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 Related Knowledge (7)
 6 SUB-TOPICS:
 Coral reefs: carbon cycling Coral reefs: carbon cycling
 Coral reefs: generation of sand Coral reefs: generation of sand
 Coral reefs: nitrogen fixation Coral reefs: nitrogen fixation
 Coral reefs: physical structure Coral reefs: physical structure
 Coral reefs: shoreline protection Coral reefs: shoreline protection
 Mangroves Mangroves
 10 RELATED TOPICS:
 Coral Reefs Coral Reefs
 Estuaries Estuaries
 Lagoons Lagoons
 Mangroves Mangroves
 Mangroves Mangroves
 Sand dunes and beaches Sand dunes and beaches
 Seagrass Beds Seagrass Beds
 Seagrasses meadows Seagrasses meadows
 Tidal Flats Tidal Flats
 Wetlands Wetlands
 Topic Overview
 ID# : 19001
 Visits: 5101
 Added: 01-Jan-2000
 Updated: 15-Dec-2010
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 Editors
 UNEP - WCMC
 Jacob Nganyi
 UNEP - GPA
 Heidi Savelli
 KO Overview
 ID# : 12068
 Visits: 5183
 Added: 01-Jan-2000
 Updated: 30-Jul-2007
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 Owner
 

Tina Farmer

 
 
 
 
Ecosystem services
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'Ecosystem goods', such as food, and 'services', such as waste assimilation, represent the benefits humans obtain from a properly functioning ecosystem and are usually referred together as 'ecosystem services'. Unsurprisingly a large number of ecosystem services have been identified, especially for the oceans which cover the majority of the planet and the coastal zone where the majority of humans live.
 
These include: gas regulation (e.g. maintaining a balanced chemical composition in the atmosphere), climate regulation (e.g. control of global temperature, precipitation, greenhouse gas regulation, cloud formation), disturbance regulation (e.g. storm protection, flood control, drought recovery), water regulation (e.g. regulation of global, regional and local scale hydrology through currents and tides), water supply (e.g. storage of water returned to land as precipitation), erosion and sediment transport/deposition (e.g. moving sediments from source areas and replenishing depositional areas), nutrient cycling e.g. the storage, internal cycling, processing and acquisition of nutrients, nitrogen fixation, phosphorus cycles), waste treatment (e.g. the breakdown of excess xenic and toxic compounds), biological control (e.g. the trophic-dynamic regulation of populations), refugia (e.g. feeding and nursery habitats for resident and transient populations of harvested species), food production (e.g. the portion of gross primary production which is extracted as food for humans), raw materials (e.g. the portion of gross primary production which is extracted as fuel or building material), genetic resources (e.g. sources of unique biological materials for medicines), recreation (e.g. opportunities for tourism, sport and other outdoor pastimes) and cultural (e.g. opportunities for aesthetic, artistic, educational, spiritual activities).
 
The value (the theoretical cost of artificially replacing the services were they not to be provided by nature) to humanity of these ecosystem services has been estimated at $8400 billion per year for the open oceans and 1.5 times this for coastal ecosystems. Consumptive use (production of food and raw materials) is a minor (<5%) component and therefore the true value of marine ecosystems is in non- consumptive use. However quantifying such use is notoriously hard.
 
 
 
 
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Contact
John Everett
Photograph1021915494088_Jte30k.jpg
DescriptionDr. John T. Everett is the Project Manager of the UN Atlas. He is also President of Ocean Associates, Inc., a fisheries and oceans consulting firm and distributes ocean and coastal photos (free for personal use) through OceansArt.US. He writes about inventions and the history of technology and provides photos and information (free for personal use) through TechnologySite.org. Dr. Everett is a professional photographer for Marine Photobank.

Dr. Everett comes from a fishing family and worked 31 years in 13 positions in the US Federal Government as a researcher and manager. He provides consulting services on oceans and fisheries policy and sustainability, global climate change and impacts at the global and local level on fisheries and on oceans, including adaptation strategies. His Federal positions included: Senate Commerce Committee staff, Staff to NOAA Administrator, NMFS Dir. of Policy and Planning, Manager of Dolphin/Tuna research, and Chief of Fisheries Development. He has chaired or co-chaired several impact analyses (Fisheries, Polar Regions, Oceans, and Coastal Zones) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Until recently he was Chief of the NOAA/NMFS Division of Research in Silver Spring, MD. Prior to NOAA, he coordinated launches in the Apollo Program at Cape Kennedy and was a commercial fisherman in Massachusetts, USA.

He also manages Climate Change Facts, a website designed to provide information from both consensus scientists and those among the climate change skeptics.

Keywords PROJECT MANAGER; OCEAN ASSOCIATES INC.; ASSOC.; WWW OCEANSART US; CLIMATE CHANGE FACTS
Geography Keywords USA; ROME
Organization FAO, NOAA Point of Contact , and President of Ocean Associates, Inc., and Owner of OceansArt.US
PositionUN Atlas Project Manager and President of Ocean Associates, Inc. and Owner OceansArt.US
Email
Homepagehttp://www.OceanAssoc.com
Related to TopicsMembers (members)
  
979 Topics - 5276 Related Knowledge - 11278 Members - 48 Editors
freeMem:202,375,696 totMem:473,759,744 reqNum:139885 openSessions:0 generationTime:2013/06/19 21:56:26