Accounting for ecosystem services using extended supply and use tables: A case study of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We implement natural capital accounts for ecosystem services (ES) using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) framework and a case study from the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Extended ES supply-use tables are presented that allow for the simultaneous reporting on multiple intermediate and final ES alongside data already available in traditional national economic accounts. We cover the ES of crop provisioning, grazed biomass provisioning, water supply, soil erosion control, recreational fishing, and carbon sequestration and storage. This study shows that extended ES supply-use tables using physical and monetary measures can provide feasible, although not necessarily complete, links between information recorded in the SEEA EA and traditional national economic accounts. It provides an integration of intermediate ES, final ES and produced goods and services in a single table and helps to distinguish benefits from the inputs that create these benefits. Going forward, more integrated recording of the economy and ecosystems’ contributions to wellbeing is needed to better understand the benefits derived from nature.
Source: Ecosystem Services
Authors: Greg S. Smith, Stephen B. Stewart, Gabriela Scheufele, David Evans, Ning Liu, Sean Pascoe, Stephen H. Roxburgh, Rebecca K. Schmidt, Michael Vardon
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,100
Award: G2975900969
OpenAlex ID: W4411080384