Nature has long served humanity in almost every area. The vast amount of outcomes and services we extract from nature is valuable. These products and services that humans obtain from the environment are called nature services, better known as ecosystem services.
As these ecosystem services are usually not purchased or sold directly in the market, market activity does not fully mirror the benefits of those services. However, unregulated market pursuits contribute to the excessive exhaustion of natural capital (e.g., the biological and non-biological elements of ecosystems) and ecosystem services.
Correspondingly, ecosystem services analysis encourages policymaking that considers the full assortment of benefits and values associated with behaviours that affect those services. Most formal ecosystem services assessments look at the consequences of changes to a particular service in a specific geographic area of a particular beneficiary group. Fewer analyses approach ecosystem services from a universal perspective (for example, all services provided by wetlands worldwide).
Types of ecosystem services
As part of the ecosystem, humans derive many benefits from biological and abiotic components. These services are collectively referred to as ecosystem services. On Earth, life and biodiversity depend on these services.
The meaning of ‘ecosystem services’ is to provide clean air, extreme weather protection, crops, etc., to maintain human health and stability. In addition to these, this includes providing clean drinking water, reducing waste, and the resilience and performance of food ecosystems. Ecosystem services include agroecosystems, forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems.
The United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), which has been assessing the repercussions of changes of the ecosystem, concluded that humans are undermining the ability of the Earth’s ecosystems to support the well-being of society and has formulated four major ecosystem services, which are as follows:
- Regulating services
- Provisioning services
- Cultural services
- Supporting services
1. Regulating services
These regulating services are those that regulate the balance of ecology and include:
- Water and air purification
- Control of climate and carbon segregation
- Waste decomposition and detoxification
- Predation process that regulates the population of prey in the environment
- Services that provide biological control of pests and diseases
- Involvement of pollination
- Regulation of natural disturbances in the environment i.e. flood conservation.
2. Provisioning services
The provisioning services/ecosystem goods are the raw materials and other resources provided by the ecosystem and include:
- Food: spices, crops, seafood, game.
- Raw materials: fuelwood, fodder, fertiliser, lumber, and organic matter
- Pharmaceuticals: chemicals, medicine resources, test organisms.
- Source of energy: biomass, hydropower.
- Assets that improve genetics for healthcare and improvement of crops.
3. Cultural services
Cultural services include natural services, such as mountains and caves, which benefit the aesthetic and traditional well-being of an individual and form a significant part of tourism. They include:
- Experiences related to outdoor recreation: outdoor sports, ecotourism.
- Spiritual and historical importance: sacred mountains, caves, and other historical places.
- Therapy: ecotherapy, animal assistance therapy.
- Education and knowledge: school/college excursions, study of different elements of nature.
- Cultural experiences in the form of movies, plays, paintings, and natural symbols.
4. Supporting services
These can be redundant in some categories with regulatory services.
- This includes, but is not limited to, services such as nutrient cycle, primary production, soil formation, and habitat provision.
- These services allow ecosystems to continue to provide services such as food supply, flood control, and water purification.
- It also outlines the situation where more species maximise more ecosystem services.
Pricing the ecosystem and its services is almost unrealised. Of all ecosystem services, support services alone account for about 50% and other services less than 10%.
Ecology
To understand ecosystem services, one needs the basis of ecology that describes the fundamental principles and interactions with organisms and the environment. As a scale that these entities interact from microorganisms to a landscape, milliseconds are affording the energy and material flow of energy and materials between them during millions of years.
For example, the area of the forest floor is above the microorganism in the soil, and the characteristics of the soil itself contribute to all skills of this forest and provide ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and water purification. Prevention of erosion in other areas in the water sheath is often bundled with one another, and there may be additional advantages, even if there is an advantage of targeted goals of ecosystem service.
Conclusion
Ecosystem services refer to the multiple conveniences provided by the environment for the welfare of human beings. The complexity of the Earth’s ecosystem is an issue for scientists, as the relationship between man and understanding the meaning of ecosystem services is extremely beneficial. As the need for survival in the environment increases, people are still causing pollution and exploiting the environment. Determination of the aspect of the community structure affects how the ecosystem services, such as a compensation response, can stabilise features and non-fiber extinction sequences and lead to society’s well-being. It’s high time we focus on environmental issues and use them properly, or it will be too late.