How regulating and cultural services of ecosystems have changed over time in Italy

Abstract

In this experimental study, different components are computed for three different ecosystem services (ES). Specifically, supply, demand and use are estimated for pollination service, flood risk regulation service and nature-based tourism. These are analysed and assessed in 2012 and 2018 for the Italian context, in order to estimate the evolution over this period and to allow a significant comparison of results. The same methodology and models are applied for the selected accounting years and accounting tables and tend to reflect as closely as possible the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting-Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), which is the international standard endorsed by the United Nations to compile Natural Capital Accounting in 2021. Both biophysical and monetary assessments are performed using the ARIES technology, an integrated modelling platform providing automatic and flexible integration of data and models, via its semantic modelling nature. Models have been run adjusting the components of the global modelling approach to the Italian context and, whenever available, prioritising the use of local data to carry out the study. This approach is particularly useful to analyse trends over time, as potentially biased components of models and data are substantially mitigated when the same biases is constant over time. This study finds an increase in benefits over the period analysed for the ES examined. The main contribution of this pioneering work is to support the idea that ES accounting or Natural Capital Accounting can provide a very useful tool to improve economic and environmental information at national and regional level. This can support processes to provide the necessary incentives to steer policy-making towards preventative rather than corrective actions, which are usually much less effective and more costly, both at environmental and economic levels. Nevertheless, particular attention must be paid to the meaning of the estimates and the drivers of these values to derive a direct or indirect relationship between the benefits observable and the actual Italian ecosystems condition.