WRI Publications Feed: Ecosystem Services Tools and Indicators

Ecosystem Services Review for Impact Assessment

Maggie Barron — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:30:06 -0500

Overview

Lending and government institutions, such as the International Finance Corporation and the US Council on Environmental Quality, now require the explicit consideration of ecosystem services in impact assessment.

Overview
Downloads
Get Involved
Timeline

More Information for Practitioners

Conceptual Framework
Why Use the Ecosystems Services Review for Impact Assessments?
Ecosystem Services Requirements in new IFC Performance Standards

However, according to a survey carried out by WRI, the guidance documents currently available for addressing ecosystem services in Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) are seen by practitioners as insufficiently detailed to move ESIA practices forward.

To fill this gap in practical guidance, the Ecosystem Services Review for Impact Assessment (ESR for IA) provides: (1) A conceptual framework of how the project, ecosystem services and human well-being are linked and (2) step-by-step instructions (PDF, 172 Kb) to systematically incorporate ecosystem services

Downloads

Working Paper 1 - Ecosystem Services Review for Impact Assessment: Introduction and Guide to Scoping (PDF, 1.1 Mb)
Impact Scoping Tool (Excel, 5.7 Mb)
Dependence Scoping Tool (Excel, 2.1 Mb)
Seven Steps to Address Ecosystem Services in Impact Assessment (PDF, 172 Kb)

Get Involved

We invite you to send us feedback and suggested improvements to the methodology.

Complete our survey. Practitioners are invited to share their feedback on the ESR for IA through this short online survey. The authors would like your opinion on the overall ESR for IA framework and your suggestions for improving the guidance.
Join our LinkedIn discussion. The authors are leading a guided discussion on the ESR for IA with the Business & Ecosystem Services Professionals group, which links managers, consultants, and thought leaders around pressing issues at the nexus of business and ecosystems. The forum allows members to share recent news and best practices, discuss important issues, and connect with peers.
Road-test the ESR for IA. From December 2012 to December 2013, the authors will work with selected project developers and impact assessment practitioners to road-test the ESR for IA on actual ESIA processes. This opportunity is ideal for environmental and social practitioners who work for companies that wish to identify more effective ways to mitigate negative impacts on ecosystem services, meet the new IFC Performance Standards, or establish themselves as leaders in addressing ecosystem services in environmental and social impact assessment. If you would like your project to be considered for road-testing, contact Florence Landsberg with a short description of the project and the planned ESIA timeline.
Contact us. You are also invited to share your general feedback on the ESR for IA directly with the authors.

Timeline

The ESR for IA will be presented in two successive working papers (WP): Ecosystem Services Review for Impact Assessment: Introduction and Guide to Scoping (available above) and Complementing Environmental and Social Impact Assessment to Address Ecosystem Services: The Ecosystem Services Review for Impact Assessment. WP 2 is due in the first quarter of 2013. It will provide a revised version of WP 1 and instructions to conduct the ESR for IA at the Impact Analysis and Mitigation Stages. It will also incorporate the comments from six retrospective road-tests (i.e. implementation of the ESR for IA on completed ESIAs).

Conceptual Framework

The ESR for IA’s conceptual framework builds on the elements and causal relations of the original Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Framework (Figure 1). By explicitly recognizing the causal interactions between the project, human well-being and the indirect and direct drivers of ecosystem change, the ESR for IA framework supports an integrated assessment of elements commonly assessed separately in an ESIA.

Figure 1: Conceptual framework for assessing project impact and dependence on ecosystem services (Click to Enlarge)

Why Use the Ecosystems Services Review for Impact Assessments?

The ESR for IA helps social and environmental impact assessment practitioners deliver the following:

Systematic integration of environmental and socio-economic issues.
Assessment of project dependence on ecosystem services.
Consideration of multi-scale impacts and dependence.
Identification of indirect and cumulative impacts.
Identification, communication, and negotiation with stakeholders.
Comply with the new International Finance Corporation (IFC) performance standards.

Ecosystem Services Requirements in new IFC Performance Standards

Starting January 2012, IFC investments will be screened systematically for ecosystem service risks and impacts, which are mandated in multiple performance standards. These ecosystem service changes to the IFC standards are comprehensive and affect screening, mitigation, and compensation rules for future investments. They also include increased resources to strengthen IFC’s internal management capacity to assess ecosystem service risks and impacts. These additions to the performance standards complement existing requirements for safeguarding biodiversity and supporting sustainable natural resources management to reflect the importance of the environment for people’s health, culture and fundamental human rights.

The new standards include the following specific ecosystem services requirements:

Performance Standard 1-Assessment and Management of Environmental and Social Risks and Impacts – Identify all reasonably expected risks and impacts related to ecosystem services and use a broader definition of a project’s area of influence, which now includes indirect project impact on ecosystem services upon which Affected Communities’ livelihoods are dependent.
Performance Standard 4-Community Health, Safety, and Security – Assess and manage health, safety, and security risks to communities resulting from direct project impact on provisioning and regulating ecosystem services such as the loss of buffer areas (e.g., wetlands, mangroves, or upland forests.
Performance Standards 5-Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement – Assess impacts on and compensate for loss of provisioning ecosystem services resulting from land acquisition and involuntary resettlement.
Performance Standard 6-Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management of Living Natural Resources – Carry out a systematic review (including participation of Affected Communities) of all ecosystem services a project will impact or is dependent upon to identify priority ecosystem services, and avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts on priority ecosystem services for which a client has direct management control or significant influence.
Performance Standard 7-Indigenous Peoples – Assess provisioning and cultural ecosystem services when examining projects affecting Indigenous Peoples.
Performance Standard 8-Cultural Heritage – Maintain or restore any ecosystem processes and ecosystem services when replicable cultural heritage is removed.

Banking on Nature's Assets: How Multilateral Development Banks Can Strengthen Development by Using Ecosystem Services

Maggie Barron — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:57:27 -0500

Humanity depends on nature for physical and spiritual sustenance, livelihoods, and survival. Ecosystems provide numerous benefits or “ecosystem services” that underpin economic development and support human well-being. They include provisioning services such as food, freshwater, and fuel as well as an array of regulating services such as water purification, pollination, and climate regulation. Healthy ecosystems are a prerequisite to sustaining economic development and mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The UN-led Millennium Ecosystem Assessment audited the health of 24 ecosystem services globally and reported that two-thirds had been degraded over the past half century. This degradation is undermining development progress. However, by accounting for and managing ecosystem service trade-offs, multilateral development banks (MDBs) and partner countries can improve development outcomes, help address climate change, and reduce costs to people and economies. Toward this end, a growing number of tools are emerging to help factor ecosystem services into economic development decisions.

Traditionally, development planners have focused narrowly on provisioning services with a value in the market place while overlooking regulating services. Expansion of aquacultures has increased shrimp production, for example, but at the same time degraded the fish spawning ground and storm protection services provided by mangroves. Construction of dams has increased power and freshwater for irrigation while leading to downstream loss of wetlands and their purification and flood protection services.

MDBs have already begun to experiment with ecosystem service concepts in development planning and practice. This report makes the case for expanding beyond the current focus on single services and “add-on” projects. The authors recommend a more systematic approach, one that would take into account multiple ecosystem services in all development operations from the earliest stages of the planning process. Such an approach will enable MDBs to make the links among climate, environment, and development and identify risks and opportunities associated with development plans. Banking on Nature’s Assets identifies entry points for mainstreaming ecosystem services in MDBs’ core operations of strategic direction setting, advisory services, and investments and describes a portfolio of tools to help. It also presents a range of policy options that MDBs can help country partners implement to sustain critical ecosystem services.

The report concludes with five interrelated recommendations to scale up MDB and partner-country application of ecosystem services:

Incorporate into environment strategies;
Integrate into core operations;
Build capacity to implement an ecosystem services approach;
Empower local authorities, organizations, and communities; and
Strengthen policies and incentives.

Entry Points for Integrating Ecosystems Services into MDB Operations

Measuring Nature's Benefits: A Preliminary Roadmap for Improving Ecosystem Service Indicators

Tim Herzog — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:35:00 -0400

Ecosystem services are the benefits that people derive from nature. Some benefits, such as crops, fish, and freshwater (provisioning services), are tangible. Others such as pollination, erosion regulation, climate regulation (regulating services) and aesthetic and spiritual fulfillment (cultural services) are less tangible. All, however, directly or indirectly underpin human economies and livelihoods.

Despite their critical importance, the capacity of ecosystems to provide these myriad services are being degraded at an alarming rate. In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year study of the state of the world’s ecosystems involving more than 1,300 experts from 95 countries, reported that over 60 percent of ecosystem services were already degraded. This negative trend, they concluded, was set to continue at an accelerating pace over the next half century.

The ecosystem services conceptual framework provided by the MA has proven effective for communicating how ecosystems underlie human well-being. Early efforts to apply ecosystem services concepts and information have strengthened both public and private sector development strategies and improved environmental outcomes.

However, mainstreaming ecosystem services concepts more broadly will require information designed for policy-makers, including data, decision support tools, and “indicators”—information that condenses complexity to a manageable level and informs decisions and actions (Bossel, 1999). Knowing where indicators and data are already sufficient to inform policy-makers’ understanding of ecosystem services, and where they fall short, will help inform such mainstreaming efforts in international and national arenas. This paper compiles and assesses current ecosystems services indicators in order to inform and advance such efforts.

Key Findings

The analysis found significant limitations in the capacity of the indicators assessed to support policy-makers’ use of ecosystem service concepts, specifically:

The ability of indicators to convey information about ecosystem services is low overall, although it varies widely among services;
The indicators available for most ecosystem services are not comprehensive and are often inadequate to characterize the diversity and complexity of the benefits they provide;
Data are often insufficient to support the use of these indicators; and
Indicators for regulating and cultural services lag behind provisioning services in each of the limitations identified above.