Relating ecoystem services to domains of human well-being: Foundation for a U.S. index

Humans are dependent upon the services provided by nature, and unless we effectively account for the range of values from ecosystems in our efforts to protect the environment, we cannot sustain human well-being. In light of this dependence, a national measure of well-being is needed which is responsive to changes in the provisioning of ecosystem services as well as service flows from economic and social sectors. To conceptualize the eco-human linkages we must identify the measurable components of well-being that can be related to ecosystem service provisioning. The indicators and metrics used in existing well-being indices provide a basis for developing a core set of domains to develop such a composite measure of well-being; however these indices lack the ability to link well-being endpoints specifically to service flows from different types of capital. This paper suggests a core set of well-being domains that can be linked to ecosystem services via their relationship to economic, environmental and societal well-being. The well-being domains identified will serve as the foundation for developing an index of well-being for the U.S. which will be used to evaluate the provisioning of ecosystem, economic and social services in a predictive modeling framework. We present an overview of selected well-being measures and discuss the potential relationships between ecosystem services and the domains selected to develop the index structure.