SEMINAR: Soil: Natural Capital Delivering Valuable Ecosystem Services

The natural-capital concept integrates economic thinking with ecological principles by considering nature’s stocks of materials and energy as capital. Nature comprises an assemblage of natural capital stocks, and they, in connected sum, form our ecological infrastructure. Soil is a key component of ecological infrastructure. It is a prime natural-capital stock that provides valuable ecosystem services. In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment classified ecosystem services into four broad, and often overlapping, types: supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. The provisioning services provided by soil are well understood scientifically, and they are amenable to classical economic analyses.

The focus for the Seminar and then the Masterclass which follows is on the soil’s regulating ecosystem services. The Masterclass will explore the ways that have been used to assess the value of the soil’s regulating services, and discuss the divergent ways in which these values have quantified and have been used.

In a landmark study, Costanza et al. (1997) estimated that the annual value of nature’s ecosystem services was US$33 trillion. Toman (1998) delivered the immediate riposte that any attempt to estimate the value of the world’s ecosystem services would be a “serious nderestimate of infinity”!

How then can we value the services provided by our ecosystems in general, and for our soils in particular? For soil, we will explore how investment of carbon into the soil’s natural capital can indeed provide valuable returns on investment. Changes in the soil’s carbon content can be shown to alter the manageable properties of the soil’s natural capital, such as its connected macroporosity, labile carbon content, and tendency for hydrophobicity. These affect the nutrient, gaseous and water regulating services that flow from the soil’s natural capital. These can be explored through case studies.

Carbon investment into the soil’s ecological infrastructure can be valuable for the enhanced and continuing delivery of ecosystem services to provide both mitigation options and adaptation strategies to the future climates we are likely to experience.

SEMINAR Date: 3 September 2013 Time: 9am to 10am Venue: SPICE Seminar Room, UWA

MASTERCLASS Date: 3 September 2013 Time: 9am to 4pm Venue: SPICE Seminar Room, UWA

Registration for masterclass is essential http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/masterclass/clothier