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Ecosystem services
An ecosystem is a community of living creatures (plants, animals, and microorganisms) that interact with each other and their non-living environment within a certain region. Ecosystem services are the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems, including provisioning services like food and water, regulating services like flood and disease control, supporting services that maintain life on Earth like nutrient cycling, and cultural services like spiritual and recreational benefits. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment categorized ecosystem services and identified many that have traditionally been unvalued, such as supporting services, though their importance is acknowledged, while some provisioning and regulating services have been incorporated into markets through replacing natural resources with artificial ones.
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Ecosystem services
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- 2. What is ecosystem? A systemis a group of interacting or interrelated entities that form a unified whole What is an ecosystem? An ecosystem is a community of living creatures (plants, animals (including humans), and microorganisms) in a certain region. Each member of the ecosystem interacts with each other and the non-living parts of its environment, such as water, air, climate, and geographic features.
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- 11. Definition Ecosystem services arethe benefits provided to humans through the transformations of resources (or environmental assets, including land, water, vegetation and atmosphere) into a flow of essential goods and services e.g. clean air, water, and food (Constanza et al. 1997).
- 12. Ecosystem services • Ecosystem servicesare the many and varied benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment identified and categorized ecosystems and their resulting services • The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework identified ecosystem services within four categories • provisioning services, such as food and water • regulating services, such as flood and disease control • supporting services, such as nutrient cycling, that maintain the conditions for life on Earth, and • cultural services, such as spiritual, recreational, and cultural benefits
- 13. Provisioning services Provisioning services (mostlyfood and fiber commodities) along with the supporting services that need to be replaced in order to these services to continue to flow, e.g. fertilizers to replace natural soil fertility, pesticides to replace natural pest control, have long been included in market economics.
- 14. Regulating services Regulating services wheresome of these services, e.g. pest regulation, seed dispersal, disease regulation and erosion regulation, have been artificially supplied and counted as costs of production. Other services, such as climate control, have been outside the market but are now being priced and integrated into markets, the most notable is carbon sequestration.
- 15. Supporting services Supporting services ofwhich most have traditionally been unvalued, although their importance has been acknowledged through government investment in soil and biodiversity conservation. Others, such as water for environmental flows, are the subject of emerging markets.
- 16. Cultural services Cultural services includeknowledge of country and place, which is important to Indigenous people. Another example is nature-based tourism that has significant economic value. However, many cultural services, whilst clearly valued, have not been explicitly priced or included in markets.
- 17. REVISION • Write anexample of ecosystem. Explain components and functions of it. Find out the services provided by that ecosystem
- 18. Points to remember Ecosystem definition Componentsof ecosystem – biotic &abiotic Functioning of ecosystem – producers, consumers, decomposers, material cycles Ecosystem services- provisioning services, regulating services, supporting services, cultural services
- 19. Test questions • Whatis ecosystem? Explain its functions • Explain different types of ecosystem services
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