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University of Kiel, Ecology Centre, Msc Environmental Science, a seminar paper
1st version completed 12/15/2009 by David Rinderknecht and Kristina Tritsis (d.rinderknecht@gmx.ch and kristina_tritsis@yahoo.gr)
2nd version (adapted, changes) 2010 by Yang Yu (yy01330595@hotmail.com)
Status: completed

Provisioning Services

Abstract

This article presents the provisioning services that humankind is supplied with by ecosystems. These include the provision of freshwater, food, timber, fuel, fiber, genetic resources, pharmaceuticals, natural medicines, biochemicals and ornamental resources. Freshwater and food are analyzed to a greater extent, while for the other services a brief outline is given.

Key words: ecosystem, economics, ecosystem services

Content

1. Introduction

The world’s ecosystems yield a flow of essential services that sustain and fulfill human life (Brauman & Daily, 2008). According to these authors ecosystem services can be classified into four categories: provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services and supporting services.

In the following section an insight into the provisioning ecosystem services will be given. Provisioning services, provide goods such as food, freshwater, timber and fiber for direct human use; these are a familiar part of the economy (Brauman & Daily, 2008).

Ecosystem services can be explored by focusing either on a single service that may be provided by various ecosystems or by looking at a single ecosystem that may provide a variety of services (Brauman & Daily, 2008). Here we have chosen the attempt to follow the single service approach, so every provisioning service will be presented one by one.

2. The Importance of Provisioning Services

We see that insufficient of goods can cause many social problems. Firstly, insufficient access to the ecosystem provisioning service of food is a particularly important factor in the loss of human well-being, but all ecosystem services contribute in some way to well-being (Colin D. Butler and Willis Oluoch-Kosura , 2006). Secondly, an insufficiency or maldistribution of ecosystem services contributes to a sense of insecurity, and often, to poor social relations (Colin D. Butler and Willis Oluoch-Kosura , 2006). Thirdly, as we can easily understand that lack of goods always cause conflicts between individuals or even countries. The most obvious examples are the conflicts between countries for water resource and people fight for food. What’s more, A lack of access to the ecosystem provisioning service of food causes far more than psychological harm: it robs thousands of millions of people of mental and physical potential by reducing intelligence and physical growth, in some cases from the moment of human conception (Bryce et al. 2005).

3.The Relationship among Four Kinds of Ecosystem Services

In general, regulating and culturally enriching services are being lost at the expense of greater provisioning services (Colin D. Butler and Willis Oluoch-Kosura , 2006). It means, when we lose the provisioning services, at the same time, there will be a losing of the regulating and culture services. It can be concluded as, provisioning services are the fundamental services and it’s the basis of ecosystem services.

4. Fresh Water Related Provisioning Services

A Central Role among Ecosystem Services

Fresh water plays an outstanding important role in various aspects concerning ecosystems, and consequently also among ecosystem services. Following De Groot, one can distinguish ecosystem services from ecosystem functions and define the latter as “the capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy human deeds, directly or indirectly” (De Groot, 1992 and De Groot et al., 2002). Hence, water is not simply a provisioning ecosystem service, but, as a basic requirement for any ecosystem, also involved in many ecosystem functions.

This importance is also expressed in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA): „Together with energy and nutrients, water is arguably the centerpiece for the delivery of ecosystem services to humankind“ (MA, Volume 1, p.168).

In all the categories of ecosystem functions (regulation, habitat, production and information function; see De Groot, 2002) water is an important component. For instance, it has many regulating functions that are at work in the climate processes, in soils, biomass production, energy flows or landscape development. Also, fresh water can be considered an ecosystem and habitat by itself.

Figure 1. The world’s water cycle. Source: Igor A. Shiklomanov, State Hydrological Institute (SHI, St. Petersburg) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO, Paris), 1999; Max Pianck, Insitute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 1994; Freeze, Allen, John, Cherry, Groundwater, Prentice-Hall: Engle wood Cliffs NJ, 1979.

Global Distribution and Supply

The share of fresh water is very small compared to the total water occurrence on earth. Only around 2.5% of the Earth’s water is fresh water and not all of this 2.5% is available for human use. More than 2/3 is stored in glaciers and permanent ice and almost another third is kept in groundwater aquifers (MA, Volume 1, p.171). In all these storages water is not entirely accessible, since it can be stored there for thousands of years (see Figure 1).

It is however difficult to estimate any precise number related with global water supply, because methodologies differ worldwide and increased anthropogenic influences on the water cycle with the purpose of water managing, have made it more difficult (MA, Volume 1, p.170). It is estimated that the total renewable water supply accounts for 38’600-42’600 km3 per year (see Figure 2). This is the so-called blue water that “represents the sustainable supply of fresh water that emanates from ecosystems and is then transferred through rivers, lakes, and other inland aquatic systems.” (MA, Volume 1, p.169) On the other hand there is green water which is lost to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration of soils and vegetation.

Table 1. Estimations of Fresh water resources and Water use indices. Source: MA p.171

In the last century, the global water use has increased by a factor of six. At the same time consumptive water losses have increased thirteenfold, mainly from evapotranspiration that occurs on open water channels of irrigation systems. Of course there are big differences among the continents: Asia accounts for almost half of the total water use, the OECD countries for around on third and the other continents for less than 10% each (MA, Volume 1, p.174). It is clear that the massive increase in water use reflects the global population growth and economic development and given the continuing growth of the present, water use can not be expected to be reduced. But still it is not very clear at what rates water use will increase, because water use efficiency has increased too and will continue to do so. Also, it is difficult to forecast the future development of water resources and human handling and pressure on them.

Looking at water use by sector (see Figure 2), agriculture is by far the most consumptive sector. Its high portion of waste is due to all the water that is lost in open channels of irrigation systems. For both, domestic and industrial use consumption has not increased as heavily as withdrawal and consequently waste water production. The forecasted increase of evaporation in reservoirs reflects the intensified building of large reservoirs for energy production.

Figure 2. Global Water Use by Sector. Source: Igor A. Shiklomanov, State Hydrological Institute (SHI, St. Petersburg) and UNESCO, Paris, 1999.

Further more we can see the precise water use per sector (%) from the following table:

global

Europe

Germany

Agriculture

75

30

4

Cooling water

10

32

64

Industry

9

10

23

Households

6

28

9

Sources: Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen 1998 Umweltbundesamt 2001, European EnvironmentalAgency, 1999

The table above shows the different water use globally and from the European countries. As mentioned above, globally the agriculture is the biggest part of water use. However there are quite different situation in Europe and especially in Germany. Cooling water plays the significant role in European and German water use. And there is only a very small part of agriculture in Germany.

The various uses and managing techniques have led to many human-induced changes that accompany water use. Among them are:

Alteration of natural flow regimes
Depletion of groundwater aquifers
Fragmentation and loss of aquatic habitats
Species extinction • Water pollution
Eutrophication leading to anoxic “dead zone” in water bodies

The concept of virtual water is an attempt to demonstrate that people use water also indirectly: it calculates the water that is embodied in a product i.e. the water that has been used for the production of a certain product. This shows not only that for instance 1 kg of beef meat embodies ca. 15.500 l whereas 1kg wheat needs 1.300 l for its production (Chapagain & Hoekstra, 2004). It shows also global trade ways and exchanges of water.

It seems clear that the various forms of changes and pressures on fresh water resources have left their marks and often contribute to an increased problem of water scarcity.

Water scarcity is a complex phenomenon, which can be seen in three dimensions: water quantity, water quality, interactions of users. Whereas the first two can be measured and quantified with scientific methods more easily, the latter is the most complex and depending on many variables.

According to EEA (European Environment Agency) 2003, the two key water quality problems in Europe are as follows:

“Nitrate in drinking water is a common problem across Europe particularly from small supplies/wells in contaminated shallow groundwater.”

“Pesticide and mental contamination of drinking water supplies has been identified as a problem in many European countries.”

Different indicators have been developed for water quality assessment.

For water quantity different indicators have been developed, for instance the water crowding index measuring how many people have to be served with one million m3 water per year. The water stress index expresses a ratio of water withdrawals to supply (see Figure 2).

Measuring water quality is more difficult, because it has higher technical requirements and is thus in less industrialized regions not easy to process. Also, there is a lack of standardized methods hindering comparability. A first international effort has been made during the Dublin International Conference on Water and the Environment in 1991 and updated later where organic matter and pathogenic argents have been identified to be the two most prominent water pollutants (see Figure 3). This is mainly due to the widespread lack of wastewater treatment plants and the re-use of untreated water. In developing countries still 85-95% of sewage is discharged untreated into rivers and lakes. Problems of industrialized countries are mainly related to agricultural fertilizers that release Nitrogen and Phosphorous loads into the water and cause eutrophication, as well as to heavy metals released from industry.

Figure 3. The most important water pollutants. Source: MA, p.182.

The third dimension of water scarcity, named here, the interactions of users, has many, mostly political and social, as well as cultural aspects. And therefore more sophisticated indicators are needed. One of them is the Water Poverty Index (WPI): This index was developed with the intention of a holistic and easy-to-use indicator linking water availability and human welfare. It is especially designed for poor regions that suffer most from water scarcity and it is thought to be a practical tool to enhance water management. The WPI aggregates different pre-existing indicators and consists of five components: Resources (the physical availability), Access (to safe water, sanitation and irrigation water for food production), Capacity (to gain access due to socio-economic variables such as GDP, education or child mortality), Use (domestic, industrial and agricultural water use per capita per year) and Environment (quality, water stress, management capacity/strategy) (Lawrence et al., 2003).

Looking at the result of a WPI analisis it is possible to draw a detailed and broad picture of a region’s or country’s situation and in a specific calculation the WPI can be expressed in a single number between 0 and 100, whereas the lower the number the higher the water poverty. (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Spider-web diagram of the WPI. Source: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, CEH Wallingford.

Water Management

The danger of water scarcity in its various dimensions calls for a sustainable water management that incorporates environmental, social and economic issues. Such management strategies must be applied in small-scale dimensions and thus there is no global formula of how to do it. The combination of different concepts and attempts might show best results.

A rather economic approach is the pricing of water. Almost everywhere water has no or no real price i.e. the user is not in charge for the costs that go along with the provision and use of fresh water. On one hand a more realistic price may raise the awareness that water is a limited good and provoke a reduction of dissipation. On the other hand water is a common good and so very basically needed by everyone that the ability to pay cannot be a criterion to exclude people from using water. The same thoughts apply for water privatizing which is among the most controversial management strategies. There are positive examples like Chile or South Africa, where a public-private partnership has enhanced water supply and prizing is relative to the ability to pay. But such systems rely on stable political and economic conditions. The case of Argentina’s economic collapse around the year 2000 has shown that in an unstable economic situation, privatizing water makes supply even worse (MA p. 194).

Another important fact of many water resources is that they belong to more than one country, which has given reason for many conflicts if not wars. Therefore international cooperation is needed.

5. Provision of Food

Nature provides humanity with one of its basic needs: nourishment. That may come in the form of crops, livestock, fisheries or wild plant and animal products. These can be used as they are, or they can be processed into a vast range of food products (MA, General Synthesis, p.40).

Figure 5. Food production from 1961 to 2003. Source: FAOSTATS, SOFI, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Structure and Distribution of Food Provision

Global food production has increased by 168% over the past 42 years. In spite of this increase and falling food prices, more than 850 million people still suffer today from chronic undernourishment, and the absolute number of hungry people is rising. It is of significance to note that the problem of undernourishment is not distributed evenly across the globe. Nearly 96% of the undernourished live in developing countries (see Figure 5) (MA, Volume 1, p.211).

Crop Production

The domestication of plant and animal species that are preferable for food production has led to the alteration of the species base supporting food provision. Of the estimated 10,000–15,000 edible plants known, only 7,000 have been used in agriculture and less than 2% are deemed to be economically important at a national level (MA, Volume 1, p.213). Only 30 crops provide an estimated 90% of the world population’s calorific requirements, with wheat, rice, and maize alone providing about half the calories consumed globally (Shand 1997;FAO 1998; FAOSTAT 2004).

Figure 6. Total crop output. Source: FAOSTAT 2004.

Crop production has increased at a rate faster than the population growth. Mainly this is due to the increase of the production per unit area, but it also is the result of a significant expansion in cropland (MA, General Synthesis, p.41). Figure 6 shows the trends in crop production by major crop group on a per capita basis.

Livestock Production

The global importance of livestock and their products is increasing as consumer demand in developing countries expands with population growth, rising incomes, and urbanization (MA, Volume 1, p.216). Livestock production has important implications for ecosystems and ecosystem services, as it is the single largest user of land either directly through grazing or indirectly through consumption of fodder and feedgrains (Bruinsma, 2003).

The growth of the production is partly due to the increase of the area devoted to livestock, but is to the greatest extent due to more intensive and confined production (MA, General Synthesis, p.41). This industrial livestock production though, poses a range of pollution and human health problems (MA, Volume 1, p.216).

Figure 7. Total livestock output. Source: FAOSTAT 2004.

Figure 7 presents the trends in growth of global output for each of the major livestock food product categories, expressed in per capita terms.

Capture Fisheries and Aquaculture

The pattern of production and consumption of fish has changed significantly during the past century. Marine fish harvest increased until the late 1980s and has been declining since then (see Figure 8) (MA, General Synthesis, p.41). The increase in the harvesting was not only due to the increase of the average per capita consumption, which from 9 kg per capita per year rose to 16 kg (MA, Volume 1, p.219), but also due to the expansion of the population portion that consumed fish. The decrease that followed was not caused by a decrease in demand but by the critical depletion of many fish stocks as a result of overexploitation (MA, Volume 1, p.219).

Figure 8. Global marine fish catches. Source: Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.

Aquaculture has become globally a significant source of food over the past 50 years. In 2002 it contributed to approximately 27% of fish harvested and 40% of all fish consumed as food. However, the variety of supply from aquaculture is well below that of capture fisheries (MA, Volume 1, p.221). While expanding aquaculture production can take the pressure off wild fisheries resources in some cases, in other cases the opposite is true (Naylor et al., 2000), as cultivation of carnivorous species can require large inputs of wild fish for feed. Overall, catches of wild fish for non-food uses are increasing faster than catches for food (MA, Volume 1, p.221).

6. Provision of Timber, Fuel, Fiber

The main products from timber are roundwood, used for furniture, construction and industry, as well as pulp wood, used for paper production.

In the last century timber production has grown largely: from 1961-1980 by 42% and from 1980-2000 by 11% (this decline can partly be explained by the breakdown of the former Soviet Union’s economy). Major producing and exporting countries today are Canada, U.S., Sweden, Finland and Germany. But there is a trend shifting southwards to the tropics in South America and Asia. By now 35% of the timber is harvested in plantations and it is forecasted to increase up to 44% by 2020.

One of the most pressing problems in timber production is the huge amount of illegal harvesting, mainly in countries without strong forestry regulations. Around 15% of the globally traded timber is harvested illegally, which accounts for about 10 billions US Dollar. It is estimated that illegal timber logging in the Brazilian Amazon in 1998 was at 80% of the total harvesting (MA, Volume 1, p.248).

Illegal logging is not only an un-sustainable use of resources, but due to the lack of regulations, it goes along with massive destruction of the whole forest, corruption of authorities, and where present, causes (often violent) conflicts with indigenous people, who are often in the inferior position. Such conflicts can be observed all around the world mainly in tropical forests.

In order to reduce illegal harvest and enhance sustainable forestry strong policies must be enforced, as well as forest management practices that meet the (still increasing) demand of timber production, as well as environmental issues and needs of people that live in and around the forests. Such a management practice can be established through certification. Timber products that come from sustainable forestry can be certified and this can be an advantage on the marked. The most reliable certificate for forestry is the international Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) that has global criterions, which then have to be specified in every country according to local circumstances.

Fuel products are those renewable goods used for heating, cooking and to run engines like cars, etc. Among them are fuelwood, charcoal, biomass and biogas. In large regions of the world fuelwood is still the most important fuel for heating and cooking. 55% of the global wood consumption accounts for this, serving 2,6 billion people. With continuing urbanization and increase in efficiency and technology this demand is thought to decline in the future. Fuelwood is often accompanied with severe health problems when the fire is kept inside the houses and primarily women and children are exposed to smoke.

Biomass and biogas are promising replacements for fossile energy, but not without question since the production of this biomass needs a lot of energy, water and soil, and may compete with food production.

Cotton is with 40% of the world’s total fiber production the major fiber. Since 1961 the production has doubled. Once produced pre-dominantly in the former Soviet Union, production shifted now to the U.S. and India. The major issue about fiber production is the enormous need for water and fertilizer. In the Soviet Union this has led to a catastrophic development of the lake Aral that was almost erased with the withdrawal for irrigation water.

Globally less dominant, but still of importance are fibers like silk and wool.

7. Provision of Genetic Resources

Genetic resources include the genes and genetic information used for animal and plant breeding and biotechnology (MA, Volume 2, p.330). Therefore, they are strongly influenced by biodiversity, which includes the number, abundance, and composition of genotypes, populations, species, functional types, communities, and landscape units. (MA, Volume 1, p.299) Nowadays genetic resources are being degraded, either because they are lost through extinction or due to crop genetic resource loss (MA, General Synthesis, p.7).

8. Provision of Pharmaceuticals, Natural Medicines and Biochemicals

A wide variety of species – microbial, plant, and animal – and their genes contribute to commercial products in such industries as pharmaceuticals, botanical medicines, crop protection, cosmetics, horticulture, agricultural seeds, environmental monitoring and a variety of manufacturing and construction sectors (MA, General Synthesis, p.109).

This service provided to humanity by the ecosystems is being degraded globally through the extinction of species and the overharvesting of the goods (MA, General Synthesis, p.7).

9. Provision of Ornamental Resources

Although a less striking provisioning service, humankind derives goods from ecosystems for ornamental use. Animal and plant products, such as skins, shells, and flowers, are used as ornaments, and whole plants are used for landscaping and ornaments (MA, General Synthesis, p.40).

Provisioning services are essential for human societies. Without them, life could not be as it is. Unfortunately, since nature provides all these goods in an abundant way, their economic value is quite low, considering that, their price is set by supply and demand (Heal, 2000). Ecosystems as capital assets are poorly understood and not well monitored and this leads to their constant degradation and depletion (Daily et al., 2000). The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) was greatly inspired by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and is an effort to promote better understanding of the true economic value of ecosystems and to offer economic tools that take proper account of this value (TEEB, 2008).

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Last modified at 2/1/2011 4:02 PM by Claudia Henneberg

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