LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
ACCOUNTING FOR SOIL IN THE SEEA - II
Session 4 Issues related to assets accounts
Jean-Louis Weber
European Environment Agency
jean-louis.weber@eea.europa.eu
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Storyline
• Following the presentation in the Rome 2007 LG meeting, a
proposal for soil accounting has been asked to EEA & FAO.
Such proposal has not yet been drafted.
• In the last year, soil have attracted higher attention in
relation to:
– The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity process steered
by EC/DGENV, UNEP and the German BMU;
– creation of a soil “data centre” in the European Joint Research
Centre
– the concern of future availability of soil resource for facing the
new food demand and competing agrofuels;
– clear understanding that carbon sequestration is to a large
extent a soil issue, both considering agriculture practice [eg
tillage] and forestry – see issue paper LG13_5 on Carbon
binding of forests
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Soil in SEEA
• In the SEEA2003 Classification of assets, soil is:
– an attribute of land, as in SNA93
– a natural resource
• Soil is just mentioned per memory in the SEEA2003 Ch8.
• As an attribute of land, soil has an economic value
associated to land use. This is correct.
• The status of soil as a natural resource is not clear in the
SEEA. “Natural resources” are extracted to become input to
production. It is just marginally the case of soil. Soil can be
used without any depletion; misuse of soil degrades or
destroys soil.
• Soil should be accounted as an ecosystem as well,
described by stocks and flows of components,
health/resilience (stress and distress), functions and
services.
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Carbon storage & sequestration by soil: 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
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Forest, soil and carbon binding
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Forest, soil and carbon binding
• soil is a sink of and a source of GHGs – the most
important one
• beyond forest soil, agriculture soil and grassland
play the essential role
• agriculture practices can result in sequestration or
release of CO2 (and release of CH4)
• accounting for soil carbon should follow IPCC
recommendation and make the broadest use of
IPCC/UNFCCC monitoring and FAO statistics
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
OC_TOP:Topsoil Organic Carbon
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER
Copyright 2004
Eurasian
Soil Database
ESB Network
2008
??? Soil as a “natural resource”
• The classification of soil within SEEA2003 “natural resources”
is questionable.
• When all other EA.1 Natural Resources are used by
extraction, soil is used in situ – with the 2 exceptions of:
– some use by horticulture and green houses, and flowers in pots;
note that in this case, soil matter is used more than once and
should be accounted as a capital good.
– destruction of soil without using its biological properties
(sealing, compaction) and partly erosion (an unwanted
consequence)
• Similar difficulty with water, partly “abstractable natural
resource” [the SEEA2003 favorite option] partly used in situ
[in particular as soil water for vegetation – reintroduced in
SEEAW]
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
??? Soil depletion and/or degradation
• Soil can be used without physical depletion or degradation
(e.g. with systems of crops rotation, extensive pasture, soil
protection target in DE is 500 years)
• Degradation of the soil of a particular parcel of land may
result from external causes (e.g. upstream deforestation
leading to erosion, atmospheric depositions...)
• Effects of soil depletion/degradation on agriculture are
delayed over time: are these externalities within current
value of crops?? No...
• Cost of replacing nutrients losses by mineral fertilizers is an
imperfect provisional proxy – as the use of these fertilizers
generates further degradation and co-lateral pollution
• ??? Depletion deals with adjusting rents while degradation
deals with an additional consumption of renewable natural
capital???
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Soil as an ecosystem
• As an ecosystem, soil can be described by stocks and flows of
components, health/resilience (stress and distress), functions
and services.
• Soil is multifunctionnal (carbon storage, water purification,
food production, etc)
• Soil is a socio-ecological system depending highly from both
natural and anthropogenic factors
• The maintenance costs of soils are well known by
agronomists… in developed and developing countries
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Soil is a socio-ecological system
fertilizers
soil structure
→capacity
Simplified model of soil system
under conditions of organic (left) and intensive (right) farming.
[Yellow arrows: recycling of nutrients from dead organic matter]
Courtesy Ladislav Miko
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Stocks, flows, threats and resilience
• Stocks of soil are assessed as complex material described
by soil typology.
• They 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…)
• Soils are as well ecosystems which resilience depends from
their biodiversity
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Soil biodiversity
• Soil is the more species-rich habitat 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
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
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)
• (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
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Threats to soil
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Erosion
Organic matter decline
Compaction
Salinisation
Landslides
Contamination
Sealing
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Implementation strategy: Physical accounts
• Knowledge on soils in countries and international
organisations [first of all FAO] is huge
• Risk: being lost in the many, classification of soil types,
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
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Implementation strategy: valuation
• Valuation of flows:
– one by one: non-market end use ecosystem services [cultural
and regulating services, including climate regulation]. How far
can it be aggregated? Loss of income resulting from losses in
fertility as an issue.
– holistically: additional costs for maintaining soil potential
• full maintenance and restoration costs of soils in domestic
products
• full maintenance cost of soils in imports
NB: cost of replacing nutrients losses by fertilizers is an imperfect provisional
proxy.
• Valuation of assets:
– Market price of land [sales, rents...] = mainly for agriculture
land
– Inclusive wealth ???
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008
Thank you!
LONDON GROUP MEETING
BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008