Ecosystem Services: Defining Nature’s Value

Ecosystem services are the essential benefits that healthy ecosystems provide to society. Grounded in robust ecological research and economic valuation, they fall into four interlinked categories:

  • Provisioning Services: Tangible resources, such as freshwater, food, timber, biofuels, fibers, and medicinal plants, that directly support livelihoods and economies.

  • Regulating Services: Natural processes that regulate climate, water quality, flood control, soil fertility, pollination, and disease control—essential functions that are often invisible yet foundational.

  • Supporting Services: Underpinning services like nutrient cycling, soil formation, and primary production that sustain all other ecosystem benefits.

  • Cultural Services: Non-material, yet critical, benefits related to recreation, aesthetic inspiration, spiritual identity, and educational value.

Why Ecosystem Services Matter

  • Human wellbeing & economic resilience: Ecosystem services supply essentials—clean water, food, climate regulation—and support industries ranging from agriculture to tourism.

  • Efficient natural infrastructure: Services such as flood mitigation and water purification often outperform built alternatives in terms of cost-effectiveness and sustainability.

  • Policy and planning insights: Placing an economic value on nature informs smarter, science-led policy decisions and investments in ecosystem-based management.

Implications for Policy & Management

  • Economic valuation tools—market pricing, contingent valuation, benefit transfer—aid decision-making but need careful application.

  • Ecosystem-based approaches—such as constructed wetlands, green infrastructure, and agroforestry—demonstrate sustainable, high-return alternatives to engineered systems.

  • Biodiversity’s role: Greater species diversity enhances service delivery (e.g., pollination stability, carbon uptake), reinforcing the need to protect and promote species richness.

Publications

Natural Capital Accounting on Forested Lands: An application to the Colorado River Basin (2025), by Warziniack, T., Collins, F., Bagstad, K., Knowles, M., Nehra, A., Rhodes, C., ... & Sims, C. B.

Will ecosystem services attract investors? (2023) Charles Sims, Ben Blachly, Travis Warziniack

Vulnerability of ecosystem services along the Colorado Front Range (Chapter 11) (2020) Travis Warziniack, Elizabeth Cox, Pam Froemke, Delilah Jaworski, Josh Sidon