Environmental problems – An overview - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 17

biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and to draw together expertise from the
fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical actions moving forward. It
was published as a topic also (Kumar, 2012). Some topics from the topic: Integrat-
ing the Ecological and Economic Dimensions in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service
Valuation; Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services; Measuring Biophysical
Quantities; The Economics of Valuing Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity; Discount-
ing, Ethics, and Options for Maintaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Integrity. Many
other authors published on this topic prior and parallel to TEEB, such as Elmqvist
et al. (2012) on ecosystem services, Daily (1997) on valuing and safeguarding earth's
life support systems; Wilson & Carpenter (1999) on economic valuation of fresh-
water ecosystem services; Larsson (2001) established a biodiversity evaluation tool,
Marchetti (2004) proposed monitoring and indicators for European forests. Ojea et al.
(2012) published recently their research results on the economic valuation of forest
water services.
Provisioning services of the ecosystem:

- Provision of food, crops, wild food, and spices;

- Provision of water in adequate quantity and quality;

- Provision of minerals and fuels;

- Provision of building materials and ornamental resources;

- Provision of fibers;

- Provision of medicinal and biochemical resources (e.g., pharmaceuticals);

- Provision of energy (hydropower, geothermal, biomass fuels);

- Provision of genetic resources.

Regulating services of the global ecosystem are closely associated with the balance
of the elements cycling in diverse physical, chemical, and biological forms. The indi-
vidual steps of the complex cycles should be fully harmonized. If the rate of any of
the transformation processes is a bottleneck, the accumulated amount of material may
induce changes in the pathway and the rate of the cycling components. For example,
the increased amount of methane in the atmosphere cannot be photo-transformed and
as a result it accumulates. Extreme speed leads to emptying contents or reserves, as we
have seen in the case of decrease in soil organic content by increased microbial activity
due to global warming. Figures 1.11-1.13 show the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur reser-
voirs and fluxes in the global ecosystem. The element mass in the reservoirs is given in
tonnes for nitrogen and sulfur, in 10 9 tonnes for carbon, the fluxes in tonnes/year unit.
Green arrows show the biogenic uptake, almond arrows show the biogenic output.
Anthropogenic contribution is shown in red arrows.
Carbon cycling pertains to atmosphere, lithosphere (water and soil), and bio-
sphere. The largest reserve is inorganic in the form of carbonate rocks and dissolved
carbon dioxide in the sea. Dominant carbon mass cycling in the global ecosystem is
the biogenic product of aerobic energy production plus the amount of CO 2 fixed in
biomass by photoreduction of plants and phototrophic bacteria.
The flux of surplus anthropogenic CO 2 derives from fossil energy sources, resulting
in additional load to the output flux and contributing to the global imbalance.
The natural nitrogen cycle of the globe consists of gas, dissolved and solid organic
bound forms. The main reserves occur as atmospheric and water-dissolved N 2 . Uptake