LONDON GROUP MEETING BRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008 LONDON GROUP MEETING BRUSSELS, 29...

LONDON GROUP MEETINGBRUSSELS, 29 SEPTEMBER – 3 OCTOBER 2008


ACCOUNTING FOR SOIL IN THE SEEA - II

Session 4 Issues related to assets accounts

Jean-Louis WeberEuropean Environment Agency

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Storyline

• Following the presentation in the Rome 2007 LG meeting, a proposal for soil accounting has been asked to EEA & FAO. Such proposal has not yet been drafted.

• In the last year, soil have attracted higher attention in relation to:– The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity process steered

by EC/DGENV, UNEP and the German BMU;– creation of a soil “data centre” in the European Joint Research

Centre– the concern of future availability of soil resource for facing the

new food demand and competing agrofuels;– clear understanding that carbon sequestration is to a large

extent a soil issue, both considering agriculture practice [eg tillage] and forestry – see issue paper LG13_5 on Carbon binding of forests


Soil in SEEA

• In the SEEA2003 Classification of assets, soil is: – an attribute of land, as in SNA93– a natural resource

• Soil is just mentioned per memory in the SEEA2003 Ch8. • As an attribute of land, soil has an economic value

associated to land use. This is correct.• The status of soil as a natural resource is not clear in the

SEEA. “Natural resources” are extracted to become input to production. It is just marginally the case of soil. Soil can be used without any depletion; misuse of soil degrades or destroys soil.

• Soil should be accounted as an ecosystem as well, described by stocks and flows of components, health/resilience (stress and distress), functions and services.


Carbon storage & sequestration by soil: a flow account

4.5 - 6.5 Overall Annual Net Increase in Atmospheric Carbon

1102.5

Movement of C out of atmosphere (gigatons C/year) Incorporation into biosphere through photosynthesis

Diffusion into oceans

4 - 561 - 62502

Carbon flux into atmosphere (gigatons C/year) Fossil fuel burning

Soil organic matter oxidation / erosion Respiration from organisms in biosphere Deforestation

Source: Christine Jones, The Soil Carbon Manifesto


Forest, soil and carbon binding


Forest, soil and carbon binding

• soil is a sink of and a source of GHGs – the most important one

• beyond forest soil, agriculture soil and grassland play the essential role

• agriculture practices can result in sequestration or release of CO2 (and release of CH4)

• accounting for soil carbon should follow IPCC recommendation and make the broadest use of IPCC/UNFCCC monitoring and FAO statistics


OC_TOP:Topsoil Organic Carbon

Copyright 2004EurasianSoil DatabaseESB Network


??? Soil as a “natural resource”• The classification of soil within SEEA2003 “natural resources”

is questionable.

• When all other EA.1 Natural Resources are used by extraction, soil is used in situ – with the 2 exceptions of:– some use by horticulture and green houses, and flowers in pots;

note that in this case, soil matter is used more than once and should be accounted as a capital good.

– destruction of soil without using its biological properties (sealing, compaction) and partly erosion (an unwanted consequence)

• Similar difficulty with water, partly “abstractable natural resource” [the SEEA2003 favorite option] partly used in situ [in particular as soil water for vegetation – reintroduced in SEEAW]


??? Soil depletion and/or degradation• Soil can be used without physical depletion or degradation

(e.g. with systems of crops rotation, extensive pasture, soil protection target in DE is 500 years)

• Degradation of the soil of a particular parcel of land may result from external causes (e.g. upstream deforestation leading to erosion, atmospheric depositions...)

• Effects of soil depletion/degradation on agriculture are delayed over time: are these externalities within current value of crops?? No...

• Cost of replacing nutrients losses by mineral fertilizers is an imperfect provisional proxy – as the use of these fertilizers generates further degradation and co-lateral pollution

• ??? Depletion deals with adjusting rents while degradation deals with an additional consumption of renewable natural capital???


Soil as an ecosystem

• As an ecosystem, soil can be described by stocks and flows of components, health/resilience (stress and distress), functions and services.

• Soil is multifunctionnal (carbon storage, water purification, food production, etc)

• Soil is a socio-ecological system depending highly from both natural and anthropogenic factors

• The maintenance costs of soils are well known by agronomists… in developed and developing countries


Soil is a socio-ecological system

fertilizers

soil structure →capacity

Simplified model of soil system under conditions of organic (left) and intensive (right) farming.

[Yellow arrows: recycling of nutrients from dead organic matter]

Courtesy Ladislav Miko


Stocks, flows, threats and resilience

• Stocks of soil are assessed as complex material described by soil typology.

• They can be measured as well for each main components: minerals, biomass, Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium (N, P, K, the 3 main fertilizing elements), fauna, flora and water.

• Flow accounts can be (are) established for these components:– In asset accounts– In flow accounts (SUA, PIOT, Hybrid…)

• Soils are as well ecosystems which resilience depends from their biodiversity


Soil biodiversity• Soil is the more species-rich habitat of terrestrial

ecosystems • Soil's fauna is certainly not the most fashionable but the

functions it carries out are essential for biodiversity in general, i.e. for life.

Source: Thibaud Decaëns, Juan José Jiménez, Christophe Gioia, Patrick Lavelle, The values of soil animals for conservation biology, European Journal of Soil Biology, 2006


Functions of soil are multiple

• (a) the production function, producing crops; • (b) the carrier function, bearing traffic and buildings; • (c) the filter, buffer and reactor function, allowing

transformations of solutes passing through; • (d) the resource function, providing base material for

industry; • (e) the habitat function, providing a living environment for

plants and animals and • (f) the cultural and historic function, reflecting past

practices. (from Johan Bouma 2006)

• (g) the climate regulating function, by storing organic and inorganic carbon and sequestrating soil organic carbon (SOC) and by regulating water storage and evapotranspiration


Threats to soil

• Erosion• Organic matter decline• Compaction• Salinisation• Landslides • Contamination• Sealing



Implementation strategy: Physical accounts

• Knowledge on soils in countries and international organisations [first of all FAO] is huge

• Risk: being lost in the many, classification of soil types, databases, and maps

Start from the analysis of ecosystem services

• Then back from services to descriptors of stocks, flows, resilience, stress [digital functional mapping approach]

• Generalization of flows, threshold values on the basis of soil maps and databases


Implementation strategy: valuation• Valuation of flows:

– one by one: non-market end use ecosystem services [cultural and regulating services, including climate regulation]. How far can it be aggregated? Loss of income resulting from losses in fertility as an issue.

– holistically: additional costs for maintaining soil potential• full maintenance and restoration costs of soils in domestic products

• full maintenance cost of soils in imports

NB: cost of replacing nutrients losses by fertilizers is an imperfect provisional proxy.

• Valuation of assets:– Market price of land [sales, rents...] = mainly for agriculture

land– Inclusive wealth ???


Thank you!

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