Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being:
Basic Materials for a Good Life
(see figure on linkages in Box 3.1  ).
See also specific information for each main component:
"This refers to the ability to have a secure and adequate livelihood, including income and assets, enough food and water at all times, shelter, ability to have energy to keep warm and cool, and access to goods. Changes in provisioning services such as food, water, and fuelwood have very strong impacts on the adequacy of material for a good life. Access to these materials is heavily mediated by socioeconomic circumstances. For the wealthy, local changes in ecosystems may not cause a significant change in their access to necessary material goods, which can be purchased from other locations, sometimes at artificially low prices if governments provide subsidies (for example, water delivery systems). Changes in regulating services influencing water supply, pollination and food production, and climate have very strong impacts on this element of human well-being. These, too, can be mediated by socioeconomic circumstances, but to a smaller extent. Changes in cultural services have relatively weak linkages to material elements of well-being. Changes in supporting services have a strong influence by virtue of their influence on provisioning and regulating services. The following are some examples of material components of well-being affected by ecosystem change.
Income and Employment: Increased production of crops, fisheries, and forest products has been associated with significant growth in local and national economies. Changes in the use and management of these services can either increase employment (as, for example, when agriculture spreads to new regions) or decrease it through gains in productivity of labor. In regions where productivity has declined due to land degradation or overharvesting of fisheries, the impacts on local economies and employment can be devastating to the poor or to those who rely on these services for income.
Food: The growth in food production and farm productivity has more than kept pace with global population growth, resulting in significant downward pressure on the price of foodstuffs. Following significant spikes in the 1970s caused primarily by oil crises, there have been persistent and profound reductions in the price of foodstuffs globally (C8.1). Over the last 40 years, food prices have dropped by around 40% in real terms due to increases in productivity (C26.2.3). It is well established that past increases in food production, at progressively lower unit cost, have improved the health and well-being of billions, particularly the most needy, who spend the largest share of their incomes on food (C8.1). Increased production of food and lower prices for food have not been entirely positive. Among industrial countries, and increasingly among developing ones, diet-related risks, mainly associated with overnutrition, in combination with physical inactivity now account for one third of the burden of disease (R16.1.2). At present, over 1 billion adults are overweight, with at least 300 million considered clinically obese, up from 200 million in 1995 (C8.5.1).
Water Availability: The modification of rivers and lakes through the construction of dams and diversions has increased the water available for human use in many regions of the world. However, the declining per capita availability of water is having negative impacts on human well-being. Water scarcity is a globally significant and accelerating condition for roughly 1-2 billion people worldwide, leading to problems with food production, human health, and economic development. Rates of increase in a key water scarcity measure (water use relative to accessible supply) from 1960 to the present averaged nearly 20% per decade globally, with values of 15% to more than 30% per decade for individual continents (C7.ES). "
Source & ©
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
 Synthesis Report (2005),
Chapter 3, pp.50-51
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