Ecosystem+services

By: Antonio Griego

The intent of this paper is to examine the role of ecosystem services in river and watershed restoration. This paper will address what an ecosystem is, describe the modern emergence of ecosystem service, define the hydrologic cycle and hydrologic services, look at regulatory tools for promoting ecosystem services restoration and provide details on payments for ecosystem services using the Working for Water Program as a case study.
 * Introduction **

The natural process of the hydrologic cycle provides mankind with many benefits including clean water, clean air, energy, and food. The concept of viewing natural processes in terms of human value has been termed ecosystem services. Ecosystem services provides a framework for promoting restoration, rehabilitation and prevention of further degradation of ecosystems by assigning economic values to the services humans receive from nature.

 Assigning monetary values to the services provided by nature allows humans to have a commonly used and easily understandable metric. Our economies are already built around the notion of value. Expanding the assignment of values to ecosystem services creates a situation where the value of naturally provided services can be more readily compared to the provisioning of the same services through technology. As will we soon discuss, in many instances it is more costly to provide these services through modern technology than through nature.

The concept of ecosystem services is not new, but it has recently received much more attention. Federal and international agencies and organizations including the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have both produced publications on ecosystem services in recent years.

The USDA has noted that ecosystem services provide natural resource managers with a new tool to manage lands. Traditionally natural resource managers focused management on protection of ecosystems including “maintaining viable populations of native species, representing native ecosystem types across their natural range of variation, and maintaining the evolutionary potential of species and ecosystems” (Collins and Larry, 2007). The ecosystem services model expands upon this and adds management of the supply and delivery of natural services (Collins and Larry, 2007). This effectively extends the scope of managing an ecosystem to include the ecosystems ability to provision services for a population.

One of the first steps to understanding ecosystem services is basic knowledge of what an ecosystem is and how it behaves. Ecosystems are “a set of interacting species and their local, non-biological environment functioning together to sustain life” (Bolund and Hunhammer, 1999). “The biotic components generally include representatives from several trophic levels; primary producers in the form of plants and algae, macroconsumers which ingest other organisms or particulate organic matter and microconsumers which break down complex organic compounds from the above organisms” (Thain and Hickman, 2004). The interactions generally described above amongst organisms and between them and their environments involve complex chemical and physical properties, including nutrient cycling. Many of these interactions that define behavior and responses of an ecosystem are seldom well understood. This is a result of the variety of the ecosystems present. (see foodwebs)
 * What are Ecosystems? **

There are many different types of ecosystem throughout the globe. Ecosystems range from the low productivity found in arid deserts to the highly productive moist tropical rain forests found near the equator. One of the main determining factors of type and productivity of an ecosystem is climate. Climates are long term weather patterns comprised of variable quantities of moisture, temperature, sunlight and wind (Freeman, 2005). Climates are often dictated by latitude, elevation, geologic formations and proximity to oceans.

Climate influences the diversity and abundance of primary producers (autotrophs), which in turn influences the diversity and abundance of consumers (heterotrophs). Primary producers and consumers both exhibit impacts on the physical and chemical components of their environment through such interactions as nutrient cycling and physical alterations of landscapes. These interactions when functioning properly help maintain a healthy ecosystem.

Healthy ecosystems can be viewed as sustainable systems. Costanza and Mageau define sustainability of an ecosystem as its “ability to maintain its structure (organization) and function (vigor) over time in the face of external stress (resilience)” (1999). This view focuses on end results (vigor/function) based on the ability to maintain actions or structure of individual components (organization) of an ecosystem when stressed as characterized by resiliency. Mageau and Costanza’s work is among many frameworks used to establish measurements for ecosystem health. Ecosystem health is important to quantify because it allows for the measurement of rehabilitation and restoration successfulness. Increasing ecosystem health along with services should be the focus of restoration and rehabilitation activities.

Ecosystems provide a wide range of services that humans directly and indirectly benefit from including provisioning of clean air, water and energy (Costanza et al., 1997). These services have been collectively dubbed ecosystem services and have brought about much consideration of their value to humans. Costanza et al. valued ecosystem services provided by natural processes to be between $16 and $54 trillion dollars per year; roughly 1 to three times the global GDP (1997). Despite, “major theoretical problems with this exercise” the paper brought large amounts of media attention to the concept and practice of ecosystem services (Salzman, 2011).
 * The emergence of ecosystem services **

The idea that ecosystems provide services to humans is not a new one. It is visible in the writings of “Plato, and more recently through the writings of George Perkins Marsh, the father of modern-day ecology, and observations of famed environmental writer, Aldo Leopold” The recent attention of ecosystem services can be traced back to the release of //Nature Services// by Gretchen Daily in 1997, which placed monetary values on ecosystem services based on the cost of replacing them with modern technology (Rhul and Salzman, 2007).

In 1998, another influential paper was released by Graciela Chilchinisky and Geoffrey Heal. The pair detailed the investment of New York City in the Catskill Mountains, which houses the city’s watershed. The city of New York forced into action by the EPA which determined it was out of compliance with Clean Water Act, had to act to increase the quality of water it supplied to its residence. New York City determined that it was more cost effective to invest between $1 and $1.5 billion in natural capital and restore the watershed that provides it with its water than to invest between $6 and $8 billion in physical capital to build a water treatment plant and pay yearly operating costs (Chilchinisky and Heal, 1998). This example helped reinforce the important role of ecosystem services in day to day human activities, as well as, provide the benefits of investing in natural capital versus physical capital.

The attention ecosystem services received in the late 1990’s led to the establishment of the United Nation’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). Kofi Annan called for the MA in 2000 in his report to the United Nations General Assembly. Following three international conventions (the Convention on Biodiversity, the Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Ramsart Convention on Wetlands) the MA was initiated in June, 2001 (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Programme, 2005). The United Nations was the first attempt to globally assess ecosystems in terms of the services they provide to humans. <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The MA uses the works of two prominent authors of ecosystem service papers to define ecosystem services. As described by UNEP, “ The MA definition follows Costanza and his colleagues in including both natural and human-modified ecosystems as sources of ecosystem services, and it follows Daily in using the term “services” to encompass both the tangible and the intangible benefits humans obtain from ecosystems, which are sometimes separated into “goods” and “services” respectively”(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Program, 2004). From this broadened definition the MA developed an ecosystem services classification system that is widely accepted.
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Millennium Ecosystem Assessment **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The MA classification system divides ecosystem services into four categories as seen in figure 1. The four categories are supporting, cultural, provisioning and regulating. Supporting services are services that are not directly consumed or utilized by humans, but are necessary to facilitate services that humans benefit from. Cultural services are “non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Program, 2004).Cultural services include intrinsic values, spirituality, and recreation. Regulating services regulate ecosystems through climate regulation, and air purification. Lastly, provisioning services are “products obtained from ecosystems” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Program, 2004). Products that people obtain from ecosystems include human necessities, such as, energy, food and water.

[[image:es.jpg width="690" height="748"]]
====<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,Times,serif;">**Figure 1**: displays the relationships between human well-being and ecosystem services. (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Program, 2004) ====

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mankind is dependent upon nature to supply hydrologic services. The hydrologic cycle provides cultural, supporting, regulating, and provisioning services. Examples of hydrologic services include a wetlands ability to sequester toxins and purify water or the ability of a catchment to supply water to river systems that may later be utilized by humans. <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">In order to better understand the hydrologic services provided by ecosystems it is important to have some familiarity with the hydrologic cycle. This is because the provisioning of hydrological services is tied directly to the hydrologic cycle. The hydrologic cycle is the movement of water from sources to sinks. Sources can be viewed as allocators of water e.g. clouds. And sinks can be viewed as stocks of water e.g. oceans and aquifers. During the movement from sources to sinks water undergoes transformations of physical state, including time spent as a gas, liquid and solid. (See Hydrology)
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hydrologic Services **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">


 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Figure 2 **<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">: A graphic depiction of the hydrological cycle (USGS, [])

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Braumen and colleagues noted that all services provided via the hydrologic cycle can be defined by four attributes quantity, quality, timing of flow and location (2009). Differing levels of each of these attributes provides a unique hydrologic service. Take for instance the unique characteristics of the set of attributes that provides for a diversion of water to supply agriculture. For a diversion to be utilized the water needs to arrive at a certain time, in the case of agriculture during the irrigation season. An appropriate quantity of water must be available to irrigate the intended acreage. The water must also be of a minimum quality, free of pathogens, nutrient rich and of appropriate salinity to support crops. Lastly, the water needs to be in a suitable location in order to be diverted. All four of the attributes in the above example are regulated by ecohydrological processes. These processes include climate, soil development, biological interactions, and river bank development (Braumen et al. 2009)


 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Figure 3: **<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> displays the linkage between ecohydrologic services, hydrologic attributes and services which benefit humans (Braumen et al. 2009)

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">In order to manage lands to better provide hydrological services the ecohydrological processes that affect the attributes that define hydrological services must be defined. Identifying the ecohydrological processes allows watershed managers to focus on the processes that they have influence over. The identification of these processes can be accomplished through the use of watershed assessment techniques. Watershed assessment techniques are useful in identifying sources of watershed problems, sources of uncertainty and possible negative impacts on restoration activities (Pess et al. 2003). <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The goal of many watershed assessments is to identify disrupted processes, and the location and timing of land-use decisions on those processes (Pess et al., 2003). The data from assessments is useful in determining the drivers of an ecosystem or watershed, which can be either natural or human—induced (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2003). The Millennium Assessment has divided drivers into two categories direct and indirect. Direct drivers explicitly influence ecosystem processes and can be identified and measured (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2003). Whereas, indirect drivers operate more often by altering one or more direct drivers and its influence can be understood by defining its effect on direct drivers (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2003).
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Assessing Ecosystem Service Provisioning **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The information from watershed assessments is generally useful for land managers. However, for watershed assessments to be useful in the ecosystem services model they need to incorporate two items into assessments. The first is assessing watersheds and determining which drivers of ecosystem services can be controlled by decision makers (endogenous drivers) and those drivers which cannot be controlled by decision makers (exogenous drivers) (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2003). This information can narrow down the scope of ecosystem services related restoration or conservation projects to focus solely on drivers that management activities affect. The second item that needs to be incorporated into watershed assessments for ecosystem services is an economic valuation of ecosystem services within a project area. Economic valuation needs to be incorporated into assessment techniques gathering data for ecosystem service projects, because assigning monetary value is the key premise behind the ecosystem services concept. Additionally, it allows land managers to prioritize restoration and conservation efforts to be focused on the largest ecosystem services that a watershed provides. (See assessment techniques)

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ecosystems provide mankind with numerous benefits. Unfortunately, many of the services provided from ecosystems remain unprotected and are subject to degradation. This is largely because many economic marketplaces fail to internalize the damage done to ecosystems and their services through such activities as deforestation of watersheds, pollution of waterways, and alteration of natural flow regimes. These damages are side effects caused by market driven actions and are collectively known as externalities.
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Protecting Ecosystem Services **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The different frameworks used to internalize market externalities are best categorized in the works of Salzman and Thompson. The pair categorizes management policies of environmental protection into a “regulatory toolkit” (Salzman and Thomson, 2010). The toolkit defines five regulatory frameworks: prescriptive regulation, property rights, persuasion, penalties and payments (Salzman and Thomson, 2010). Of the five tools defined by the pair payments has gained prominence amongst river and watershed restoration activities.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Payments for ecosystem services (PES) have become a popular method for promoting restoration and conservation efforts. In order to establish a PES program a market must be created. Establishing a market for watershed services necessitates linking willing buyers with willing sellers, assessing the value of the service provided, identifying the appropriate scale and creating a payment scheme (Smith et al., 2006). <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Identifying and creating a partnership between willing buyers and sellers is fundamental to establish a market, without either a market will fail to materialize. Linking willing buyers and sellers of watershed services first involves identifying stakeholders capable of impacting watershed services (sellers) and stakeholders that can benefit from watershed services (buyers) (Smith et al., 2006). Connecting upstream watershed users with users downstream is of particular importance, because the water and land management practices upstream disproportionately affect those downstream. In watershed services stakeholders located higher in the watershed are the sellers and those located lower are the buyers. As a result of the effects of upstream users on downstream users the accepted scope or size of a PES program tends to be viewed as the whole watershed.
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Payments for Ecosystem Services **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Establishing a market for a PES program may also require shifting sellers of a good into suppliers of a service (Smith et al., 2006). Take for example a logger. Loggers are sellers of a product, wood. In order to establish a PES system the loggers would have to shift to suppliers of a service. In a catchment the services to be supplied would include water quantity, clean water, species habitat (biodiversity) and carbon sequestration.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Assessing the value of ecosystem services is another important step to establishing a market. It provides investors information needed to make a sound judgment (Smith et al., 2006). The value of services can be derived by using a utilitarian approach. This approach assigns a monetary value based upon the usefulness of the service to members of society (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2003). One of the drawbacks to this approach is it may fail to recognize the values of non-use services, including biodiversity and cultural values. It is for this reason that PES programs use Total Economic Value or TEV, which incorporates both use and non-use values (Smith et al., 2006). Use and non-use can further be broken down into smaller units as seen in figure 4.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Notwithstanding attempts to be inclusive many have argued against PES. One argument is that the valuation of ecosystem services is ethnocentric. Chan et al. argued that in taking on the worldview of economic principles ecologist have “closed the door” on other social perspectives (2012). It has also been mentioned that identifying value through material utility is based solely on the Judeo-Christian roots of science and fails to recognize values of other cultures (Bhagwat, 2009). Meanwhile, some people point out that the current market for PES may be limited. During the economic downturn from December 2008 to March 2009 the value of carbon credits in some voluntary markets fell 40 percent (Bhagwat, 2009). This may be partly attributed to a decline in public support for environmental protection. A 2008 Gallup poll found that environmental support was not a key issue for voters, who were instead focused on the economy (Newport, 2008). Despite, what may be perceived as declining support there has still been successful PES programs.


 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Figure 4 **<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">: Total Economic Value and its components (Smith et al., 2006)

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">One such program that has been successful is the Working for Water (WfW) Program in South Africa. Water resources in Africa are stressed by high variability of supply, regional scarcity and governments with generally weak institutional capacity (Goulden et al., 2008). Furthermore, “Africa’s fresh water resources are vital to the support of livelihoods (particularly agriculture and fisheries-based livelihoods), food security and power generation as well as growing domestic and industrial needs” In order help to alleviate stresses posed by the threat of water shortages the South African government developed WfW in 1995.
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Case Study the Working for Water Program **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The program brings together land owners with utilities to purchase the water and help subsidize the program. Although, the program is not completely self-sufficient government officials hope that increasing scarcity will lead to a higher cost of water that will offset the government’s investments in the program (Turpie, 2005). Currently the program is funded by the government as a poverty relief program and pays unemployed South Africans to complete restoration work on rivers and watersheds

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Much of the restoration work completed is focused on removal of exotic invasive species and restoration of a natural fire regime. Data collected through field work showed high losses of water through evapotranspiration were mainly the result of dense tree stands and invasive species(Turpie, 2005). Removal of invasive species and thinning forests has helped increase water supply. (See Invasive Species)

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The program is widely viewed as a success in South Africa and many of the private utility companies have employed the WfW to help increase regional water suplies (Turpie, 2005). Some of the keys to the program’s success include knowledge of how the ecosystems in South Africa provision water services, support of the national government and lack of institutional barriers.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">In terms of river and watershed restoration ecosystem services has shown some success at increasing water supply and quality, as was seen in South Africa and the Catskills. The successes seen from both examples stem partially from prior strong understanding of how each system worked. Without knowledge of the intricacies of each ecosystem, success would have been limited. Despite the achievements of these two programs it is remains important to understand focusing restoration efforts solely on increasing an ecosystem’s utility to humans may be short-sighted. These systems existed prior to human need and reliance upon the goods and services they provide.
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Conclusion **

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Ecosystem services although promising needs to become more holistic in its approach.One shortcoming is the lack of a methodology for establishing values that takes into account different cultural backgrounds of stakeholders. Furthermore, linking willing buyers and sellers of an ecosystem service and identifying endogenous drivers of services may be difficult. And public support for government funding of environmental protection initiatives have waned due to the economic downturn. The true strength in ecosystem services is that it provide decision makers with a useful tool for protecting environmental interests through the <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">economic concepts of value and utility.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Brauman, K.A., Daily, G.C., Duarte, T.K., Mooney, H.A. 2007. //<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Nature and Value of Ecosystem Services: an overview highlighting Hydrologic services //<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Annual Review of Environmental Resources: 32, 67-98 <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Chichilnisky, G. Heal, G. 1998. //<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Economic Returns from the Biosphere. //<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Nature: 391- 629-631 <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Costanza, R. Mageau, M. 1999. //What is a healthy ecosystem?// Aquatic Ecology: 33, 105-115 <span style="background-color: white; font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Freeman, S. 2011. //Biological Science//. San Fransicso, CA: Benjamin Cummings, <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Larry, E. Collins, S. 2007. //Caring for Our Natural Assets: An ecosystem services perspective.//USDA <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Millenn. Ecosyst. Assess. 2003. //Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Our Human Planet.// <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Washington, DC: Island <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Pess, G. Beechie, T. Williams, J. Whitall, D. Lange, J. Kloghar, J. 2003. //Watershed Assessment Techniques and the Success of Aquatic Restoration Activities//. American Fisheries Society:185-201 <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Constanza et al. 1997. //The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital//. Nature: 387, 253-260 <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rhul, J. Salzman, J. 2007. //The Law and Policy Beginnings of Ecosystem Services.// Journal of Land Use. 22: 157-172 <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Salzman, J. 2011. //What is the Emperor Wearing? The Secret Lives of Ecosystem Services.// Pace Environmental Law Review: 28, 591-613 <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Salzman, J., Thompson, B.H. 2010. //Environmental Law and Policy.// New York, USA. Foundation Press//.// <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Smith, M., de Groot, D., Perrot-Maîte, D. and Bergkamp, G. 2006. //Pay – Establishing payments for watershed services.// Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thain, M., Hickman, M. 2004. //The Penguin Dictionary of Biology//. New York, USA. Penguin Books.
 * <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Works Cited **