Accounting for Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability: Linking Ecosystem Services to Human Well-Being

Abstract

One of society's greatest challenges is to sustain natural resources while promoting economic growth and quality of life. In the face of this challenge, society must measure the effectiveness of programs established to safeguard the environment. The impetus for demonstrating positive results from government-sponsored research and regulation in the United States comes from Congress (General Accountability Office; GAO) and the Executive Branch (Office of Management and Budget; OMB). The message is: regulatory and research programs must demonstrate outcomes that justify their costs. Although the concept is simple, it is a complex problem to demonstrate that environmental research, policies, and regulations cause measurable changes in environmental quality. Even where changes in environmental quality can be tracked reliably, the connections between government actions and environmental outcomes seldom are direct or straightforward. In this article, we describe emerging efforts (with emphasis on the role of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; EPA) to frame and measure environmental outcomes in terms of ecosystem services and values-societally and ecologically meaningful metrics for gauging how well we manage environmental resources. As examples of accounting for outcomes and values, we present a novel, low-cost method for determining relative values of multiple ecosystem services, and describe emerging research on indicators of human well-being.

A Review of the Elements of Human Well-Being with an Emphasis on the Contribution of Ecosystem Services

“…Ecosystem services play a direct role in several drivers of economic well-being and the indirect interactions ecosystem services have on this element of well-being can be widespread (Jordan et al 2010). Examples of direct interaction of ecosystem condition and services and economic well-being include renewable and non-renewable natural resources, tourism, fisheries, and agriculture, tourism, recreation, fisheries, and agriculture (Rockel and Kealy 1991;Parks and Bonifaz 1994;Losey and Vaughan 2006;Stoll et al 2006;Southwick Associates 2007).…”

Classification of the Relationship between Household Welfare and Ecosystem Reliance in the Miyun Reservoir Watershed, China

“…The focus of policy makers is to guarantee the sustainable supply of ecosystem services and develop effective human-nature relationships [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. For developing countries, reducing poverty and improving environmental quality are important goals of sustainable development.…”

Adapting Human Well-being Frameworks for Ecosystem Service Assessments across Diverse Landscapes

“…We identified a short list of potential indicators (5-7) for each capital group that provided insight into the condition of that capital and for which data might be available at the county level). The list of potential indicators was developed from an extensive literature review (Table 3; also see Scoones 1998, Farrington et al 1999, Economist Intelligence Unit 2004, DeFries and Pagiola 2005, Burrett 2009, Jordan et al 2010, UNDP 2010 and formal and informal feedback from 2010 workshop participants.…”