Ecosystems accounts and the spatial dimension in integrated assessments May expert meeting Jean-Louis Weber EEA

SEEA2003: expansion of the System of National Accounts (UN1993) in order to include more environmental aspects RM HASSAN - UN The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (UN 2003) - RANESA Workshop June 12-16, 2005 Maputo

Environmental accounts: 5 key policy questions 1.Cost of environmental protection the burden issue –Cost for public budgets: financing of protection (incl. administration and research) –Cost for companies: effects on economic competitiveness 2.Environmental performance of the economy the decoupling issue –Compliance to national emission standards, respect of international conventions –Distances to targets, economic and technological options –Use of scarce resource –Sustainability of consumption patterns 3.Cost of insufficient environmental protection the externalities issue –Depletion of renewable resources (forest, fisheries, water…) –Degradation of natural assets (forests, fisheries, soil, water, ecosystems…) –Impacts on human health and well being –Costs of remediation (instead of protection…) 4.Assessment of policies the effectiveness/efficiency issue –Efficiency/effectiveness of environmental policies and instruments –Efficiency/effectiveness of environmental sector policies (agriculture, transport…) –Environmental impact assessment of social and economic policies –Incorporation of environmental concerns in the multiple levels of public and private decision-making (participation, awareness, corporate accounting) Reserves (ownership, access, operation) 5.Conservation of comparative advantages the natural capital issue –Reserves (ownership, access, operation) –Economic rents on natural resources (depletion…) –Viability of living/cycling natural capital, continuity of ecosystem services –Adaptability to change (global market, climate change, technology)

In Europe Eurostat is producing environmental accounts (with a focus on the economic side, close links to National Accounts…) … in cooperation with the EEA (land cover/land use, water systems, ecosystems)

Land & Ecosystem Accounts (LEAC) Part of the SEEA 2003 (Integrated System of Environmental and Economic Accounting) Accounts in monetary AND in physical units Tested in Europe by UNECE, Eurostat and EEA (France, UK, Germany, European coast, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania) EU-wide implementation of land cover accounts with CLC2000 in 2004

Why accounting for ecosystems is important? Key policy issues –Biodiversity conservation –Sustainable use of living/ cycling resource (natural and managed systems) and land –Adaptability to climate change Recent developments & research: –SEEA2003 –Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Natural Assets and Human Well-being ecosystem services: provisioning (goods), regulating, support, cultural –IUCN / VALUE project (Counting ecosystems as water infrastructure…) –Ecological economics in general (ISEE…) –GEOSS –and more...

LEAC: what has been done? Land cover accounts based on: –CLC –LaCoast –4 PHARE countries These data are available on CIRCA & prototype for EEA data service

LEAC: what is available? CLC layers (vectors, raster 100 & 250 m) &letter=C LEAC layers (land cover flows, Land Analytical and Reporting units, Corilis layers, Dominant landscape types, Green Background Landscape map…) – 1 km grid LEAC tables: 2 options LEAC Query tool and LEAC Olap Cube Tools for analysis & soon in the EEA dataservice Details in to-morrows session

Accounting ? A - DOES GAINS COMPENSATE LOSSES? (QUANTITIES, COMPOSITION) B - WHICH ARE THE PROCESSES IN QUESTION? (FLOWS, LAND USE) C - DOES QUALITY OF STOCK CARRY OVER CHANGE? (STATE, HEALTH)

Land cover change accounts: from maps to statistics LCF1Urban land management LCF2Urban residential sprawl LCF3Sprawl of economic sites and infrastructures LCF4Agriculture internal conversions LCF5Conversion from other land cover to agriculture LCF6Withdrawal of farming LCF7Forests creation and management LCF8Water bodies creation and management LCF9Changes due to natural & multiple causes Land cover 1990 & 2000 and land cover change are first converted to a grid (below, 3x3 km) Individual changes are grouped by land cover flows that describe processes

Satellite image (Image 2000)

CORINE Land Cover

European Reference Grid 1x1 Km

K1000 E3666 N2073 Total surface: 100 Ha Land cover accounts are produced for 1 km² grid cells Each grid cell is given attributes such as Country, administrative region, river basin, coastal zones, bio-geographical region, river basin, landscape type, which facilitates queries and reporting

e.g. land uptake by artificial development, NUTS2/3, deviation of the European average, mean annual values ESPON HYPERATLAS - MULTISCALAR TERRITORIAL ANALYSIS

Back to maps: e.g. Urban sprawl in the province of Venice, , cells of 1 km² - - wetlands in the background Wetlands Despite possible threats from sea level rise and the permanent ecological problems of the lagoon due to agriculture eutrophicating surpluses, urban and infrastructures development has continued in the province of Venice.

Sprawl of artificial areas

Change in agriculture

The new step: from land cover to ecosystem accounting ecosystem stocks, flows & resilience land use functions, ecosystem goods & services and ultimately the Natural Capital (next year…)

Contents of ecosystem accounts Objects & components Ecosystems interactions Services Pressure on ecosystems

Objects & components –Spatial objects (land cover surface, length, volume, number of occurrences) –Biomass, NPP/NEP, C, energy –N, P –Water –Species –Other Basic accounts of inventories and flows Ecosystems interactions & resilience Services Pressure on ecosystems

Components Systems interactions & resilience –Spatial interactions (ecotones, distributions, composition / scales) –Components interactions Temporal interactions (water stress, species dynamics…) Bio-chemical-physical cycles –Functioning, distress, resilience Counts of integrity/diversity - resilience Ecosystem Goods & Services Pressure on ecosystems

Objects & components Systems interactions & resilience Ecosystem Goods & Services –End services to population (collective or individual) –Ecosystem input to production (marketed or not) –Maintenance of the global system (of the natural capital) Land use accounts (services) and Material flows accounts Pressure on ecosystems

Objects & components Systems interactions & resilience Services Pressure on ecosystems –re-structuring, –over-harvesting/over-extraction, –deposition of residuals and force-feeding, –introduction of species Land use accounts (stressors)

CORE LAND COVER ACCOUNT Soil Flora & Fauna Water system Atmosphere/ Climate ECOSYSTEM & LAND USE ACCOUNTS Land use economic & social functions Artificiality of land Intensity of use Ecosystem services Ecosystem potentials Integrity, health & viability Vulnerability Production & Consumption Natural AssetsPopulation Infrastructures & Technologies Land based ecosystem accounting

Framework of Ecosystem and Natural Capital Accounts Natural assets accounts Natural capital structure, resilience & wealth (physical units, by sectors) Capital consumption & accumulation (physical units, ) Ecosystem assets wealth () Natural Capital Accounts/ living & cycling natural capital Functions & Services Land use function Natural function Supply & use of ecosystem goods and services (Use of resource by sectors, supply to consumption & residuals, accumulation, I-O analysis) Material/energy flows (focus on biomass, water, nutrients, residuals) Accounts of flows of ecosystem goods and services Counts of stocks diversity / integrity (by ecosystem types, focus on quality) Ecosystem Stocks & State Accounts Ecosystem State (health diagnosis and wealth calculation) Core accounts of stocks & flows (by ecosystem types, raw quantities) Ecosystem types Economic sectors Spatial integration Economic integration

Differences in accounting for economic and ecological systems In economy: + > – = gains = increase in wealth – > + = losses = decrease in wealth aggregated results are defined as the sum of elementary flows over a fixed period (year or quarter) at the national or regional levels economic factors are generally substitutable average values make sense in most cases In ecology: specific ecosystem dimensions need to be reflected…

Basic accounts of stocks and flows by ecosystem types Terrestrial ecosystems: –land cover (km², number of land units) –rivers (standard-river-km, number of reaches) –small features (number of units) Marine ecosystem (km²) Biomass (dry matter, C, energy…) –soil biomass –vegetation (non soil) –fauna Water quantity (m3) Nitrogen, Phosphorus (t)

Biomass & NPP Anomalies, distress symptom Direct Material Consumption – Total Material Requirement (Material Flows Accounts) HANPP Supporting service

Example of accounting table for Biomass/C (provisional) 1

Example of accounting table (provisional) 2

Example of accounting table (provisional) 3

N cycle account N deposition/ grasslands Leaching Eutrophication/ rivers, wetlands, grasslands Acidification © the Regents of the University of Michigan

Ecosystem health: counts of diversity/integrity Specific diagnosis From selection of markers and threshold values according to habitat types, region, context 1.Homeostasis state (no alteration foreseen). 2.Resilience state (the disturbance that ecosystems are still able to absorb or compensate, keeping the same functions, identity and feedbacks (Walker, 2005). 3.Reversible process without compensation (degradation). 4.Irreversible change (death). Ecosystem Distress Syndrome model: –Disruptions of nutrients cycling (loss or excess) –Degradation of substrates (fragmentation, water stress, chemical stress) –Change in species composition (invasive…) –Dependence of systems from artificial input (energy, water, subsidies …) Focussed research of stressors –overharvesting, overuse –land/rivers restructuring –deposition of residuals –introduction of species Physical wealth as stocks*coefficients (potential, resilience)

The final diagnosis 1.Homeostasis state (no alteration foreseen). 2.Resilience state (the disturbance that ecosystems are still able to absorb or compensate, keeping the same functions, identity and feedbacks (Walker, 2005). 3.Reversible process without compensation (degradation). 4.Irreversible change (death). Physical wealth as stocks*coefficient (potential, resilience) Investigation of stress & stressors (sectors) –Overharvesting –land/rivers restructuring –deposition of residuals –introduction of species

Ecosystem services Ref to Millennium Ecosystem Assessment:

ref. The Global Biodiversity Outlook 2

Land use functions and ecosystem services Support services Basic accounts & MFA Provisioning services: goods (food, fiber, wood, fuel…) and services that can be consumed in given quantities Supply & use tables by sectors Cultural services Indirect measurement (beneficiaries) Regulating services collective, direct measurement maybe difficult, indirect measurement (beneficiaries, risk assessment/insurance, natural capital/potentials) ecosystem services defined according to natural and land use functions

Implementation… Analytical & reporting units What can we measure? Data availability and constraints Spatial and time scales Detection of trends, ranges & threshold values Assimilation of data/ the grid

Analytical and reporting units Field samples Habitats/ N2000… Corine units Landscape analytical units –Corine classes (statistical) –Dominant land cover/landscape types (Corilis) –Ecological networks (Corilis, PEEN, networks of networks) –Coastal zones/ functional units –Core areas of nature protection (Naturilis) –Large ecosystems/ eco-complexes (e.g. danube Delta, Doñana…) –HNV, rural landscape units (mosaic agriculture) –Small hydrological units Reporting/synthesis units –Countries, regions (NUTS) –Coastal zones/ units, sectors –Bio-geographical regions –Accounting river basins (~ to km²) –River basin districts (WFD)

Scales: individual ecosystems v.s. geo-statistical monitoring/ accounting WETLANDS 1990 OF N-W EUROPE EEA/ETCTE (courtesy Danube Delta National Institute)

Scales: networks of ecological networks interact with artificial infrastructures Core natural areas Protected natural areas Landscape mosaics, stepping stones Linear corridor (river) Road Dam

Integration of spatial data sets on land & water issues EO ImagesCorine LCLC ChangesTextureStratificationConnectivityNatura 2000MonitoringStatistics Emission /surplus Land accounts InfrastructuresApportionment

Data sources CLC (and 1975 when available) Rivers (CCM, national db) CORILIS (stratifications, connectivity) Texture (satellite images segmentation) Small objects/ edges (CLC masks & pixels classification) Meteo Water (monitoring, water accounts) NPP / fAPAR Soil biomass / C N, P, deposition, eutrophication Species, habitats: from N2000, Atlases, other inventories

From monitoring land cover change to assessing ecological impacts of socio-economic development Working with heterogeneous datasets: probabilities, fuzzy logic, stratifications Ecosystem assessment: ecological time and spatial length scales, non-linear relations, feedbacks, resilience, threshold values Eco-toxicology, human toxicology: big progress (genomic approach), need moving to operational monitoring Ecological economics: ecosystem goods & services, natural capital, environmental liabilities… The social & cultural dimensions: owners and actors Modelling: EEA integrated datasets at the meso-scale are an input to new research

From land cover to ecosystem accounting Upscaling/downscaling Sampling/processing heterogeneous data System of stratifications (correlation of fuzzy sets, probability maps) Threshold values, diagnosis…

The data issue Best use of Earth observation data (A): –Land cover, but not only land cover –Texture & Structure (infra CLC) –Humidity (incl. time dimension, variability) –NPP (incl. time dimension, variability) Best use of existing (imperfect) monitoring & statistics (B): –N2000: non-representative (biased) sample –Fauna/flora atlases: 50x50 km grid –Other inventories of fauna flora and habitats –Socio-economic data: a few at the local level, mostly national/regional Solution: assimilation of data (re) sampling (B) with (A) Spatial modelling, multi-scales analysis (e.g. NPP by CLC types), fuzzy sets Accounting frameworks (Input-output analysis, cross-checking of data, stocks & flows…)

Integration of space monitoring into ecosystem accounting: land cover change x NPP x structure/texture x short time variability x stratification of in situ monitoring (biodiversity, water…) Vegetation productivity, seasonal change (MERIS/JRC-IES) Fires Droughts (SPOT4-Vegetation/ CNES – Vito) Forest structure (MODIS-Multi-angle/JRC-IES) Texture, parcelisation changes 1988 – 1998 (Landsat/JRC-IES)

Data assimilation/ the grid approach Making data (more) comparable If necessary, shift from crisp boundaries of land units to fuzzy analysis of their importance in their neighbourhood (smoothing techniques); Data associated with the probability of finding them in a given grid-cell

Example: Relation city & rural/natural landscape: crisp vs. fuzzy map the second map gives immediately a measure and a vision of the influence of rural/natural landscapes; the town centre remains red… Lyon, France CLC2000-Artificial area (left) vs. Urban temperature of the Urban Morphological Zone combined with Agriculture/Forest context (Corilis2000, 5 km)

Another example: potential pressure from cities (large and small) on protected areas – the urban temperature methodology Pressure on nature doesnt come only from land use change but as much (or more) from existing stocks of land use/ land cover Potential pressure from existing land use/ land cover is proportional to the size of the source and to its proximity Note: several small sources can generate a substantial or even big impact altogether, even though they could be neglected individually Neighbourhood analysis can inform on the temperature or radiation or diffusion of a given source over designated areas CORILIS, based on Corine land cover, allows calculating indices such as the urban temperature on N2000 sites

Urban areas and N2000 sites

Processing urban areas in a grid…

Smoothing CLC values, accounting for urban surface inside each cell + within a radius of 5 km (values of urban surface decreasing with the square of the distance to the centre of the grid cell)

Urban temperature or radiation over N2000 (habitats) sites

Note that not all the temperature is coming from large cities (here, agglomerations of pop> hab are in purple)

An index of temperature can be computed. Here, the MEAN values per site (for a radius of 5 km) are presented

From an index to indicators This index can be the basis of the calculation of indicators; threshold values need to be defined by experts The neighbourhood can be defined for purpose, e.g. 3, 10 or 20 km instead of 5 km The index can be computed for intensive agriculture or any other CLC class (e.g. forest) Indexes can be added or subtracted for assessing cumulative effects (e.g. Urban + Agriculture) or compensations (e.g. Urban – Agriculture or Urban – Forest) Land cover change can be combined to the index

Urban temperature & Urban land uptake

Just the indexes…