Ecosystem Services- Definition, Types, Impacts, and Significance

Ecosystem Services: We all know that ecosystem is a framework or geographic area of biotic and abiotic components and their interactions with each other. Do you know what are the benefits we get from the ecosystem and what are they called? We obtain various goods and services that are vital for the survival of all living organisms from the ecosystem. Some of the examples of these beneficial products and services include food, water, timber, air purification, soil formation, and pollination. All these numerous benefits that we obtain from our ecosystem are known as Ecosystem Services. 

What are Ecosystem Services?

All the varied benefits and services that are provided to humans by the natural environment or ecosystem are called Ecosystem Services or Nature’s Services. For example, agroecosystem, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystem, and aquatic ecosystem, all these ecosystems function in healthy relationships, offering things and services like natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, and human mental and physical well-being. Ecosystem services are often integral to the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and the resilience and productivity of food ecosystems.

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History behind the Concept of Ecosystem Services

The concept of ecosystem services was originally developed to gain attention to the benefits that ecosystems generate for society and to raise awareness for biodiversity conservation.

Following are some important history of ecosystem services in a different area:
1. 400 BC– Plato understood that deforestation could lead to soil erosion and drying of spring.
2. 1864– Beginning with modern ideas of the ecosystem, Marsh challenged the idea that Earth’s natural resources are unbounded.
3. 1940– Three key authors – Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr., Willian Vogt, and Aldo Leopold promoted recognition of human dependence on the environment.
4. 1956– Paul Sears drew attention to the role of the ecosystem in processing waste and recycling nutrients.
5. 1970– Paul Ehrlich and Rosa Weigert called attention to the “ecological system” and the dangerous threat to man’s existence due to his own activities in their environmental science textbook.
6. 1970– The term “environmental services” was introduced in a report of the Study of Critical Environmental Problems, which listed services including insect pollination, fisheries, climate regulation, and flood control.
7. In the following years, variations of the term were used, but eventually, ‘ecosystem services’ became the standard in scientific literature.
8. A history of the concepts and terminology of ecosystem services as of 1997 can be found in Daily’s book “Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems.”
9. While Gretchen Daily’s original definition differentiated between ecosystem goods and ecosystem services, Robert Costanza and colleagues’ later work and that of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment lumped all of these together as ecosystem services.

Types of Ecosystem Services

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) grouped ecosystem services into four broad categories:
1. Provisioning Services
2. Regulating Services
3. Cultural Services
4. Supporting Services

Fig: Four Types of Ecosystem Services

Let’s study the type of ecosystem services in detail.

1. Provisioning Services

Ecosystem Provisioning Services are the products, raw materials, or energy output obtained from the ecosystem. Provisioning services are also called ecosystem goods which include;

1. The ecosystem provides suitable conditions for producing food. Agro-ecosystem is the primary food source, but freshwater, marine, or forest ecosystems can also produce food for our consumption. Food products include seafood, crops, wild foods, spices, etc.
2. Raw materials such as lumber, skins, fuelwood, organic matter, fodder, and fertilizer are provisioning services obtained from the ecosystem.
3. The ecosystem is responsible for the purification and flow of water or even minerals in the environment.
4. Genetic resources, including crop improvement genes, health care, etc.
5. Many plants have been used for medicinal purposes for many decades. Medicinal resources include pharmaceuticals, chemical models, etc.
6. Energy sources such as hydropower, biomass fuels, fossil fuels, etc., are another gem of ecosystem services.
7. Ornamental resources include fashion, handicrafts, jewellery, pets, worshipped objects, decoration and souvenirs like furs, feathers, ivory, orchids, butterflies, aquarium fish, shells, etc.

We can understand the provisioning services by 5 Fs i.e. Food, Feed, Fiber, Fuel and Pharmaceutical.

Fig: Five Provisioning Benefits

2. Regulating Services

Ecosystem Regulating Services are the various benefits that come from the regulation of ecosystem functions and processes. We can say that this includes the services that regulate the ecological balance. Regulating services include:

1. Regulation of water discharge through preservation in wetlands helps to prevent soil erosion and many other negative effects.
2. Regulation of air pollution through reforestation and other vegetation practices
3. Climate regulation.
4. Purification of water and air.
5. Carbon sequestration (pulling CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it in plants and soils).
6. Waste decomposition and detoxification.
7. Pest and disease control.
8. Flood prevention and control.
9. Disturbance regulation helps to prevent environmental issues such as flood regulation.
10. Insects like bees, flies, beetles, etc., and wind pollinate trees and plants. It is an essential process for the development of vegetables, fruits, and seeds.

Fig: Pollination as an Example of Regulating Ecosystem Services

3. Cultural Services

Ecosystem Cultural Services are the various non-material benefits derived by humans, such as recreation, spiritual enrichment, aesthetic contemplation, and reflection. Cultural services include:

1. Culture (such as the use of nature in books, films, architecture, advertising, painting, national symbols, folklore, etc.)
2. Recreational experiences (such as outdoor sports, ecotourism, and recreation)
3. Science and education (including use of natural systems for school excursions and scientific discovery)
4. Spiritual and historical (including use of nature for religious or heritage value or natural)
5. Therapeutic (including Ecotherapy, Social forestry, and animal-assisted therapy)

Fig: Social Forestry as an Example of Cultural Ecosystem Services

4. Supporting Services

Supporting Services are the various services that are necessary for the production of all the other ecosystem services. In short, we can say that ecosystem supporting services form the basis for all the other services. It includes:

1. Providing habitat for different life forms
2. Retain biodiversity
3. Nutrient cycling is an important supporting service as nutrients are the essential requirements for all living organisms.
4. Regular flow of freshwater or water cycling is another example of supporting service provided by the ecosystem as no organism can live without water.
5. Soil formation from hard rocks is crucial for the continuous availability of fertile soil that is used to grow crops.
6. Plants are the producers of the food chain as they make their own food by photosynthesis. Thus, photosynthesis is another essential supporting service provided by the ecosystem.
7. Detritivores like dung beetles help to turn animal wastes into organic material that can be reused by primary producers.
8. Other services for supporting lives on Earth.

Fig: Nutrient Cycle as an Example of Supporting Ecosystem Services

Impact on Ecosystem Services

Human use of all the ecosystem services is increasing rapidly. And as we all know that every coin has two sides; in a similar fashion, the impact on ecosystem services are both positive as well as negative due to human activities and various other factors.

Positive Impact on Ecosystem Services

The positive impacts on the ecosystem due to agriculture, fishery, forestry, livestock, and other human activities are as follows:
1. Agriculture provides habitats for different species of wild plants. It also creates an aesthetic environment. 
2. Forests provide habitats for different species of wild animals, herbs, and plants.
3. Forests help to maintain healthy aquatic ecosystems and provide reliable sources of fresh, clean water.
4. Animal excreta can be an important source of nutrients for the maintenance of soil fertility in grazed grasslands
5. Sustainable and integrated aquaculture can increase the mangrove functionality of flood protection.
6. A large number of trees in the forest help in providing enough oxygen for all the living beings for respiration. It also helps in air purification.
7. Plants and trees also help in the process of carbon sequestration (pulling CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it in plants and soils)
8. Microbes present in the environment around us help in the decomposition of organic waste materials, which can be used to increase soil fertility.
9. Due to agriculture and forests, soil erosion can also be reduced since the roots of plants help to bind the soil in place, which results in a decrease in soil erosion.

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Negative Impacts on Ecosystem Services

Human activities are impairing and destroying ecosystem services. The negative impacts on the ecosystem due to agriculture, fishery, forestry, livestock, and other human activities are as follows:
1. The use of Pesticides and landscape homogenization can decrease natural pollination.
2. Deforestation can increase flooding and landslides during cyclones.
3. Excess of animal excreta in the environment can lead to water pollution and a threat to aquatic life.
4. Overfishing has a very negative impact on ocean communities as it destabilizes the food chain and destroys the natural habitats of many aquatic species.
5. Deforestation can result in floods, landslides, soil erosion, and many other losses.
6. Reduction in trees due to deforestation may also lead to an increase in CO₂ gas in the environment, which results in global warming, i.e., an increase in temperature on Earth.
7. The use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers during agriculture may cause adverse effects on useful species of animals and plants. This can also disturb the natural food chain in the environment.
8. Excessive use of pesticides also threatens the health of humans (like the decline in sperm count).
9. Wastewater from manufacturing and chemical processes in industries causes water pollution, which harms the aquatic ecosystem.
10. The burning of fossil fuels causes air pollution and decreases the Air Quality Index.
This may be dangerous to all human beings; it may cause various respiratory diseases.

Significance of Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services play a key role in the life of all living organisms. It plays a vital role in the survival of a living being. We cannot imagine a world without ecosystem services. Though there are numerous ways in which these services are important to us, still, we can list the importance or significance of ecosystem services as follows:

1. Humans depend on ecosystem services for our physical, economic, and spiritual well-being. 
2. These services maintain biodiversity and the production of ecosystem goods, such as seafood, wild game, forage, timber, biomass fuels, natural fibres, and many pharmaceuticals, industrial products, and their precursors.
3. It is also the transformation of a set of natural assets, i.e., soil, plants, and animals, air and water, into things that we value.
4. Ecosystem services are often integral to the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and the resilience and productivity of food ecosystems.
5. Ecosystem services are worth trillions of dollars annually. 
6. We need education and policies to protect these invaluable services provided to us by nature.

Fig: Ecosystem Services

Summary

Ecosystem services mean the services or the products or benefits provided by the ecosystem. It includes all the direct and indirect benefits provided by our ecosystem for the well-being of all living organisms. These services are classified into four different types, provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services. Ecosystem services include all the environmental, economic, and aesthetic services such as food, habitat, mitigating floods, purifying air and water, and droughts, etc. These services are very beneficial to human beings.

It plays a very important role by providing food, fresh water, pure air, oxygen, fibre, timber, biomass fuel, and natural medicines to human beings. It also provides various regulatory and supporting services like pollination, purification of air, nutrient cycling, water cycling, soil formation, photosynthesis, climate regulation, etc. It is worth trillions of dollars annually. It also provides us non-material benefits such as recreational and spiritual benefits in natural areas. We need education and policies to protect these invaluable services provided to us by nature because once it vanishes, it can never be recovered back.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Ecosystem Services

Q.1. What are Ecosystem Services?
Ans: Ecosystem services are the varied benefits and services that are provided to humans by the natural environment and healthy ecosystem. For example food, freshwater, soil, air, timber, etc.

Q.2. What is the major function of Ecosystem Services?
Ans: It regulates the essential ecological processes, supports life systems and renders stability. It is also responsible for the cycling of nutrients between biotic and abiotic components.

Q.3. What are some examples of ecosystem services?
Ans: Examples of ecosystem services include products such as food and water, regulation of floods, soil erosion and non-material benefits such as recreational and spiritual benefits in natural areas.

Q.4. What is the positive impact of agriculture on ecosystem services?
Ans: Agriculture provides habitats for different species of wild plants. It also creates an aesthetic environment for humans.

Q.5. How can we protect ecosystem services?
Ans: We can protect the ecosystem services with changes to our everyday lifestyle. We can reduce or eliminate the use of household chemicals and pesticides that can hurt the environment. Because these harsh chemicals (for eg. strong cleaners used in houses) can get into the water supply and leak into ecosystems when disposed of.

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