Services Provided by Ecosystems
Last updated: 2025
Latest data available: 2022
Introduction
This indicator shows the overall trend in key ecosystem services being provided in the UK. The trends are calculated from data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Natural Capital Accounts. Trends are disaggregated by three broad groupings of ecosystem service: provisioning services, such as agricultural biomass provision; regulating services, such as air pollution regulation; and cultural services, such as the health benefits from recreation. Trends are provided at UK level, as well as disaggregated to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The indicator focuses on flows of ecosystem services rather than natural capital assets (i.e. use each year as opposed to the overall amount available), in accordance with the Convention on Biological Diversity’s international guidance for this indicator. In particular the indicator is focused on services particularly relevant to biodiversity (e.g. excluding the service of fossil fuel consumption). The indicator results provide a broad indication of change but should be viewed with consideration, bearing in mind the interpretation of ecosystem service trends is often complex and nuanced. The ONS natural capital accounts include further details on both ecosystem flows and natural capital assets for a wide range of services.
This indicator is a headline indicator that has been published as part of the UK’s response to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). It relates to GBF Goal B and Target 11.
Data for this indicator can be found in the published datafile.
Type of indicator
Benefit indicator
Type of official statistics
Official statistic in development
This indicator is classified as an official statistic in development as a new indicator that may be subject to change in future iterations, for example in the ecosystem services included. In addition, the data that this indicator is based on is published as an official statistic in development and so may change in the future. For more information, please visit the UK Statistics Authority’s website on types of official statistics.
Assessment of change
An assessment of change has not been carried out for this indicator. This indicator is useful in highlighting the vast value of ecosystem services, but requires careful interpretation. Further work would be needed in assessing the sustainability of service flows and potentially making further developments to the indicator before it would be appropriate to conduct an overall assessment of change.
Key results
The overall indicator value for the UK was 12% higher in 2022 than in 2014. Provisioning services increased by 17%, cultural services increased by 12%, and regulating services increased by 1% over this period (Table 1). The biggest increase in provisioning services was largely driven by renewable electricity provision.
When analysed individually, all regions of the UK also showed higher overall ecosystem service flows in 2022 compared to 2014 (ranging from 5% higher in Wales to 23% higher in Northern Ireland). The index values for individual countries also showed some variations between different ecosystem service groupings (Table 1). Most ecosystem service groupings across countries showed a similar or slightly higher level of ecosystem service in 2022 compared to 2014. However, Wales showed a lower value in 2022 for cultural services. The value for cultural services in Wales was due to a reduction in recreation and tourism (expenditure) as the number of outdoor recreation and tourism visits has declined in recent years. The biggest increase in an ecosystem service type at a country level was provisioning services in Northern Ireland. This was mostly driven by an increase in renewable energy provision.
Full results including for all years in the data series and for individual ecosystem services are available in the datafile.
Table 1: Indices of service flow values for the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in 2022, relative to a baseline value of 1 in 2014.
| Ecosystem service group | UK index | England index | Scotland index | Wales index | Northern Ireland index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1.12 | 1.16 | 1.09 | 1.05 | 1.23 |
| Provisioning | 1.17 | 1.24 | 1.10 | 1.17 | 1.37 |
| Regulating | 1.01 | 1.01 | 1.01 | 1.01 | 1.01 |
| Cultural | 1.12 | 1.14 | 1.16 | 0.83 | 1.15 |
Source: Office for National Statistics
Notes about Table 1
- Ecosystem services included in ‘Provisioning’ are: agricultural biomass provision, timber provision, woodfuel provision, water provision, and renewable electricity provision.
- Ecosystem services included in ‘Regulating’ are: air pollution regulation, and noise regulation.
- Ecosystem services included in ‘Cultural’ are: recreation (health benefits), and recreation and tourism (expenditure).
- Ecosystem services in the ‘Overall’ category include all of the above listed services.
Further detail
This indicator follows the international guidance for the GBF headline indicator B1, presenting the change in level of ecosystem services flows for a range of services over a time series. The indicator has been designed to focus on services particularly relevant to biodiversity, and excludes the service of provision of non-renewables e.g. fossil fuels, as they were considered less aligned with the purpose of the indicator. Further detail on how ecosystem services were selected for inclusion in the indicator is set out in the technical annex.
The interpretation of ecosystem service flows is not always straightforward from a conservation viewpoint, as the value of flows is dependent on both the capacity of the environment to provide the service, and on the demand for the service. For example, the value of the environment in regulating air pollution across the UK will increase if the capacity to regulate pollution goes up, for example if more trees were planted, but it could also go up if pollution levels rise, as this would also result in higher amounts of pollution being removed. As another example, the cultural service value obtained from recreation is dependent on people living near to areas of green space. An increase in this service could be due to a population increase, more housing being built in rural areas, improved transport links, more areas of accessible greenspace being created in urban areas, or, a combination of these. The same caution on interpretation should be taken into account when making any comparisons between countries.
It is important to note that while the environment may be providing more of a service, it is not always clear what this means for the environment overall, and what the longer term impacts will be. Further investigation and an assessment of the sustainability of data flows would be needed for each service before it would be appropriate to complete a formal assessment of change for this indicator. The indicator should be considered in parallel with other indicators that more directly measure the health of the environment, for example the UK Biodiversity Indicator on the Red List of Ecosystems.
This indicator is based on the UK Natural Capital Accounts published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which provides a fuller picture considering both ecosystem service flows and assets. Defra publish a useful summary report that draws out key messages with lots of advice on interpretation of ecosystems accounting. Valuing ecosystem services, both when considering flows and assets, is challenging, and there are philosophical problems with equating the value of something solely to its usefulness. However, the use of environmental economic accounting is gaining traction internationally, and despite the limitations, can be very useful in raising awareness of the value of the environment and ensuring it is not overlooked and taken for granted.
Relevance
This indicator provides a broad indication of changes in the provision of ecosystem services over time, based on available data. Ecosystems provide many services that humans rely on for survival, wellbeing and economic prosperity, for example, their contribution to providing clean air for us to breathe, and healthy soils for crops to grow in.
International/domestic reporting
The suite of UK Biodiversity Indicators has been revised and updated to bring it in line with the GBF of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Some UKBIs, including this headline indicator, will be used for the forthcoming UK national reports to the CBD.
This indicator links to GBF Goal B ‘Prosper with Nature’, and GBF Target 11 - Restore, Maintain and Enhance Nature’s Contributions to People.
Web links for further information
- GBF B1 indicator metadata: Factsheet
- Overview of ONS and Defra work and publications on natural capital
- Office for National Statistics publication: UK Natural Capital Accounts 2024
- Defra report summarising key messages from the Natural Capital Accounts- UK 2024
- The UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Ecosystem Accounting
- Information about Defra’s Natural Capital Ecosystem Assessment Programme
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the many people who have contributed by providing data and to the many colleagues who have helped produce this indicator. In particular, thanks to colleagues in ONS and Defra for advice.
Technical annex
Methodology
Data used
This indicator relies on ecosystem service flow data from the UK’s Natural Capital Accounts 2024 published by the ONS with support from Defra. Detail on methods for how the valuations for different ecosystem services were calculated, and specific caveats relevant to their calculations can be found in the UK natural capital accounts methodology guide: 2024.
Selection of services for inclusion
Ecosystem services selected for inclusion in this indicator were chosen on the basis of data availability, pragmatism and alignment with the purpose of the indicator. Most of the ecosystem services reported on in the UK’s Natural Capital Accounts were included in the indicator. However, the broad range of ecosystem services covered in the UK Natural Capital Accounts included some services less relevant to biodiversity. Ideally an increase in this indicator value should correspond with increased ‘prospering with nature’ (GBF Goal B) and increased ‘restoring, maintaining and enhancing nature’s contribution to people’ (GBF Target 11). It was therefore decided to exclude the service of provision of non-renewable resources including coal, oil and gas, and minerals and metals provision. In addition, the provisioning service of fish provision was excluded due to complexities in understanding its sustainability, and the desire to reduce the risk of this indicator declining in response to any future conservation measure to reduce quotas to improve sustainability of fish stocks. Inclusion of this service may be reconsidered in the future.
The ecosystem service of greenhouse gas regulation was also excluded. Although this is an important ecosystem service, its inclusion was complicated from both statistical and interpretation points of view. The UK’s Natural Capital Accounts show that there is a lot of variation across the UK in the ability of natural habitats to absorb carbon. This ability depends on both the habitat type and condition, for example, degraded peatlands are net emitters of carbon, whilst peatlands in good condition, along with most woodland habitats tend to accrue carbon. Overall the UK’s natural habitats, whilst having high potential to regulate greenhouse gasses, are currently net emitters of carbon. A further complication relating to interpretation is that habitat restoration often results in a short-term release of carbon before the habitat switches to accruing carbon. Alongside the complexities in interpretation, the negative numbers in the natural capital accounts made it complicated to incorporate into the statistics used for this indicator. As such, this service is currently excluded from the indicator, although its inclusion may be reconsidered in the future.
Calculating indicator values
This indicator converts the data on annual service values to an overall index of change for groups of ecosystem services.
The indicator was produced using the following multi-step approach:
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The first step in indicator development was to normalise the annual service flow values to a baseline year (2014) using an indexing approach. Each year’s value was divided by the 2014 value to express change over time relative to the 2014 values, enabling consistent comparison across years.
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Secondly a geometric mean of the newly transformed index values was calculated across all services for each year.
2014 was chosen as the baseline year for the series because all ecosystem services included in the indicator had data from this point onwards. The final index value in the data series (2022) is reported as the indicator value. 2022 was the latest year for which data was available for all services.
This approach evens out the difference in units associated with the different ecosystem services.
The indicator is calculated for different groups of ecosystem services, ‘Provisioning services’ comprising of agricultural biomass timber provision, woodfuel provision, water provision, and renewable electricity provision, ‘Regulating services’ comprising air pollution regulation and noise regulation, and ‘Cultural services’ comprising recreation (health benefits) and recreation and tourism (expenditure). The overall indicator figure is a grouping including all of the above services.
The calculations were performed for data at UK level, and then repeated for data at England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland level, using the relevant data tables from the UK Natural Capital Accounts 2024.
Caveats and limitations
While this indicator offers a useful overview of whether services may be increasing or decreasing, interpreting these changes is inherently complex from a conservation viewpoint, for example because the value of flows is dependent on both the capacity of the environment to provide the service, and on the demand for the service. Ecosystem services vary widely in how and why they are valued, and constructing indices to represent them involves significant assumptions. As such, the indicator should be viewed as a general signal rather than a precise measure, and its results interpreted with consideration.
Please see the UK natural capital accounts methodology guide: 2024 for details of how flows for individual ecosystem services were calculated.
Development plan
This is a new indicator. Further developments to the indicator during the coming years will be considered, for example by reviewing which ecosystem services are included. This may include considering sustainability for service provision, for example by considering changes in ecosystem assets data or other data sets.
We would like to hear from our users about these intended changes, the language and visualisations used in this indicator, as well as our published development plan for the biodiversity indicators: please email us.
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