What this lesson teaches
I can explain the four types of ecosystem services and how demand and damage change their value.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 2. Environment and Resources. Why is the environment important?
Make a guess
A coastal wetland is cleared for a car park. Which benefit is most likely lost first, besides wildlife?
- The supply of oil under the wetland.
- The view, which is a minor loss.
- Nothing, because no one paid for the wetland.
- Its storage of floodwater.
Show the answer
Its storage of floodwater.
Wetlands hold and slow floodwater, a regulating service. Clearing one removes this, so nearby areas can flood more easily.
Ecosystem services are the benefits people get from nature, and damaging an ecosystem can cut several benefits at once.
Ecosystem services are the benefits people get from ecosystems. Provisioning services supply products like fish, timber and fresh water. Regulating services control processes, like storing floodwater and cleaning water. Cultural services include recreation, spiritual meaning and learning. Supporting services, like nutrient cycling and soil formation, keep the others going.
What counts as a useful product changes over time and place. A plant may have no buyers in one place but be valued food or medicine elsewhere. New technology can turn an unused plant into a useful product. The plant did not change; demand and technology did.
Habitat destruction removes the living things and structures that provide services. Clearing a wetland can remove fish habitat and floodwater storage. Pollution can harm wildlife or make water unsafe, even if the habitat still looks fine.
An invasive species is a non-native species that spreads and causes harm. It may outcompete native species or change food webs. Not every introduced species becomes invasive.
- Four services
- Provisioning, regulating, cultural, supporting.
- Changing value
- Demand and technology change what counts as a resource.
- Three threats
- Habitat loss, pollution and invasive species.
Step by step
Name the service
The benefit people get, not just the habitat.
Explain the process
How does the ecosystem provide it?
Follow the change
How do demand, technology or damage affect it?
Worked example: Filling a wetland
A wetland is filled in to build warehouses. The buildings bring income, but fish habitat, flood storage and a place for recreation are lost. A full comparison counts all these services and who used them.
Watch out for this
A service has no value if nobody pays for it.
Flood control and cultural meaning can matter greatly without a price.
Check your understanding
A new processing method makes an unused plant species commercially useful. What changed?
- Its supporting services became unnecessary once it was useful.
- The species became non-renewable once people began to harvest it.
- Technology changed its value as a provisioning resource.
Show the answer
Technology changed its value as a provisioning resource.
Yes. The plant stayed the same; its usefulness changed.