Stocks and flows of natural and human-derived capital in ecosystem services | Land Portal

Resource information

Date of publication: 
March 2016
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
lupj:S026483771500410X
Pages: 
13
License of the resource: 

There is growing interest in the role that natural capital plays in underpinning ecosystem services. Yet, there remain differences and inconsistencies in the conceptualisation of capital and ecosystem services and the role that humans play in their delivery. Using worked examples in a stocks and flows systems approach, we show that both natural capital (NC) and human-derived (produced, human, social, cultural, financial) capital (HDC) are necessary to create ecosystem services at many levels. HDC plays a role at three stages of ecosystem service delivery. Firstly, as essential elements of a combined social-ecological system to create a potential ecosystem service. Secondly, through the beneficiaries in shaping the demand for that service. Thirdly, in the form of additional capital required to realise the ecosystem service flow. We show that it is possible, although not always easy, to separately identify how these forms of capital contribute to ecosystem service flow. We discuss how applying a systems approach can help identify critical natural capital and critical human-derived capital to guide sustainable management of the stocks and flows of all forms of capital which underpin provision of multiple ecosystem services. The amount of realised ecosystem service can be managed in several ways: via the NC & HDC which govern the potential service, and via factors which govern both the demand from the beneficiaries, and the efficiency of use of the potential service by those beneficiaries.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Jones, L.
Norton, L.
Austin, Z.
Browne, A.L.
Donovan, D.
Emmett, B.A.
Grabowski, Z.J
Howard, D.C.
Jones, J.P.G.
Kenter, J.O
Manley, W.
Morris, C.
Robinson, D.A.
Short, C.
Siriwardena, G.M.
Stevens, C.J.
Storkey, J.
Waters, R.D.
Willis, G.F.

Publisher(s): 

Land Use Policy is an international and interdisciplinary journal concerned with the social, economic, political, legal, physical and planning aspects of urban and rural land use. It provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and information from the diverse range of disciplines and interest groups which must be combined to formulate effective land use policies.

Data provider

ScienceDirect logo

What is ScienceDirect

Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature.

University libraries and institutions offer ScienceDirect access to their communities of researchers.

Researchers, teachers, students, healthcare and information professionals use ScienceDirect to improve the way they search, discover, read, understand and share scholarly research.

Share this page