8 Marine Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services are defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) as “benefits that people obtain from coastal and marine ecosystems” Duraiappah et al., 2005).
‘Scenic Yarra River View with Bridges at Dusk’ by Min Aung Khant used under a Pexels License
Ecosystem services
They include provisioning services (e.g., food resources, aquaculture, energy resources), regulation and maintenance services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage, and coastal protection), supporting services (e.g. nutrient cycling, habitat for species), and cultural services (e.g., science and education, tourism and recreational benefits). In recent decades, human activities have increased the pressures on marine ecosystems, often leading to ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss and, in turn, affecting their ability to provide benefits to humans. Therefore, effective management strategies are crucial to the conservation of healthy and diverse marine ecosystems and to ensuring their long-term generation of goods and services. Biophysical, economic, and sociocultural assessments of marine ecosystem services are much needed to convey the importance of natural resources to managers and policy makers supporting the development and implementation of policies oriented for the sustainable management of marine resources. In addition, the accounting of marine ecosystem service values can be usefully complemented by their mapping to enable the identification of priority areas and management strategies and to facilitate science–policy dialogue.
This text is from “Trends and Evolution in the Concept of Marine Ecosystem Services: An Overview” by Elvira Buonocore , Umberto Grande, Pier Paolo Franzese and Giovanni F. Russo is licensed under CC BY 4.0, except for emphasis on specific wording and examples for ‘provision services’, ‘regulation and maintenance services’, ‘cultural services’ and ‘supporting services’, which has been added by Trish Corbett.
Image Text Version
Figure 1. Marine Ecosystem Services
This graphic is set in a wheel with segments on ‘provisioning’, ‘cultural’, ‘maintaining’ and ‘supporting’ containing elements which example benefits from the sea. Each category is listed below:
Provisioning
- Sand and gravel
- Genetic resources
- Harvestable seaweed
- Energy
- Fish and Shellfish stocks
Cultural
- Tourism
- Seascapes
- Science and education
- Wildlife watching
- Recreation
- Health and well-being
- Creativity and art
Maintaining
- Storm protection
- Waste breakdown and detoxification
- Carbon storage and climate regulation
- Stabilise sediment
Supporting
- Food web
- Nutrient cycling
- Water cycling
- Larval/gamete supply
- Habitats for species
- Water currents and sediment transport
End accessible text version
“What are Ecosystem Services, Ecosystem Seas wheel” by NatureScot contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
To find out more, watch the below video from the UQx Tropic101x Tropical Coastal Ecosystems online course:
References
Duraiappah, A. K., Naeem, S., Agardy, T., Ash, N. J., Cooper, H. D., Díaz, S., … & Van Jaarsveld, A. (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: biodiversity synthesis; a report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
