Page 176 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS195 Albert B.
positively affected by human activities (in addition to natural
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incidents) .
In this sense ES can be considered flows of value to human societies as a
result of the state and quantity of natural capital (TEEB, 2010, p. 7).
The degradation of ecosystems (by human activity) undermine ecosystem
functioning and resilience and thus threaten the ability of ecosystems to
continuously supply the flow of ecosystem services (de Groot, R., 2012 p.50).
Those threats become evident when looking at pollution of air, water or soil,
deforestation, climate change and global warming. In this context the question
is how to portray degradation of ecosystems. Conceptually ES-degradation is
defined as the decline in an ecosystem asset over an accounting period, which
is due to economic and other human activities (SEEA-CF, 2012). A question
could be raised with regard to how such a change in the ES-asset impacts on
the provision of ES-services.
2.2 Scope of ES-services
Regarding the distinction of ecosystems services a categorization into
various broad types usually is applied:
- provisioning services, i.e. ES providing air, water, food or timber
- regulating services, i.e. ES providing flood control, pollination or water
regulation
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- cultural services, i.e. ES offering recreational or cultural benefits.
It has to be mentioned in this context, that there is not a one-to-one
relation, but that an ecosystem can provide different services at the same time,
a service bundle or basket. As an example, a forest can provide timber
(provisioning service), clean the air from carbon (regulating service) and
provide the landscape for hiking (cultural service).
An interesting issue concerns the question whether ES services can be
negative, i.e. produce so-called dis-services. Looking at nature as a self-
regulating and self-balancing system, it seems obvious, that natural processes
exist, which result in damages for the welfare of human societies. Practical
examples are hurricanes/tycoons, earthquakes, pests etc. Some compare them
to negative externalities, which in economic accounts are not covered and
hence could be neglected as well (Obst et al., 2016).
2.3 Separate or Holistic Environmental Methodology?
At first glance an astonishing point seems that environmental accounting
is split in two separate parts, including separate methodologies, classifications

4 A difference to economic capital, like machinery, seems to be that the latter has a certain
limited service life after which it is useless.
A more detailed overview of what is covered in these categories is provided by table 2 in
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Costanza et al., 2017, p. 7). A revised version V5.1 of the classification of ecosystem services has
been adopted recently (Haines-Young, R., et al. 2017), but the above mentioned three major
sections are kept.
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