Services from Natural Capital
(2012 $)
Services from Natural Capital
Ecosystem Services
What are we measuring?
New to GPI 2.0, we include the contributions that the environment makes to the wellbeing of the Maryland public. These benefits have been termed “ecosystem
services”. We consider benefits from forests, wetlands, and the Chesapeake Bay,
such as provision of clean water and air, avoidance or erosion, habitat value for fish and wildlife and the value of the fish and game harvest from the wild.
Trends 2012-2019
Natural capital services increased slightly by ~1% from 2012 to 2019. On April 4th, 2016, Governor Hogan signed a bill that will prevent funds from being taken away from - and will provide more funding to - transfer tax-funded programs like Program Open Space, which acquires land in Maryland for protection and public use. The bill is added an additional 1,300 and 2,500 acres to the total acquired by Program Open Space during 2017 and 2018 respectively.
Calculation
The ecosystem service values considered here are calculated through the
Accounting for Maryland’s Ecosystem Services initiative at Maryland DNR. Inputs
are the acreage of forests (calculated using satellite imagery from University of Maryland Global Forest Change), freshwater wetland, coastal wetlands (as reported by Maryland Department of the Environment), and the Chesapeake Bay. The acreage is then multiplied by the average contribution that an acre of that land type makes in the form of ecosystem services, which include carbon
sequestration, flood protection, drinking water, timber, erosion prevention,
nutrient uptake, air pollution reduction, wildlife habitat, recreation and food.
The values used are $6,900 per acre per year for forests, $7,100 per acre per
year for freshwater wetlands, $34,000 per acre for coastal wetlands, and $13 per
acre per year for the Chesapeake Bay. The ecosystem services considered here do
not include benefits that are already incorporated in the economy, such as
commercial harvest of fish and timber or recreation.
