EMERGY SYNTHESIS 5: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology

Proceedings from the Fifth Biennial Emergy Conference, Gainesville, Florida

Edited by Mark T. Brown University of Florida Gainesville, Florida

Managing Editor Sharlynn Sweeney University of Florida Gainesville, Florida

Associate Editors Daniel E. Campbell US EPA Narragansett, Rhode Island

Shu-Li Huang National Taipei University Taipei, Taiwan

Enrique Ortega State University of Campinas Campinas, Brazil

Torbjorn Rydberg Centre for Sustainable Agriculture ,

David Tilley University of Maryland College Park, Maryland

Sergio Ulgiati Parthenope University of Napoli Napoli, Italy

December 2009 The Center for Environmental Policy Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences University of Florida Gainesville, FL

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Ecosystem Services in Relation to the Local Renewable Emergy Sources – Experiences from a Case Study in Northern Sweden

Erik Grönlund and Maria Salomonsson

ABSTRACT

A rough emergy analysis, mainly addressing the value of R (local renewable annual emergy) in the five northern of Sweden, was performed to a regional conference on sustainable growth 2007, with the objective to assess the ecosystem services (ES) in the counties. However, in the conference conclusions it was pointed out that R was not the same as the ES. Rather R was communicated as the driving forces behind the ES and probably a higher limit for the ES. In the present paper a deeper discussion of the relation between R and the ES concludes that the ES are always larger than R in emergy terms, since an independent feedback (F) of goods, services and information is always present in real systems. It is also concluded that ES in the emergy context differs from the more common use of the ES concept in literature, in this paper represented by the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MEA). Of the four types of ES defined in MEA, two (the provisioning and supporting services) are probably to a large extent included in the emergy view of ES. However, the regulating services and the cultural services are not as obviously included in the emergy framework.

INTRODUCTION

A simplified emergy evaluation project (from here called “the Östersund conference project”) was conducted to form the basis of a presentation at a conference in November 2007 in Östersund1, Sweden (Grönlund 2008). The purpose of the emergy evaluation was to estimate the ecosystem services contributed from the counties of northern Sweden. At the start of the Östersund conference project the authors had the opinion that the local renewable inputs (R) were a measure of the ecosystem services (ES). However, the project group came to the conclusion that the relationship between R and ES was not that simple. At the project presentation R was presented as the driving forces that have to flow through the present ecosystems of forests, lakes, agricultures and so on, before the ecosystem services could be delivered to the human economies. The objective of this paper is to further problematize the relation between R and ecosystem services (ES). The paper has the following structure: Section 2 is a summary of the results presented at the Östersund conference project. Section 3 is a brief presentation of a commonly used ES approach: the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s classification of ecosystem services. In section 4 the relation between R and ES is discussed, and related to the important paper regarding natural capital in the biosphere by Brown & Ulgiati (1999), and the view on ES presented by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment approach.

1 “The Northern Counties in and the World”, held 28-29 November 2007 in Östersund, Sweden.

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SUMMARY OF THE ÖSTERSUND CONFERENCE PROJECT

The five northern counties of Sweden (Figure 1) – Gävleborg (X), Västernorrland (Y), Jämtland (Z), Västerbotten (AC) and (BD) – constitute over half of the countries land area, but only a little over 10% of the population. The counties part of Gross National Production (GNP) is of the same order, slightly less than 10%. The counties are net exporters of wood, hydropower, and ores, mainly iron ores. In order to estimate the ecosystem services from the northern counties, emergy calculations were made based on the national emergy analysis for Sweden 2002 by Hagström & Nilsson (2004). The locally renewable inputs (R) to the 5 northern counties of Sweden were roughly estimated by area part of the national analysis. Regional F’s were estimated based on a mix of population intensity and economic activity (the Gross Regional Economic Product, GRP). The regional N’s were calculated based on location of existing mines and their production in 2002. For comparison the same calculations were made for the more economic intense (AB) and the counties situated around the Lake Mälaren, “Mälardalen” (Counties AB, C, D, T, and U in Figure 1).

Figure 1. a) Relative distribution of Sweden’s population of approximately 9 million inhabitants, 8 million living in the southern part and 1 million in the northern part. b) The counties of Sweden. X, Y, Z, AC, and BD are the five northern counties in scope of this paper. c) Gross Regional Economic Product per county and sector. The sectors are (clockwise from 12 o’clock) goods, services, public authorities, and other. From Swedish National Statistics Agency (www.scb.se, 2008).

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Figure 2. Evaluation of Sweden 2002 (Hagström & Nilsson, 2004) and Jämtland County (Z). Italic numbers are billion Swedish crowns per year, E9 SEK/year. Other numbers are emergy expressed in Swedish currency, E9 EmSEK/year.

CONFERENCE CONCLUSIONS

In Figure 2 and Table 1 are presented the emergy calculation base from the national analysis of Sweden 2002 (Hagström & Nilsson, 2004), the Gross Regional Economic Product (GRP) from the Swedish National Statistics Agency (www.scb.se), and the estimations of R, N, and F for the five northern counties. The emergy values are presented in Swedish currency billion emergy monetary units (E9 EmSEK/year), calculated from seJ to EmSEK based on the national 2002 seJ/SEK ratio presented by Hagström & Nilsson (2004).

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Table 1. The measured flows in Figure 2 for 6 counties and 2 regions. R N F GRP (E9EmSEK/yr) (E9 EmSEK/yr) (E9 EmSEK/yr) (E9 SEK/yr) Z (Jämtland County) 29 3 33 28 X 14 0 73 61 Y 15 0 63 61 AC 36 4 68 56 BD 61 127 65 60 AB () 9 1 484 682 155 134 303 266 (X,Y,Z,AC,BD) Mälardalen Region 28 9 770 928 (AB,C,D,T,U)

Figure 3. Comparison of Emergy per SEK ratios between, left, the counties of Jämtland (Z) and Stockholm (AB), and, right, the regions of Norrland and Mälardalen.

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A comparison was also made between one of the northern counties, Jämtland County (Z), with the most populated county, Stockholm County (AB). Their emergy per SEK ratios were compared, as is done between countries by Odum (1996:210-211). The same procedure was also done between the five northern counties (“Norrland”) and the more economic intense “Mälardalen” counties, see Figure 3. The ratio of the “EmSEK per SEK in Z” and “EmSEK per SEK in AB” in Figure 4 was 3.2, and in the Norrland/Mälardalen comparison the ratio was 2.5. The interpretation given to these ratios at the Östersund conference were:

™ When a company or a person in Stockholm County or Mälardalen buys a good or a service from Jämtland County or Norrland, the company or he/she receives approximately 3 times as much ecosystem services for free, as if the opposite trade was made (as concluded for international exchange between nations in Odum (1996:210-211). ™ A hidden stream of ecosystem services is accumulated from the northern counties to Stockholm and Mälardalen. ™ This calculation example gives an interesting basis for compensating flows from Stockholm- Mälardalen to the northern counties. ™ So, on one hand the emergy calculations show that the exchange between the regions is unequal. Stockholm-Mälardalen receives more with the trade... ™ ...On the other hand the system theory behind the emergy calculations shows the dependency between the two regions (the energy hierarchy connections in both directions), because ... ™ … Stockholm-Mälardalen generates things that the Northern counties cannot generate to the same amount, and which the northern counties need, as enough capital and, to some degree, knowledge… ™ … And the opposite: the northern counties generate things that Stockholm-Mälardalen cannot generate to the same amount.

The calculations did not include trade with any other country, but with the European and global trade focus of the Östersund conference the following conclusions were inferred:

™ The Emergy/€ ratio may… • …show that the northern counties have a larger part of the resource base than average. • …give guidance to the size of compensation of ecosystem services in trade with other countries and regions in the world. • …quantify the dependence between more intense and extensive regions.

In the Östersund conference presentation it was underlined that a step 2 was necessary (Figure 4) where the driving flows (R) where separated in different types as forest, agriculture land, water flows et cetera, as well as the storages were estimated. As a summary regarding the emergy method it was claimed at the Östersund conference presentation that emergy evaluation compared to other methods used to assess the ecosystem services, quite easily could assess the sum of the ecosystem services. For example neoclassical economists use hypothetical markets to assess the value of the population of wolfs in a region. At the same time another hypothetical market valuation could have been used for other species in the same region. These different sums are probably not aloud to sum up. The emergy value can handle this problem of double counting and give guidance to the maximum sum of value from different ecosystem services that a region have.

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Figure 4. To the left is marked with rings the estimated R and the not measured but wanted ecosystem service (ES) flow to the economy. To the right is again marked (arrow) the wanted ES and also the wanted storage of forests, water, and agriculture land et cetera.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEMS ASSESSMENT’S VIEW

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) was chosen to represent a type of the most common definition of ecosystem services. The MEA subdivide the ecosystem services into four

522 categories: Provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services and supporting services, see below (from www.maweb.org, 2008, Box 2.1.):

™ Provisioning Services: These are the products obtained from ecosystems, including: food, fibers, fuel, genetic resources, biochemicals, natural medicines and pharmaceuticals, ornamental resources, freshwater, and so on. ™ Regulating Services: These are the benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes, including: air quality regulation, climate regulation, water quality and quantity regulation, erosion control, water purification and waste treatment, disease control, pest control, pollination process, and so on. ™ Cultural Services: These are the non-material benefits that the people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences, including: cultural diversity, spiritual and religious values, knowledge systems (traditional and formal), educational values, inspiration, aesthetic values, social relations, sense of place, cultural heritage values, recreation and ecotourism. ™ Supporting Services: Supporting services are those that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services. They differ from provisioning, regulating, and cultural services in that their impacts on people are often indirect or occur over a very long time, whereas changes in the other categories have relatively direct and short-term impacts on people. (Some services, like erosion control, can be categorized as both a supporting and a regulating service, depending on the time scale and immediacy of their impact on people). Soil formation, photosynthesis primary production, nutrient cycling and water cycling are examples of supporting services.

DISCUSSION

During the Östersund conference project the authors revised their view on the relation between the renewable emergy flows (R) and the ecosystem services (ES), from assuming R being identical to ES, to adopt the view presented in Figure 4 that R can be interpreted as the annual driving forces behind the ecosystem services. This change of view is further problematized in this section.

Is R the Ecosystem Services?

Starting from Figure 4, an interesting question is how the size of R is related to the ecosystem services (ES) delivered to society. At first thought it can be assumed to be smaller than or as high as R, since R is the driving force of the production systems delivering the ecosystem services, of course compensated for the changes in storages in the production systems. However, this is not as obvious as it seems. In Figure 5a R1 is the driving force of a production system P1, which delivers ecosystem services (ES1) to a human system C1. C1 is importing F1 from other times or places in the biosphere and is reinforcing P1 to deliver more ES1. As most common in today’s human societies F1 is probably fossil fuel and ores, partly used as machinery and information (knowledge) to reinforce P1 to deliver ES1. This means that the part of F1 reinforcing P1 should be added to R1 when assessing ES1. In this case ES1 is probably larger than R1. Figure 5b shows a smaller system P2 delivering ecosystem services to human society C2 using the same source as in Figure 5a. An important conclusion from the figure is that there are no human systems relying only on local renewable. Even a hunter-gatherer society, from Paleoliticum, imported emergy (F2) as, for example, flint stone and cultural information. An example from a very large area is the Eurasian taiga rock art pictures from Stone Age, which infers a cultural influence spread from Scandinavia in west to east Siberia in east (Lofterud, 2002). A human society supported only by local

523 renewable resources must have been extreme exceptions in human history, even if also local non- renewable resources are included. This leads to the general conclusion regarding ecosystem services that, in principle, they are always larger than R. However, Figure 5b also adds, compared to Figure 5a, another non-human system, perhaps competing. In the case of the extensive hunter-gatherer society the non-human use track is, as represented, probably larger than the human use track. An interesting semantic question arises from this figure: should the term ecosystem service be used also for the arrow between P2’ and C2’, or should ecosystem services be used exclusively for human use systems? In economic science the scope is anthropocentric and in this context the term ecosystem services is used exclusively for human benefits. That this is not self evident in an emergy context, underlines the ecocentric approach in emergy thinking. Another interesting question is if the R2 and R2’ are splits or co-products? In Figure 5b we set them as co-products, since they are believed covering the same geographic area. If Figure 5b shows a low intensive human use of nature, Figure 5c more likely show today’s situation of more intensive human use of nature, where the non-human use of R is less than the human use.

R Present with or without Human Use, and Regardless Of Size of System P-C

It should be pointed out that R, the way it is currently accounted in emergy evaluation (Odum, 1996), will be approximately the same whether it is used or not. How R is used by the human or other system is a question of the organization and effectiveness of that system. One can argue that the ecosystems and societies has been there for a long time (in relation to their internal ability and mechanisms of change, where societies change must faster than “natural” ecosystems), and can be assumed to utilize the R flow quite efficiently. However, in her thesis, Johanna Björklund (2000), question if modern societies have reached maximum empower in the same way the natural system have.

The Brown & Ulgiati (1999) Ambio-Paper

In a paper in Ambio, Brown & Ulgiati (1999) address the question of natural capital in the biosphere. Their position is that there “...is confusion in the literature concerning what is an environmental service, an environmental good, natural capital, or human released energy...”, referring to Costanza et al. (1997a), Costanza et al. (1997b), Daily (1997) and Pimentel et al. (1997). In a system diagram they clarify their meaning, which is similar to our Figure 5 in the sense that the label environmental service is what we labeled ES in Figure 5a. Brown & Ulgiati (1999) present numbers for renewable driving forces (R), storage of local slow-renewable sources (plant biomass, soil organic matter, animals and water), and non-renewable (fossil fuels and minerals), but no numbers for environmental services are presented. However, their Figure 1 implies that environmental service numbers are larger than R numbers, since they also consist of society feedbacks consisting partly of flows from local slow-renewable and non-renewable sources created at other times than the system window. At least our discussion above regarding R and ES is not obviously contradicted by the Brown & Ulgiati (1999) paper.

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Figure 5. Examples showing the ecosystem services (ES) to be always larger than R, when F is present.

Comparison with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment List

Comparing with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) list in Table 1, the following comments may be adequate: • The provisioning services (food, fibre, (biological) fuels et cetera) and the supporting services (soil formation, photosynthesis, primary production, nutrient cycling, and water cycling) we believe are included in P1 in Figure 5a. However, the emergy values possible to calculate will include some of the historical ecosystem work imported from other times and places in the biosphere through the flow F1. This is probably not what is intended in the MEA table. • The regulating services and cultural services are not as obviously valuated in the frame presented in Brown & Ulgiati (1999) and complemented in this paper. • However, all of the items listed under regulating services and cultural services in the MEA table, can be set as Y in a local emergy evaluation. It is, however, not clear whether this will correspond to the view presented in the MEA table.

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CONCLUSIONS

This paper concludes that the original R values presented at the regional Northern counties conference, not necessary (at least not per definition) correspond with the ecosystem services (ES) supporting the human societies of the evaluated counties. However, since the ecosystems and the societies have been there for a long time it may be likely that they utilize the R capacity efficiently. The ecosystem services may therefore be assumed to be of the same order as the R values. The view on the concept of ecosystem services presented in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) project, are different than the view presented in this paper and in the paper on Natural capital of the biosphere by Brown & Ulgiati (1999). The MEA intention and cognitive view regarding ES, seem to be without human interference (“natural”) more resembling the way R is used in this paper. ES in the emergy perspective, however, always seem to include indirect interaction with a second independent source F.

REFERENCES

Brown, M. T. and Ulgiati, S. 1999. Emergy evaluation of the biosphere and natural capital. Ambio 28(6): 486-493. Björklund, J. 2000. Emergy analysis to assess ecological sustainability. Strengths and weaknesses. Doctoral Thesis, Department of Ecology and Crop Production Science, Swedish University of Agriculture, Uppsala. Costanza, R., Cumberland, J.H., Daly, H., Goodland, R. and Norgaard, R.B. 1997a. An introduction to ecological economics. St. Lucie Press, Boca Raton, FL. USA Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., de Groot, R., Farberk, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S., O’Neill, R.V., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R.G., Suttonkk, P. and van den Beltl, M. 1997b. The value of the world´s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387: 253-280. Daily, G. (ed). 1997. Natures Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press; Washington DC. Grönlund, E. 2008. Räkna med miljön – hur stora är gratistjänsterna från naturen i Norrland? [Count on the environment–how big are the free services from nature in northern Sweden?] Documentation of a presentation from the conference “Norrland i Europa och Världen” [Northern Sweden in Europe and the World], held in Östersund, November 28, 2007. County Administration of Jämtland, Östersund, Sweden. In Swedish. Hagström, P., and Nilsson, P.O. 2004. Emergy Evaluation of the Swedish Economy since the 1950s in M. T. Brown, ed. Emergy Synthesis 3: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology. Proceedings from the Third Biennial Emergy Research Conference, Gainesville, Florida, January, 2004. The Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA (in press). Lofterud, C. 2002. Älgkon skapade världen [The elk cow created the World]. Lofterud Produktion, Nälden, Sweden. In Swedish. Odum, H. T. 1996. Environmental accounting. Emergy and environmental decision making. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. Pimentel, D., Wilson, C., McCullum, C., Huang, R., Dwen, P., Flack, J., Tran, Q., Saltman, T. and Cliff, B. 1997. Economic and environmental benefits of biodiversity. BioScience 47:747-757.

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