Measurement methods and applications for beneficial and detrimental effects of ecological services

Ecosystem service refers to a wide range of conditions and processes provided by natural ecosystems to help sustain and enhance human life. However, not all ecological conditions or processes are beneficial; some are restrictive or even detrimental under certain circumstances. The nature of the effects depends on time, space and specific target groups. Some locally detrimental phenomena might be beneficial at larger scales, and vice versa. Nature frequently causes detrimental impacts on human beings through disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, ice, sandstorms, flooding, drought, soil erosion, fire, disease and biological intrusion, even though these events might be beneficial to natural evolution. And such natural disasters can in turn be caused by human overuse of natural resources and destruction of the environment. On the other hand, human beings do not always destroy nature, but in fact can play a beneficial role through ecological design, engineering and management – activities which could be considered as the human eco-service contribution to nature. To avoid the misleading point of view that nature is always a servant of mankind, the mono-directional ecosystem service concept should be expanded to one of mutual services. Measurement methods of ecological services were put forward, including space, time, equivalent, pattern and order measuring methods. Case studies of urban land evaluation, ecological space accounting, water and energy equivalents assessment were performed in Changzhou city, Taihu basin and Yangzhou city of PR China applying spatial, pattern and equivalent measurement methods.