Water Stewardship Information Sources
| ID | 1418 |
|---|---|
| Citation | Parrott, L and Kyle, C. 2014. The value of natural capital in the Okanagan. Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience and Ecosystem Services (BRAES), UBC Okanagan. |
| Organization | UBCO |
| URL | http://complexity-ok.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/10/The-value-of-natural-capital-in-the-Okanagan.pdf |
| Abstract/Description or Keywords | Natural ecosystems and biodiversity provide humans with a range of provisioning, regulating, and cultural services upon which we depend for our quality of life and well-being. Examples include: food, raw materials, clean air and water, erosion protection, water flow regulation including flood mitigation, biological pest control, pollination, soil generation and retention, aesthetics and recreational opportunities. Such services are provided for free, and are typically taken for granted until they are lost and human communities begin to experience the negative impacts of those lost services (e.g., increased water treatment costs, respiratory problems due to poor air quality, reduced crop yields as native pollinator populations decrease, beach closures due to water quality advisories, etc.). While it is difficult, and, some may argue, ethically inappropriate, to attach a monetary value to nature, humans do derive economic benefits from many ecosystem services. These economic benefits, as well as the costs of replacing ecosystem services with a technical solution, can be estimated. Over the past 20 years, extensive research has been carried out to estimate the values of ecosystem service flows provided by different ecosystem categories at global, regional and local scales. The most current estimates available suggest that the global value of ecosystem services in 2011 was $125 trillion/yr (in 2007 dollars; for comparison, the global GDP in 2011 was $75.2 trillion/yr in 2007 dollars) (Constanza et al., 2014). At a regional scale, understanding and mapping the value of our natural capital can provide valuable quantitative support to help assess the trade-offs inherent in different land use and development scenarios. We have calculated a coarse estimate of the natural capital of the Okanagan, i.e., the value of ecosystem services provided by agricultural and natural land cover types in the valley. |
| Information Type | report |
| Regional Watershed | Okanagan |
| Sub-watershed if known | |
| Aquifer # | |
| Comments | |
| Project status | ongoing |
| Contact Name | Lael Parrott |
| Contact Email | [email protected] |