LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
ACCOUNTING FOR SOIL IN THE SEEA
Session 8 on assets accounts
Jean-Louis Weber
European Environment Agency
jean-louis.weber@eea.europa.eu
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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…)
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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.
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
e.g. Europe’s “soil strategy”: threats
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Erosion
Organic matter decline
Compaction
Salinisation
Landslides
Contamination
Sealing
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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)
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
A flow account
Carbon flux into atmosphere (gigatons C/year)
Fossil fuel burning
Soil organic matter oxidation / erosion
Respiration from organisms in biosphere
Deforestation
4-5
61 - 62
50
2
Movement of C out of atmosphere (gigatons C/year)
Incorporation into biosphere through photosynthesis
Diffusion into oceans
110
2.5
Overall Annual Net Increase in Atmospheric Carbon
4.5 - 6.5
Source: Christine Jones, The Soil Carbon Manifesto
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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).
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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 maps
• Start 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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
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
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
Tak !
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
Framework of Ecosystem Accounts
Spatial integration
Economic sectors
Ecosystem types
Accounts of flows of ecosystem goods and services
Core accounts of
assets & flows
(by ecosystem types, raw
quantities)
Material/energy flows
Ecosystem Services
(biomass, water, nutrients,
residuals)
• Market Ecosystem Services (€)
• Non-market end use ES
(physical units, €)
Supply & use of ecosystem goods and services
(Use of resource by sectors, supply to consumption & residuals,
accumulation, I-O analysis, NAMEA)
Counts of stocks
diversity / integrity
(by ecosystem types, focus
on state, health, resilience,
stress)
Ecosystem Stocks &
State Accounts
Natural capital
• Natural capital stocks, resilience & wealth, distance to objective
(physical units, by sectors)
• Natural capital consumption/maintenance costs (€)
• Ecosystem assets inclusive wealth (€)
Natural Capital Accounts/ living & cycling natural capital
Economic integration
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
Spatial integration of ecosystem accounts
Production &
Consumption
Economic
Assets
Infrastructures
& Technologies
Population
Inclusive use of
market & non
market ecosystem
services
Land use
economic & social
functions
Intensity of use &
full maintenance
costs
Ecosystem
services
Atmosphere/
Climate
Ecosystem
assets
Water system
Stocks
Material & energy
flows
Resilience
ECOSYSTEM ACCOUNTS
CORE LAND COVER ACCOUNT
LONDON GROUP MEETING
ROME, 17-19 DECEMBER 2007
Flora & Fauna
Soil