1. Support a sustainable living in industrialized societies?
Trends and Future of Sustainable Development
Tampere, Finland, 9-10 June 2011
How and how much can
forest ecosystems
Support a sustainable living in industrialized societies?
Silvio Viglia, Pier Paolo Franzese, Amalia Zucaro, Andrzej Nienartowicz, Mieczysław Kunz and Sergio Ulgiati

2. Research questions
A) How to measure the natural capital and how to compare it with the human-built capital;
b) How to measure environmental services;
c) How to measure social, economic and environmental returns on investments;
D) Is it worth to invest into environmental protection.

3. Bory Tucholskie National Park
Case study:
Bory Tucholskie National Park
Located in the northern Poland,
Pomerania region, is the main core area of the Biosphere Reserve Tuchola Forest.

4. Main objective
The implementation of a biophysical accounting system able to explore both natural and economic resources within an integrated framework.
To study the energy metabolism of a natural Park, with particular reference to the evaluation of natural capital and ecosystem services.
To calculate indicators of environmental performance and sustainability for the main activities, products and services generated by the investigated system.
To assess the sustainable use of A natural Park resources, in order to understand their potential in support of a sustainable economy (ecotourism , agro-industrial production, etc.).

5. Bory Tucholskie National Park
Total area: 4613 ha
85% forests
11.5% lakes

6. Provisioning services:
Wood
Forage

7. Provisioning services:
Fishing
Hunting

8. Cultural services:
Educational activities
Tourism

9. Upstream Methods Material Flow Accounting
Accounts for the materials directly and indirectly supplied to a process, and diverted from their natural pattern. TMR has been suggested as a measure of environmental disturbance, so-called “environmental backpack”. (Hinterberger and Stiller, 1998)
Embodied Energy Analysis
Accounts for the total commercial energy directly and indirectly used up over the production chain of a product. It is also a proxy for a process contribution to the depletion of fossil fuels. (Herendeen, 1998)
Emergy Synthesis
Emergy is the total amount of available energy of one kind (usually solar) that is directly or indirectly required to make a given product or to support a given flow. Due to its reference to solar energy, it is also used as a measure of environmental support. (Odum, 1996)

10. Downstream Methods CML 2 (baseline 2000) Method
Withdrawals and emissions are assigned to ecological impact categories. Environmental impacts associated to airborne, liquid and solid emissions by a process are evaluated and described by means of appropriate indicators. Indicators are based on equivalency factors to reference compounds, the contribution of which to the relative impact category is well known. (Centre of Environmental Science of Leiden University, NL, 2001)
Eco-indicator 99 method.
Withdrawals and emissions are assigned to three main impact categories (Human health, Ecosystem Integrity and Resource depletion). Indicators are based on impact factors from previous ecological, ecotoxicological and resource availability studies.

11. SUMMA: how it works 6.Trends and Procedures for multiple optimization
Identification of the problem and design of a system diagram
2. Data collection (on field, statistical, GIS)
7. Assessing complexity and dynamics of the system.
Suggesting optimization patterns
3. Calculation Procedures
and Tables
4. Results and Indicators
Energy
Material Flows
Emergy
Emissions

12. The system diagram:

13. RESULTS: Embodied Energy

14. RESULTS: Embodied matter

15. RESULTS:
Emergy
(Embodied
environmental
support
and time)

16. RESULTS:
Breakdown into environmental support categories

17. RESULTS:
Emergy-based
Performance
indicators

18. RESULTS:
Airborne
emissions

19. CONCLUSIONS:
Monitoring energy and material costs over time would allow to ascertain to what extent the Park management is resource-efficient
The Bory Tucholskie National Park showed a good environmental performance but a problem arises when the focus is placed on the economic self-sufficiency. Nevertheless assessing the benefits of a park only in terms of economic return prevents a proper understanding of the complexity of ecosystem services
If the emergy equivalent value of the investment from Government, is compared with the emergy value of the business generated (fishery, hunting, forestry and tourism) as well as the emergy values of the ecosystem services, and biomass standing storage, it comes out that business, ecosystem services and biomass storage are respectively 3.7, 2.4 and 91 times the governmental investment.
This result confirms the advantage and benefits of investing into natural capital conservation.

20. THANK YOU FOR THE ATTENTION!