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The natural capital accounting opportunity: Let's really do the numbers

December 1, 2018

The nation’s economic accounts provide objective, regular, and standardized information routinely relied upon by public and private decision makers. But they are incomplete. The U.S. and many other nations currently do not account for the natural capital — such as the wildlife, forests, grasslands, soils, and water bodies—upon which all other economic activity rests. By creating formal natural capital accounts (NCA) and ecosystem goods and services (EGS) accounts, governments and businesses can better understand the past, peer into the future, innovate, conserve, and plan for environmental shocks. They would standardize, regularly repeat, and aggregate diverse natural resource, environmental, and social and economic data and could thereby play a significant role in advancing the science of coupled biophysical and social systems.

Publication Year 2018
Title The natural capital accounting opportunity: Let's really do the numbers
DOI 10.1093/biosci/biy135
Authors James W. Boyd, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Jane Carter Ingram, Carl D. Shapiro, Jeffery Adkins, C. Frank Casey, Clifford S. Duke, Pierre D. Glynn, Erica Goldman, Monica Grasso, Julie L. Hass, Justin A. Johnson, Glenn-Marie Lange, John Matuszak, Ann Miller, Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Stephen M. Posner, Charles Rhodes, Francois Soulard, Michael Vardon, Ferdinando Villa, Brian Voigt, Scott Wentland
Publication Type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Series Title BioScience
Index ID 70201736
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center; John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis