Ecosystems provide benefits to humans in the form of goods and services. Ecologists recognize different categories of services depending on their role in the ecosystem. Ecosystem service valuation involves determining the market value or the willingness of people to pay for the services.
learning outcomes
You should be able to:
List the four types of ecosystem services, explain the meaning of each, and give examples.
Explain, with examples, the types of trade-
Define sustainability, and analyze its relationship to ecosystem services.
Mangroves provide coastal protection from extreme waves and winds, raw materials such as timber and fibers, erosion control, water purification, habitat for fisheries, carbon sequestration, and tourism, recreation, and education. Place each of these services into the four types of benefit categories.
Timber and fibers are provisioning services; coastal protection and erosion control are regulating services; water purification, habitat for fisheries, and carbon sequestration are supporting services; and tourism, recreation, and education are cultural services.
Suppose you want to maximize the coastal protection service of mangroves with shrimp aquaculture farming (which requires removing the mangrove trees to create ponds). What sustainable solution might you devise to maximize the value of this ecosystem?
You could leave the mangrove ecosystem intact at the edge of the shoreline so that coastal protection would not be compromised. You could place shrimp farms inland behind these mangrove buffers, where the loss of forest would not have an appreciable effect on protection in extreme storms or tsunamis.