Ecosystem Services for Environmental Sustainability

Introduction

The concept of ecosystem service enables to take into account at a greater level significant ecological services provided by nature towards decision making process along with ensuring sustainable land use for reducing overconsumption and degradation of natural life conditions. Attention towards the concept of ecological service is attributed to its interdisciplinary, integrative and transdisciplinary character including its relation to several socio-economic and environmental factors (Müller and Burkhard 2007). However, the concept of ecological service is not an entirely new concept, movement for ecology dates back with its foundations in history (Westman 1977). The fact that ecosystems deliver free services to mankind has long been recognized (Graf 1984). For defining an integrative notion of ecosystem services, it is vital to create a concept which is equally accepted and understood by ecology, economics, sociology, scientists, policymakers and practitioners.

The framework of ecosystem services has been internationally used for assessing and governing socio-economic values of different biomes and ecosystems, analysing both at local and global scales (TEEB, 2011). The concept of ecosystem services and its applications have endured and progressed after self-reflection methods mostly with reference to utilitarian mounting (Droste et al. 2018), precisely with widespread dialogue over technical and theoretical limitations of indicators and assessment methods for ecosystem services (Cord et al. 2017).

Typically, ecosystem services are mentally visualized as a series of units playing role in association among human wellbeing and nature. Functions and properties of ecosystem are understood to be a web of ecological communications influencing the ecosystems’ structure and flow of matter, information and energy. The capacity of ecosystem service is the capability of an ecosystem towards providing services, which is derivative of a set of ecological functions and properties. Value of benefits from ecosystem services differ among various groups of society governed by societal traditions, norms along with preferences, principles and needs of individuals. Interests are articulated leading to mobilization of resources for its management and appropriation when a service is found to have a value, which can trigger both public and private decisions having influence on land use either indirectly or directly via policy tools like regulations and economic tools. All these tools tend to have impact on various kinds of land use and its change.

Figure 1.

Representation of Ecosystem Services

It is to be noted that provision of ecosystem services is usually resolved by various methods of capital (Spangenberg et al., 2014). Flow of an ecosystem service is the consequence of aggregate of social, institutional and biophysical factors that govern the crusade of ecosystem service capabilities through measures of land management. Additional anthropogenic inputs would be required to use other services like use of knowledge, machines, managing timber and agricultural production through use of fertilizers and towards accommodating recreational visits. Ecosystem services generating benefits are apparent depending on sort of value-articulating establishment. In order to sustainably accomplish ecosystem service delivery, it is important to comprehend preferences of societies to enhance awareness in scenarios wherever services are presently taken for granted leading to non-visibility of trade-offs and synergies. Science of ecosystem services is related to essential societal queries and decision-making procedures on how to conserve, manage, use and re-establish ecosystems towards sustaining delivery of ecosystem services (Díaz et al., 2015). Most of the investigation on ecosystem services focused on designing procedures and standards for assessing and mapping services (Jacobs et al., 2016; Ricketts et al., 2016; Maron et al., 2017; Schröter et al., 2019).