Ecosystem services accounts

Ecosystem service flows are classified into three broad categories: provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services. Provisioning services - which generate the ‘goods’ in ecosystem goods and services - reflect the material and energy provided by ecosystems; for example, timber, fish, or plants that are harvested. Regulating services represent the capacity of ecosystems to control the climatic, hydrological and bio-chemical cycles, as well as biological processes. Cultural services are generated from the physical setting, location and characteristic of ecosystems and give rise to emotional, intellectual and symbolic benefits that people obtain from ecosystems through recreation, knowledge development, relaxation, and spiritual reflection. No countries have developed a complete set of ecosystem service accounts. In many cases, guidelines, concepts and classification systems are still being developed.

Data on select ecosystem services are presented in the 2013 report “Measuring ecosystem goods and services in Canada," Human Activity and the Environment, and in subsequent editions of this publication (see below).

For further details on ecosystem services accounting, see the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting - Experimental Ecosystem Accounting manual, Chapter 3.

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