Ecosystem Services

Rural landscape with river

Ecosystem appurtenances and services produce the many life-sustaining benefits we receive from nature—make clean air and water, fertile soil for ingather production, pollination, and flood control. These ecosystem services are important to environmental and homo health and well-being, notwithstanding they are limited and often taken for granted.

Ecosystem-focused inquiry develops methods that mensurate ecosystem appurtenances and services. This research addresses:

  • how to estimate electric current production of ecosystem goods and services, given the type and condition of ecosystems;
  • how ecosystem services contribute to human health and well-being; and
  • how the production and benefits of these ecosystem services may be reduced or sustained nether various decision scenarios and in response to regional conditions.

Researchers are exploring and interpreting primary health data and social surveys, and are developing indicators for benefits associated with access to natural areas, such equally improved health, reduced costs of healthcare, and improved social ties. Understanding research outcomes will lead to improved environmental direction and planning that can inform urban design, strengthen neighborhoods, and contribute to community vitality, economic health and livability.

Related Resources

  • Ecological Risk Assessment Back up Center (ERASC)
    A support eye that provides technical information and addresses scientific questions of business or interest on topics relevant to ecological risk cess at chancy waste matter sites for EPA'due south Office of Solid Waste product and Emergency Response (OSWER) personnel and the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR) staff.
  • Ecosystems and Climatic change Enquiry
  • Oil Spills Research

Ecosystem Decision Back up Tools

  • Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Conclusion Information Organization (CADDIS)
    A website adult to help scientists and engineers in the Regions, States, and Tribes carry causal assessments in aquatic systems.
  • Eco-Health Relationship Browser
    An interactive tool provides data about several of our nation'south major ecosystems, the services they provide, and how those services, or their degradation and loss, may bear on people
  • Ecoregion Maps and GIS Resources
    Designed to serve equally a spatial framework for the research assessment, and monitoring of ecosystems and ecosystem components, ecoregions denote areas within which ecosystems (and the type, quality, and quantity of ecology resources) are generally similar.
  • EnviroAtlas
    A collection of interactive tools and resource that allows users to explore the many benefits people receive from nature, often referred to as ecosystem services.
  • EcoService Models Library (ESML)
    The ESML is an online database for finding, examining and comparing ecological models that may be useful for quantifying ecosystem goods and services.
  • EPA H20 Tool
    EPA H2o is a desktop GIS-based decision back up tool for assessing the provision of ecosystem services under different land use scenarios.
  • National Ecosystem Services Classification System (NESCS)-Plus

    The National Ecosystems Classification Organisation-Plus (NESCS Plus, pronounced "nex-united states plus") is 1 such tool is a robust, step-by-step resource for tracing the links between natural ecosystems and homo well-existence. The chief purpose of NESCS Plus is to serve every bit a framework for analyzing how changes to ecosystems touch on man welfare.

  • National Ecosystem Services Nomenclature System (NESCS): Framework Blueprint and Policy Application
    NESCS provides a framework that will assistance in analyzing the human welfare impacts of policy-induced changes to ecosystems.
  • Rapid Benefit Indicators (RBI) Approach
    The Rapid Do good Indicator (RBI) arroyo is an piece of cake-to-use process for assessing restoration sites using non-budgetary do good indicators. It uses readily-available data to gauge and quantify benefits to people effectually an ecological restoration site.
  • Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) Model - two.0
    VELMA can be used to help amend the water quality of streams, rivers, and estuaries by making ameliorate employ of both natural and engineered green infrastructure (GI) to command loadings from nonpoint sources of pollution.

Ecosystem-Specific Resources

  • Lowering Barriers to Achieving Multiple Environmental Goals in the Chesapeake Bay
    An order that requires federal agencies to work together to bring new resources and tools to the Bay restoration try, including new approaches to implementing the Make clean Water Act (CWA) and new funding for voluntary efforts by farmers.
  • An Optimization Arroyo to Evaluate the Role of Ecosystem Services in Chesapeake Bay Restoration Strategies
    The report assesses pollution control projects and their affects on water quality and ecosystem services.
  • Yaquina Bay: Bird Apply of Estuarine Habitats
    An assessment of bird utilization patterns of the intertidal soft sediment and low marsh habitats of the Yaquina estuary, Oregon