Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services are the goods and services provided by natural ecosystems that are beneficial to humans, often monetarily or in a life-sustaining way.

Types of Ecosystem Services

• Provisioning: Goods taken directly from ecosystems or made from natural resources.
  • Examples: Wood, paper, food.
• Regulating: Natural ecosystems regulate and stabilize climate, air quality, water quality, soil, and biodiversity.
• Supporting: Natural ecosystem processes that sustain ecosystems and allow them to support life.
• Cultural: Money generated by recreation (parks, camping, tours) or scientific knowledge.

Ecosystem Service Categories

• Provisioning Services
• Regulating Services
• Supporting Services
• Cultural Services

Human Disruption of Ecosystem Services

Human activities disrupt the ability of ecosystems to function, decreasing the value of ecosystem services they provide. This has both ecological (natural) and economic (money-based) consequences.

• Examples:
  • Clearing land for agriculture/cities removes trees that store $CO<em>2$ (more $CO</em>2$ in atmosphere = increased atmospheric temperature = more storm damage & crop failure).
  • Overfishing leads to fish population collapse (lost fishing jobs and lower fish sales in the future).

Provisioning Services Explained

Goods/products directly provided to humans for sale/use by ecosystems.

• Examples:
  • Fish, hunting animals, lumber (wood for furniture/buildings).
  • Naturally grown foods like berries, seeds, wild grains, honey.
• Goods/products that are made from natural resources that ecosystems provide.
  • Examples: paper, medicine, rubber.
• Disrupted by overharvesting, water pollution, clearing land for agriculture/urbanization.

Regulating Services Explained

Benefit provided by ecosystem processes that moderate natural conditions like climate, air quality, biodiversity, and soil quality.

• Examples:
  • Filtration & purification of water by wetlands.
  • Pollination (aids plant reproduction, food production, biodiversity).
  • Trees sequester $CO_2$ via photosynthesis, lessening atmospheric warming & costly impacts like storm damage/crop loss.
  • Trees filter air by absorbing air pollutants, which reduces health care costs for treating diseases like asthma and bronchitis.
• Disrupted by deforestation, pollinator habitat loss, filling in wetlands.

Supporting Services Explained

Natural processes that sustain ecosystems, allowing them to support life and all of the other ecosystem services.

• Examples:
  • Photosynthesis, soil creation, nutrient cycling, habitat & food creation for plants and animals (all of these processes support ecosystem function, allowing them to support life).
  • Essentially, everything needed to maintain functioning ecosystems, supporting all of the other ecosystem services.
• Habitat loss due to deforestation, agriculture, urbanization.

Cultural Services Explained

Revenue from recreational activities (hunting/fishing licenses, park fees, tourism-related spending) & profits from scientific discoveries made in ecosystems (health/agriculture/educational knowledge).

• Examples:
  • Beautiful landscapes draw tourists who pay to enter parks, spend money at local stores/restaurants, or pay camping fees.
  • Fishermen pay for fishing licenses to catch fish in clean rivers.
  • Scientists learn about plant compounds that can lead to the creation of new medicines, which are sold for profit.
• Disrupted by deforestation, pollution, urbanization.

Externalities

Consequences of some economic activity that are not reflected in the price of the resulting good/service.

• There are positive and negative externalities, but negative externalities are more common in environmental science.
• Examples:
  • Burning coal to generate electricity causes people near the power plant to develop lung diseases. This is a "cost" that is separate from the monetary cost of electricity. The costs are separate because the electricity company is not held responsible for those illnesses.

Concept Explanation

Explain environmental concepts and processes.

• Practice FRQ 2.2
  • Describe an ecosystem service that intact forest ecosystems provide for humans.
  • Identify one human activity that could degrade this ecosystem service and explain how the activity decreases the value of the ecosystem service.