Ecosystem service facts for kids

Ecosystem services are all the amazing benefits that nature gives us for free! Think of them as gifts from our planet's ecosystems. These ecosystems are made of living things, like plants and animals, and non-living things, like rocks and water. They work together to provide us with many important things.

Some examples of these natural gifts include:

• Pollination of crops by bees, which helps grow our food.
• Clean air to breathe and fresh water to drink.
• Nature's way of cleaning up waste.
• Protection from floods.

In the early 2000s, the United Nations helped group these services into four main types. These categories help us understand all the different ways nature supports us. The four main types are:

• Provisioning services: These are the products we get, like food and water.
• Regulating services: These are nature's ways of controlling things, like climate and diseases.
• Supporting services: These are the basic processes that make all other services possible, like nutrient cycles and making oxygen.
• Cultural services: These are the non-material benefits, like places for fun, tourism, and spiritual inspiration.

For instance, places where rivers meet the sea, called estuaries, and other coastal areas are marine ecosystems. They offer all four types of services. They provide seafood (provisioning), help clean the air (regulating), cycle nutrients (supporting), and offer beautiful places for recreation (cultural). Sometimes, people even try to put a value on these services to show how important they are.

What Are Ecosystem Services?

Simply put, ecosystem services are the many good things that nature gives to people. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2006 described them as "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems." This means everything from the food we eat to the clean air we breathe.

At first, some experts like Gretchen Daily talked about "ecosystem goods" (like food) and "ecosystem services" (like clean air) separately. But later, scientists like Robert Costanza and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment decided to group all these benefits together under the name ecosystem services.

Types of Ecosystem Services

This image shows the four main types of ecosystem services.

Different ways exist to group ecosystem services. However, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) uses four main categories. These are regulating, provisioning, cultural, and supporting services. Supporting services are like the foundation; they make the other three types possible.

An ecosystem usually provides a mix of these services. For example, a forest might give us wood (provisioning) and also help clean the air (regulating). Some services directly help people nearby, like providing fresh water. Other services help everyone indirectly, like nature's role in controlling climate change.

Over time, experts have refined how they define these services. For example, to avoid counting things twice, some systems now use "Habitat Services" instead of "Supporting Services." They also combine "Regulatory" and "Habitat" services into "Regulation and maintenance" services.

Provisioning Services: Nature's Products

Provisioning services are all the useful products we get directly from ecosystems. Think of them as nature's supermarket!

These products include:

• Food: This means everything from seafood and crops to wild berries and spices.
• Raw Materials: Things like wood for building, materials for clothes, and fuel for fires.
• Genetic Resources: Important genes from plants and animals that help us improve crops or develop new medicines.
• Medicines: Many medicines and healing compounds come from plants and other natural sources.
• Energy: Nature provides energy sources like hydropower (from water) and biomass fuels (from plants).
• Ornamental Resources: Beautiful items like flowers, shells, and even materials for jewelry and crafts.

Products from Forests

Social forestry in India helps provide fuel, protect soil, and offer shade.

Forests are amazing sources of many products. They give us different types of wood, like timber for building houses and wood for making paper. Even simple things like firewood and charcoal come from forests.

In 2018, the world saw the highest production and trade of wood products ever recorded. This growth was especially strong in Asia, North America, and Europe. For example, over 40% of the land in the European Union is covered by forests. They are even growing more forests through afforestation.

But forests offer more than just wood! They also provide:

• Wild Foods: Many people around the world eat wild meats, insects, plants, mushrooms, and fish from forests. These foods are often full of important nutrients.
• Medicinal Plants: Forests are home to many plants used for traditional and modern medicines.
• Energy: About 2.4 billion people use wood-based energy for cooking, both in cities and rural areas.

Regulating Services: Nature's Control Systems

This bog in Wales helps store carbon and reduce flood risk.

Regulating services are the benefits we get from nature controlling its own processes. Think of these as nature's way of keeping things in balance.

These important services include:

• Cleaning Water and Air: Ecosystems help purify our water and clean up air.
• Climate Control: Nature helps control the climate by storing carbon, which is called Carbon sequestration. This helps reduce the effects of climate change.
• Waste Cleanup: Ecosystems break down waste and remove harmful substances.
• Pest and Disease Control: Animals like predators help keep pest populations in check. Nature also helps control the spread of diseases.
• Pollination: Bees and other animals help plants reproduce by moving pollen.
• Flood Protection: Natural areas like wetlands can absorb excess water, reducing the risk of floods.

Nature's Water Filters

A great example of nature cleaning water happened in New York City. The city's drinking water quality was getting bad. Instead of building a huge, expensive water filtration plant, officials decided to restore the Catskill Watershed. This natural area had always helped clean the city's water.

They worked to reduce pollution like sewage and pesticides flowing into the watershed. Nature then took over! The soil absorbed chemicals, and plant roots and tiny microorganisms in the soil filtered the water. Soon, the water quality improved and met government standards.

This natural solution cost about $1 to $1.5 billion. Building a new water treatment plant would have cost much more, around $6 to $8 billion, plus $300 million every year to run it. This shows how valuable nature's services are!

Pollination

Pollination by bees is super important for growing 15–30% of the food in the U.S. Many big farms even bring in honey bees to help. A study in 2005 in California found that wild bees could also do a great job pollinating crops. They could even help honey bees do better!

However, very intense farming methods can harm these helpful wild bees. This means fewer bees are left to pollinate. The study showed that having natural areas like chaparral and oak-woodland habitat near farms helps keep wild bees healthy. These natural areas act like an insurance policy for farmers, making sure pollination continues.

Buffer Zones

Coastal areas and estuaries act like natural shields. They protect the land from natural dangers like floods, storms, and strong waves. They "absorb" some of the impact, making the effects less severe on land.

Wetlands, like salt marshes, are great at this. They hold large amounts of water from rain or melting snow. Then, they slowly release it, which helps prevent floods. Mangrove forests also protect coastlines from erosion. After a big cyclone hit India in 1999, villages surrounded by mangroves had much less damage than those without this natural protection.

Supporting Services: Nature's Foundation

Supporting services are the basic processes that make all other ecosystem services possible. They have a big, but often indirect, impact on humans over a long time. You can think of them as the "behind-the-scenes" work that nature does.

These services include:

• Nutrient cycling: Moving important nutrients around.
• Primary production: Creating the basic food for all life.
• Soil formation: Making healthy soil.
• Habitat provision: Providing homes for plants and animals.

These supporting services ensure that ecosystems can keep providing us with food, clean water, and flood protection.

Nutrient Cycling

Detritivores like this dung beetle help turn animal waste into useful organic material.

Nutrient cycling is how important nutrients, like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, move through an ecosystem. The ocean, for example, stores huge amounts of these nutrients. Tiny organisms in the ocean's food web absorb them. Then, these nutrients move from one organism to another and from one ecosystem to another.

When organisms die and decompose, they release these nutrients back into the environment. This cycle is vital because all living things need a constant supply of nutrients to survive. Without nutrient cycling, none of the other ecosystem services would be possible.

Primary Production

Primary production is the process where living things create organic matter, which is stored energy. This happens mainly through photosynthesis (using sunlight) and chemosynthesis (using chemicals). The organic matter created by primary producers, like plants, forms the base of all food webs.

This process also creates oxygen (O2), which is essential for animals and humans to breathe. On average, a person breathes about 550 liters of oxygen every day. Plants are constantly working to produce this vital oxygen for us!

Cultural Services: Nature's Inspiration

Cultural services are the non-material benefits we get from nature. They enrich our lives in many ways, affecting our fun, our sense of beauty, our learning, and our spiritual feelings. It's hard to put a money value on these services.

They include:

• Cultural Inspiration: Nature inspires art, books, films, folklore, and even national symbols.
• Spiritual and Historical Value: Many natural places have deep religious or historical meaning.
• Recreational Experiences: Fun activities like ecotourism, outdoor sports, and simply relaxing in nature.
• Science and Education: Natural systems are perfect for school trips and scientific discoveries.
• Therapeutic Benefits: Spending time in nature can help us feel better, like in eco-therapy or social forestry.

Experts are still discussing how to best understand and measure these cultural services. They want to connect how nature looks and works with the cultural values and benefits people experience.

Recreation and Tourism

Sea sports are very popular for people living near the coast. Activities like surfing, snorkeling, whale watching, kayaking, and fishing are enjoyed by many. Tourists also travel to beautiful resorts near the sea, rivers, or lakes to enjoy these activities and relax.

The United Nations has a goal (Sustainable Development Goal 14) to encourage the use of ecosystem services for sustainable tourism. This is especially important for small island nations.

Coastal Ecosystem Services

Estuaries and marine coastal ecosystems are both types of marine ecosystems. They work together to provide all four categories of ecosystem services:

• Provisioning services: These include seafood, fresh water, raw materials, and genetic resources.
• Regulating services: They help store carbon (reducing climate change), treat waste, control diseases, and act as buffer zones against storms.
• Supporting services: They help with nutrient cycling, create habitats, and support primary production.
• Cultural services: They offer inspiration, places for recreation and tourism, and opportunities for science and education.

Coasts are vital parts of local ecosystems. The mix of fresh and salt water in estuaries provides many nutrients for marine life. Salt marshes, mangroves, and beaches support a wide variety of plants, animals, and insects. This high level of biodiversity has attracted human activity for thousands of years. Coasts also create important habitats like wetlands, seagrass beds, coral reefs, and mangroves. These areas are homes for migratory birds, sea turtles, marine mammals, and coral reefs.

The Value of Ecosystem Services

This sustainable urban drainage pond in Scotland helps filter and clean water, which is an ecosystem service.

It's important to understand the value of ecosystem services. Sometimes, people don't realize how much we rely on nature. Even though awareness is growing, we still don't fully understand how much nature gives us. This can lead to problems, like when shared natural resources get used up because no one takes full responsibility for them.

Many efforts are made to help leaders understand the costs and benefits of protecting nature. Scientists translate their knowledge into economic terms to show the impact of our choices on human well-being. It's tricky because what we learn about an ecosystem in one place might not apply everywhere.

In 1997, a study estimated the value of the world's ecosystem services to be between $16 and $54 trillion per year. That's a huge amount! However, some experts like Salles (2011) say that the total value of nature is truly infinite, because we simply cannot live without it.

Many companies are now realizing how much they depend on ecosystems. Tools like the Corporate Ecosystem Services Review help businesses understand their impact. For example, the United States Department of Defense found that Eglin Air Force Base provides about $110 million in ecosystem services each year to local communities. This includes benefits like carbon storage and habitats for endangered species.

Payments for Nature's Help

Sometimes, people or organizations pay to protect ecosystem services. This is called "payment for ecosystem services." For example, someone might pay to help protect forests that store carbon. This encourages people to take care of nature. However, for this to work well, it's important that land ownership is clear, which can be a challenge in some developing countries.

Managing and Protecting Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are important in both cities and rural areas.

Protecting ecosystem services involves big challenges in how we manage and create policies. It means balancing what people need now with what future generations will need. Decision-makers often have to work with good, but incomplete, information. Existing laws are often not enough because they focus on human health, not the overall health of ecosystems.

In 2000, an "Ecosystem Services Framework" was suggested. This framework helps guide institutions to make better choices by combining scientific and social information.

By 2005, local efforts to manage services like crop pollination or water resources were seen as very important. Another popular idea is to market the protection of ecosystem services. This means creating ways for people to invest in protecting nature. For example, you can get credits for sponsoring the protection of carbon-storing areas.

It's also important to protect areas with high biodiversity, known as "biodiversity hotspots." Protecting these areas often helps many ecosystem services at the same time.

For example, there's growing interest in the value of services provided by shellfish, like oysters. These shellfish are "ecosystem engineers" because they change their environment in ways that help other organisms. They filter water, removing particles and excess nutrients, which improves water quality. This provides many valuable services over time.

Even though the idea of ecosystem services is well-known, it hasn't been fully included in international laws yet. However, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 aims to ensure we conserve, restore, and use ecosystem services sustainably.

It's estimated that ecosystem services add $125 trillion to $140 trillion to the global economy each year. But many of these services are at risk due to climate change and human activities. Experts predict a 9% decline in ecosystem services globally by 2100 if current trends continue.

Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA)