Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and micro-organism communities and the non-living environment interacting as a functional unit. Ecosystems vary enormously in size; a temporary pond in a tree hollow and an ocean basin can both be ecosystems.

Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems.

These include:

• Provisioning services such as food and water.
• Regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation, and disease.
• Supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling.
• Economic value such as tourism.
• Cultural or social services such as health and wellbeing, recreational, spiritual, religious and other non-material benefits.

Ref Home Quality Mark One, Technical Manual SD239, England, Scotland & Wales, published by BRE in 2018.

NB Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis, Annex VII: Glossary, written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press in 2023, defines an ecosystem A functional unit consisting of living organisms, their non-living environment and the interactions within and between them. The components included in a given ecosystem and its spatial boundaries depend on the purpose for which the ecosystem is defined: in some cases, they are relatively sharp, while in others they are diffuse. Ecosystem boundaries can change over time. Ecosystems are nested within other ecosystems, and their scale can range from very small to the entire biosphere. In the current era, most ecosystems either contain people as key organisms or are influenced by the effects of human activities in their environment.

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• Biodiversity.
• BREEAM.
• Ecosystem approach.
• Ecosystem services.
• Ecological baseline.
• Ecological value.
• Ecological survey.
• Ecology.
• Ecology compensation.
• Green infrastructure.
• Habitat.
• Habitat Suitability Index
• Habitat survey
• Natural capital.
• Why creating new ponds helps to protect the ecosystem.

[edit] External references

• Albon S, Turner K and Watson R (2011) The UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis of the key findings, UNEP-WCMC.
• The SuDS Manual, CIRIA C753, 2015.
• Home Quality Mark One, Technical Manual SD239, England, Scotland & Wales, published by BRE in 2018.