Ecosystem Services: Key Issues

341 Pages·2021·10.077 MB·English

by  Mark Everard

Ecosystem Services
Revised and fully updated, this textbook provides a detailed yet accessible
introduction to the key aspects of ecosystem services.
Ecosystem services is one of the most powerful guiding principles for ecol-
ogy, biodiversity conservation and the management of natural resources. It pro-
vides the basis of assessing the multiple values and services that ecosystems can
provide to humankind, including diverse issues such as carbon sequestration,
flood control, crop pollination and aesthetic and cultural services. The second
edition of Ecosystem Services: Key Issues has been fully revised and updated to
address policy and scientific developments, as well as new and emerging issues,
such as nature-based solutions, zoonotic diseases and environmental justice. It
includes new and updated case studies from across the world and each chapter
contains further reading, learning objectives and discussion questions to aid
student learning. The book details the historical roots of ecosystem services in
the second half of the twentieth century, through initiatives such as the Mil-
lennium Ecosystem Assessment, The Common International Classification of
Ecosystem Services (CICES) and the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals. It shows how ecosystem goods and services can be categorised and val-
ued in economic as well as non-monetary terms, while also highlighting some
of the difficulties and limitations of valuation techniques. The author describes
how themes such as systems thinking, social-ecological resilience and natural
capital relate to ecosystem services, and how these can contribute to more sus-
tainable and equitable development.
This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of ecosystem
services, ecology, environmental science, biodiversity conservation, environ-
mental economics, natural resource management and sustainable development.
It will also be of use to professionals and policymakers who are looking to
integrate ecosystems and their services into their decision making processes.
Mark Everard is Associate Professor of Ecosystem Services at the University of
the West of England (UWE Bristol), UK, and Director of Pundamilia Ltd. He
has extensive practical experience in the development and implementation of
the Ecosystem Approach and in Government advisory roles, including the UK
National Ecosystem Assessment and the Defra Natural Value Programme. He
is the author of numerous books, particularly on the management of freshwater
resources, and has worked on international development projects in South and
East Africa, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China and Bhutan.
Key Issues in Environment and Sustainability
This series provides comprehensive, original and accessible texts on the core
topics in environment and sustainability. The texts take an interdisciplinary
and international approach to the key issues in this field.
Sustainable Business
Key Issues
Helen Kopnina and John Blewitt
Sustainable Consumption
Key Issues
Lucie Middlemiss
Human Rights and the Environment
Key Issues
Sumudu Atapattu and Andrea Schaper
The Anthropocene
Key Issues for the Humanities
Eva Horn and Hannes Bergthaller
Environmental Justice
Key Issues
Edited by Brendan Coolsaet
Ecosystem Services
Key Issues
Mark Everard
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Key-Issues-in-Environment-and-Sustainability/book-series/KIES
Ecosystem Services
Key Issues
Mark Everard
Second Edition
First published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Mark Everard
The right of Mark Everard to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Everard, Mark, author.
Title: Ecosystem services : key issues / Mark Everard.
Description: 2nd Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Key issues in environment and sustainability | Revised
edition of the author’s Ecosystem services, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021041121 (print) | LCCN 2021041122
(ebook) | ISBN 9781032021973 (paperback) | ISBN 9781032021997
(hardback) | ISBN 9781003182313 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Ecosystem services.
Classification: LCC QH541.15.E267 E94 2022 (print) | LCC
QH541.15.E267 (ebook) | DDC 577/.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021041121
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021041122
ISBN: 978-1-032-02199-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-02197-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18231-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003182313
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction to ecosystem services 1
2 Origins and evolution of the concept and practice of
ecosystem services 6
3 Conservation of ecosystems and their services 52
4 Understanding systems 67
5 Ethical considerations 84
6 Valuing ecosystem services 114
7 International initiatives to embed ecosystem services 152
8 Putting ecosystem services into practice 163
9 The economics of ecosystem services 203
10 Rebuilding the Earth 235
11 Ecosystem services and the pursuit of a sustainable future 288
Index 307

Illustrations
2.1 Ecosystem services are produced as part of a cascade from
ecosystems and the functions they perform, delivering
benefits to people from which value is derived, although
the use of ecosystems and their services feeds back into
ecosystems and the balance of services they produce 11
2.2 Concentric diagram illustrating how values to society
stem from the services of nature, generated by functions
performed by ecosystem constituents. As only a small
subset of services is traded, this can create unintended
feedback degrading the integrity and functioning of the
whole productive system (derived from Everard and Quinn, 2015) 12
2.3 The four categories of ecosystem services, derived from
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, highlighting
the foundational role of supporting services maintaining
ecosystem structure and function for the production of
more directly utilised services 15
2.4 IPBES conceptual model (modified from IPBES, n.d.) 25
2.5 Animal pollinators are vital for the functioning of natural
and agricultural ecosystems, and the many human
livelihoods dependent on them (image © Mark Everard) 27
2.6 Connections between ecosystem services and human well-
being: arrows from services to well-being constituents are
largely illustrative of multiple links of different strengths
(modified from Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005a) 30
2.7 Ecosystem service provision varies differentially with forest
size: carbon sequestration varies in a linear way, amenity
provision may increase up to a threshold maximum,
whereas larger forests can have a disproportionately greater
effect on local weather systems through water recycling
(image © Mark Everard) 33
3.1 Location of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), a
‘green lung’ and water source supporting rich biodiversity,
amenity and other services within the densely populated
Greater Mumbai, India (from Everard et al. (2020)) 59
viii Illustrations
4.1 ‘Earthrise’, one of the world’s most downloaded
photographs, was taken by astronaut William Anders
from Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, as
it entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, December 1968
(image © NASA) 74
5.1 Equitable access to natural resources and the distribution
of benefits and disbenefits that arise from their use
and management are central to the implementation of
ecosystem services (image © Mark Everard) 85
5.2 All options for damming and water transfer from the upper
Thukela River system in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa,
will result in significant changes in the distribution of
ecosystem service benefits and disbenefits for local people
(image © Mark Everard) 88
5.3 Towards an integrated value chain model (source: Everard
et al., 2009) 91
5.4 A Gram Sabha, or ‘village gathering’ of family
representatives, assembles at dusk in Gopalpura village,
Rajasthan, to make decisions about investment in water
management and allocation of resources between families
(image © Mark Everard) 102
6.1 Total Economic Value (TEV) model 129
6.2 Three tiers of approaches to ecosystem service valuation,
showing attributes and example applications (image ©
Mark Everard) 131
6.3 First-tier semi-quantitative valuation can also be used to
identify priorities for further targeted valuation based on
their significance (positive, negative or unknown) (image
© Mark Everard) 134
8.1 Only 1.6% of the ecosystem service value provided by the
world’s tropical forests is accounted for by the bundled
provisioning service of ‘raw materials’ (image © Mark Everard) 166
8.2 Grove in a coffee estate in Coorg (Karnataka state, India)
with an understory of coffee bushes and other low plants
beneath a canopy of mixed trees that support vines, trap
mist and host rich biodiversity (image © Mark Everard) 170
8.3 Opportunity map produced from stakeholder
brainstorming about opportunities to improve ecology
and ecosystem services on a university campus noting
opportunities to make beneficial use or to enhance
identified (P) provisioning, (R) regulating, (C) cultural and
(S) supporting services (image © Mark Everard) 175
8.4 Comparative ecosystem service outcomes of a single-
issue solution (pumping at site of flooding) versus a
systemic solution (construction of wetlands upstream in
Illustrations ix
the catchment) based on a study of a persistently flooding
railway cutting in western England (Quinn et al. 2020),
‘+’ denoting benefits, ‘—’ denoting disbenefits and ‘0’ no
impact (image © Mark Everard) 187
9.1 Installation of buffer zones to prevent cattle trampling and
defecating in river margins and to attenuate pollutants in
surface run-off are one of many solutions implemented
under the ‘Upstream Thinking’ programme (image © Dr
Mark Everard) 218
9.2 ‘Three circles’ and ‘concentric circles’ models of sustainable
development imply different relationships between the
economy and both supporting ecosystems and society.
The concentric model represents the need for evolution
of the economy to embrace all of its dependencies and
interactions with the supporting ecosystems of which
it is a subset 228
10.1 Locations of schemes discussed in this section 247
10.2 Regeneration of groundwater from monsoon rains through
community-based management has restored agricultural
productivity, ecology and quality of life to formerly
depopulating villages in Alwar District, Rajasthan (image
© Mark Everard) 249
10.3 Reforestation at Nadukuppam, starting with degraded
farmland, can regenerate a diversity of ecosystem services
ranging from climate regulation to improved hydrology,
provision of traditional medicinal resources and habitat
for wildlife, thus supporting rural livelihoods and playing
an important role in education and female empowerment
(image © Mark Everard) 251
10.4 As part of an ecosystem-based approach to protecting raw
water resources, the installation of ‘buffer zones’ to prevent
cattle trampling river edges enables regeneration of riparian
habitat that, in turn, provides water purification services
among a wide range of linked ecosystem services, including
erosion regulation, habitat for wildlife, recruitment of fish
stock, primary productivity and nutrient cycling (top left:
April 2002 before fencing; bottom left: January 2010 after
fencing; top right: May 2013; bottom right: July 2014)
(image © Mark Everard) 255
10.5 ‘Leaky dams’ in headwaters, emulating the natural
functioning of woody matter in river channels, serve to
buffer flows mitigating flood risk in habitat-poor rivers
(image © Mark Everard) 257
10.6 The Mayes Brook constrained in a reinforced channel and
incarcerated behind a security fence (left: March 2010);