Water supply

Ecosystems can contribute to water production by retaining water, allowing water to drain to replenish groundwater sources, and improving water quality. This water can be used for drinking water supply and private water extraction by industry (process and cooling water) and agriculture (irrigation).

On the other hand, ecosystems themselves also consume water. After all, plants and animals need water to survive.

It is possible to demonstrate the role that the ecosystem has in supplying water and maintaining water balance. This requires detailed information about the characteristics of the area and information about the water cycle (hydrological models).

In addition, the benefit also depends on the demand for water in a specific region. This service is therefore very difficult to summarize in a generic and easily applicable method.

There is a strong overlap between this provisioning service and a number of regulating services such as nutrient removal, water retention and water infiltration that need to be taken into account. Either you value these regulating services or you value the provisioning service of water use and try to link them to specific ecosystems.

In the Nature Value Explorer we have chosen to calculate the water supply service based on the nitrogen removal, water infiltration and water retention services.