Ecosystem services, sustainability and thermodynamic indicators
Introduction
How can we estimate the value of the ecosystem services? Costanza et al. (1997) have found the value by adding the costs of all the services that we utilize by ecosystems: purification of air and water, recycling, recreational services and natural resources such as timber, fish and drinking water. All activities require energy that can do work. Services by ecosystems mean activities offered to the user of ecosystems and they could therefore be measured by the work capacity. It means as the total amount of eco-exergy (work capacity) that an ecosystem offers. The sustainability of nature (ecosystems) can also be expressed by the work capacity, because:
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Sustainability in the Brundtland's sense means that the same level of ecosystem services must be maintained for the future generation.
- (2)
The amount of energy to be used to break down an ecosystem = the work capacity of the ecosystem (Svirezhev, 1998).
This idea to measure ecosystem services and thereby sustainability by eco-exergy or work capacity is pursued in this paper and the results are compared with Costanza et al.’s results. It is a newly proposed approach, which inevitably will lead to the recommendation to apply eco-exergy or work capacity calculations of ecosystems as informative holistic indicators.
Section snippets
How do we calculate the work capacity of ecosystems?
Exergy or work capacity expresses the energy that can do work. It can therefore be found as the gradient (=difference in potential) × an extensive descriptor, dependent on the energy form, for instance (Jørgensen et al., 2007):
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chemical work energy = (μ1 − μ2)N; or
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pressure work energy = (p1 − p2)(−V);
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potential work energy = (h1 − h2)mg;
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electrical work energy = (V1 − V2)Q.
We can distinguish between technological exergy and eco-exergy: technological exergy uses the environment as reference state and is useful to
Conclusions
The results can be summarized in the following conclusions:
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The total value of all services offered by the ecosystems may be estimated from the work capacity (eco-exergy) of the ecosystems.
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It is also a measure of the sustainability.
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We can divide the ecosystems in five classes according to how much we are able to utilize the entire spectrum of possible services.
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The sequence of our utilization of the ecosystem services is: lakes and rivers, coastal zones, wetlands, estuaries, open sea ecosystems,
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