and assess the multi-benefits generated by nature-based solutions (NBS). An ecosystem services analytical framework goes beyond individual sustainability-related issues and beyond the traditional mono-sectoral view, such as:...

This report assesses and accounts for four ecosystem services (ES): crop provision, timber provision, global climate regulation, and flood control. The methodology applied for the accounts of each ecosystem service depends on the nature of the service and on data availability. So far, six ecosystem service accounts at the EU level have been develop...

Interest in ecosystem services accounting is growing exponentially. There are many un-solved issues that need to be addressed, the notion of capacity is among them. International guidelines suggest that capacity should constitute the link between the ecosystem assets accounts and the ecosystem services accounts. In order to address this issue, the...

Natural capital accounting aims to measure changes in the stock of natural assets (i.e., soil, air, water and all living things) and to integrate the value of ecosystem services into accounting systems that will contribute to better ecosystems management. This study develops ecosystem services accounts at the European Union level, using nature-base...

Ecosystem services (ES) accounts are essential to quantify and monitor the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being. The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting-Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) is the first attempt to provide a set of standards to compile ecosystem accounts. We argue for the inclusion of an ecological pers...

The paper builds on the Supply and Use Tables module within the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts - Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA EEA) developed by the UN. We explore the evolution of Supply and Use Tables from the System of National Accounts (SNA) to the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts - Cent...

The Knowledge Innovation Project on an Integrated system of Natural Capital and ecosystem services Accounting (KIP INCA) aims to develop the first ecosystem accounts at EU level, following the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting- Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA-EEA). The application of the SEEA-EEA framework is useful to illustrate...

Il 2017 ha segnato un importante punto di svolta dell’ articolato e lungo percorso di sostenibilità del nostro Paese. Nel quadro di riferimento dettato dall’ Agenda 2030 dell’ONU sullo Sviluppo Sostenibile e dalla Strategia nazionale di Sviluppo Sostenibile (SNSvS) , l’elaborazione del Primo Rapporto sullo Stato del Capitale Naturale in Italia ha...

When accounting for ecosystem services, it is important to distinguish between the flow of services and the flow of benefits (which can be part of economic accounts or not) generated by those services. To disentangle services and benefits, particular attention has to be paid in allocating each category of flows in the use table to those institution...

The Knowledge Innovation Project on an Integrated system of Natural Capital and ecosystem services Accounting (KIP INCA) aims to work in line with the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting- Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA EEA) and also to propose how the approaches to accounting can be further developed based on experience in the EU....

Supplementary material

Ecosystem services research faces several challenges stemming from the plurality of interpretations of classifications and terminologies. In this paper we identify two main challenges with current ecosystem services classification systems: i) the inconsistency across concepts, terminology and definitions, and; ii) the mix up of processes and end-st...

In this paper we present a case study of integrated ecosystem and economic accounting based on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting — Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA-EEA). We develop accounts, in physical and monetary terms, for the water purification ecosystem service in Europe over a 20-year time period (1985–2005). The estimatio...

Ecosystem services research faces several challenges stemming from the plurality of interpretations of ecosystem services classifications and terminologies. In this paper we identify two main challenges with current ecosystem services classification systems: i) the inconsistency across concepts, terminology and definitions, and; ii) the mix up of p...

The measurements necessary to estimate GHG emission inventories create uncertainty. Currently emission inventories are built on statistical data, parameters and some “other information.” Investigating the role of the latter has driven this analysis, since it has proven to be a key concept in understanding and reducing uncertainty. This article prop...

The identification of an appropriate justification for Agri-Environment-Climate (AEC) payments is a crucial issue in the new Rural Development Programme (RDP). Given the environmental importance of grasslands in Trentino (Italy), the Management Authority in charge of the RDP decided to integrate an approach based on Ecosystem Services (ES) into the...

The justification for measures addressing Agri- Environment-Climate payments (AEC) is a crucial issue for authorities working at the Rural Development Program (RDP). The RDP 2014-2020 offers the possibility to include environmental benefits and externalities as elements that drive decision-making. Such benefits and externalities include the ecosyst...

Biophysical assessment and monetary valuation of ecosystem services Scenario analysis for the case of water purification in Europe There is a need to prove the relevance of ecosystem services in economic terms in order to make a comprehensive and compelling case for conservation of biodiversity. Many different approaches and frameworks used so far...

Quantitative and qualitative approaches to assessing and valuing ecosystem services have been compared using case studies from Italy and Germany. This paper describes and analyzes two different methods of applying an ecosystem service approach and discusses their relative strengths, shortcomings and peculiarities. This allows the conditions to be i...

Mainstreaming ecosystem services into policy and decision making is dependent on the availability of spatially explicit information on the state and trends of ecosystems and their services. In particular, the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 addresses the need to account for ecosystem services through biophysical mapping and valuation. This paper...

This case study tested an approach for large-scale monetary valuation of water purification services based on spatially explicit, biophysical mapping of nitrogen retention in river networks. The study area for the case study was the Mediterranean bio-geographical region. The monetary value of nitrogen retention was assessed using replacement costs...

The importance of habitat services is recognised as crucial, particularly in respect of land-use planning and land management. To test an approach for valuing habitat services at a local scale, two case studies were done. In these studies we adopted the principle that both the physical and biological characteristics of an area are strictly related...

Ecosystems are critically important to our well-being and prosperity as they provide us with food, clean air and fresh water and they maintain a livable biosphere. Consequently, it is increasingly considered to be of crucial importance that ecosystem services be included in decision making for policies that affect the use or the state of natural re...

Ecosystems are critically important to our well-being and prosperity as they provide us with food, clean air and fresh water and they maintain a livable biosphere. Consequently, it is increasingly considered to be of crucial importance that ecosystem services be included in decision making for policies that affect the use or the state of natural re...

Freshwater ecosystems are crucially important providers of ecosystem services as they provide clean water for multiple uses including water for drinking, irrigation or recreation. This study presents a spatially explicit assessment of the benefits of water services at the scale of Europe. We mapped simple indicators for water provision, water regul...