LONDON GROUP MEETING ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007 LONDON GROUP MEETING ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007...

LONDON GROUP MEETINGROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007


ACCOUNTING FOR SOIL IN THE SEEA

Session 8 on assets accounts

Jean-Louis WeberEuropean Environment Agencyjean-

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Storyline

• Soil is just mentioned per memory in the SEEA2003.

• Soil is an ecosystem and a natural capital. • As an ecosystem, soil can be described by stocks

and flows of components, resilience (stress and distress), functions and services.

• Soil has an economic value associated to land use.

• Other soil services are benefiting to people out of any production process.

• The maintenance costs of soils are well known by agronomists… in developed and developing countries


Stocks, flows, threats and resilience

• Stocks of soil can be measured inclusively as a complex material described by soil typology.

• It can be measured as well for each main components: minerals, biomass, Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium (N, P, K, the 3 main fertilizing elements), fauna, flora and water.

• Flow accounts can be (are) established for these components:– In asset accounts– In flow accounts (SUA, PIOT, Hybrid…)


The resilience of soil is its capacity of regenerating after stress

• When traditional agriculture in Europe , made of small farming combining cultivation and husbandry generated rich soils, intensive practices have lead directly or indirectly to various types of soil degradation.

• Towns, generally settled in food-rich areas are sprawling over the best soils which make their neighbourhood.

• The concern is serious all over the World, made worse now by climate change or new perspectives of intensification for agro-fuels production.


e.g. Europe’s “soil strategy”: threats

• Erosion• Organic matter decline• Compaction• Salinisation• Landslides • Contamination• Sealing


Functions of soil are multiple

• (a) the production function, producing crops; • (b) the carrier function, bearing traffic and

buildings; • (c) the filter, buffer and reactor function, allowing

transformations of solutes passing through; • (d) the resource function, providing base material

for industry; • (e) the habitat function, providing a living

environment for plants and animals and • (f) the cultural and historic function, reflecting

past practices. (from Johan Bouma 2006)


And include as well

• (g) the climate regulating function, by storing organic and inorganic carbon and sequestrating soil organic carbon (SOC) and by regulating water storage and evapotranspiration


Soil functions and ecosystem services

• Ecosystem services are outcomes of functions contributing to human wellbeing

• Functions (a), (b) and (d) refer clearly to market commodities.

• Function (c) and (d) are partly internal to the ecosystem [not services as such] and partly a regulating services of collective use.

• Function (e) is a cultural service mostly not valued by production.

• Function (g) provides an essential regulating service


Focus on Carbon storage & sequestration by soil

• Facts and scientific opinions:– The terrestrial biosphere currently sequesters 2 billion metric

tons of carbon annually. (US Department of Agriculture) – Soils contain 82% of terrestrial carbon. – "Enhancing the natural processes that remove CO2 from the

atmosphere is thought to be the most cost-effective means of reducing atmospheric levels of CO2." (US Department of Energy)

– "Soil organic carbon is the largest reservoir in interaction with the atmosphere." (FAO) - Vegetation 650 gigatons, atmosphere 750 gigatons, soil 1500 gigatons

– The carbon sink capacity of the world's agricultural and degraded soils is 50% to 66% of the historic carbon loss of 42 to 78 gigatons of carbon.

– Grazing land comprises more than half the total land surface – An acre of pasture can sequester more carbon than an acre of

forest. Source: Christine Jones, The Soil Carbon Manifesto


A flow account

Carbon flux into atmosphere (gigatons C/year) Fossil fuel burning

Soil organic matter oxidation / erosion Respiration from organisms in biosphere Deforestation

4 - 561 - 62502

Movement of C out of atmosphere (gigatons C/year) Incorporation into biosphere through photosynthesis

Diffusion into oceans 1102.5

Overall Annual Net Increase in Atmospheric Carbon 4.5 - 6.5

Source: Christine Jones, The Soil Carbon Manifesto


Sequestering carbon in the soil represents about 89% of the mitigation potential [UNEP, 2007]

• Complete C accounts should be addressed by the SEEA

• Should help in clarifying debate on agro-fuels• Discussions on carbon credit trading system for

farmers could benefit from soil accounting


Soil and water

• Soil humidity & vegetation. • Wet soils (wetlands) the most biomass productive • Hydromorphic soils handicap agriculture and are

drained • Water is responsible of a large part of soil erosion• Irrigation compensate deficit in humidity, with risk

of salinisation in beneficiary areas or/and of drying out of soil and wind erosion in supply or deprived areas


Aral Sea: from irrigation to desertification

Central Asia's Aral Sea, which was once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, has lost 60 percent of its volume and doubled in salinity since the diversion of its major tributary, the Amu Darya River, for irrigated cotton farming (UNEP 2005).

http://na.unep.net/digital_atlas2/webatlas.php?id=11


Soil biodiversity

• Soil is the more species-rich habitats of terrestrial ecosystems

• Soil's fauna is certainly not the most fashionable but the functions it carries out are essential for biodiversity in general, i.e. for life.

Source: Thibaud Decaëns, Juan José Jiménez, Christophe Gioia, Patrick Lavelle, The values of soil animals for conservation biology, European Journal of Soil Biology, 2006


Implementation strategy: Physical accounts

• Knowledge on soils in countries and international organisations, first of all FAO, is huge

• Risk: being lost in the many databases and mapsStart from the analysis of ecosystem services • Then back from services to descriptors of stocks,

flows, resilience, stress [digital functional mapping approach]

• Generalization of flows, threshold values on the basis of soil maps and databases


Implementation strategy: Monetary accounts

• Valuation of flows:– non-market end use ecosystem services [cultural and

regulating services, including climate regulation].– full maintenance and restoration costs of domestic soils – full maintenance cost of soils in imports

NB: cost of replacing nutrients losses by fertilizers is an acceptable provisional proxy, but very incomplete

• Valuation of assets:– Market price of land– Inclusive wealth


Tak !


Natural capital• Natural capital stocks, resilience & wealth, distance to objective (physical units, by sectors)• Natural capital consumption/maintenance costs (€)• Ecosystem assets inclusive wealth (€)

Supply & use of ecosystem goods and services(Use of resource by sectors, supply to consumption & residuals, accumulation, I-O analysis, NAMEA)

Ecosystem Services• Market Ecosystem Services (€)• Non-market end use ES (physical units, €)

Framework of Ecosystem Accounts

Natural Capital Accounts/ living & cycling natural capital

Accounts of flows of ecosystem goods and services

Ecosystem Stocks & State Accounts

Eco

syst

em t

ypes

Economic sectorsSpatial integration

Economic integration

Counts of stocks diversity / integrity

(by ecosystem types, focus on state, health, resilience,

stress)

Core accounts of assets & flows

(by ecosystem types, raw quantities)

Material/energy flows(biomass, water, nutrients, residuals)


CORE LAND COVER ACCOUNT

ECOSYSTEM ACCOUNTS

Spatial integration of ecosystem accounts

Soil

Flora & Fauna

Water system

Atmosphere/ Climate

Land use economic & social

functions

Intensity of use & full maintenance

costs

Ecosystem services

Ecosystemassets

Stocks

Material & energy flows

Resilience

Production & Consumption

Economic Assets

Population

Infrastructures & Technologies

Inclusive use of market & non

market ecosystem services

LONDON GROUP MEETING ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007 LONDON GROUP MEETING ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007...

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