Metrics for National and Regional Assessment of Aquatic, Marine, and Terrestrial Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS)

Abstract

Decision-makers want to know how environmental policy changes affect people, businesses, and communities. In many cases addressing this question requires natural and social scientists to link their understanding of ecological and social systems. The purpose of the research underlying this report is to improve that linkage by focus on what are called Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS).

This report is designed to provide environmental professionals with the background and methods necessary to integrate FEGS into environmental assessment and planning. FEGS are “biophysical components of nature that are directly enjoyed, consumed or used” by people (Boyd and Banzhaf 2007¹). This definition, grounded in well-developed economic theory, is specifically designed to facilitate interdisciplinary analysis. With FEGS one first identifies a user, or beneficiary, of nature and then asks how this beneficiary directly interacts with the environment.

The FEGS framework described here helps to operationalize ecosystem service analysis by:

• specifying the direct beneficiaries of ecosystem goods and service – a complete list of beneficiaries in provided in the NESCS Plus report; and
• identifying metrics of nature directly enjoyed or used by those beneficiaries.

These metrics are examples of a final ecosystem good (or environmental end product) that provides a final ecosystem service.

The focus of this project and report is on national and regional scale analysis, the scale at which Federal agencies and the Congress makes decisions. With some adaptations, the FEGS framework can work well at other scales for regional and state-based decision-making; we discuss this scaling adaption more in the discussion section of this report. The identification of the FEGS metric facilitates cross – disciplinary quantitative analysis, and qualitative understanding (Boyd et al. 2016²). This ecosystem service-based methodology can enhance environmental planning and decision-making that has become more central to federal agency planners (Boyd et al. 2016²).
Reference Cited:

^{1. Boyd, J., and S. Banzhaf. 2007. What are ecosystem services? The need for standardized environmental accounting units. Ecological Economics 63:616-626.}

^{2. Boyd, J., P. Ringold, A. Krupnick, R. J. Johnston, M. A. Weber, and K. Hall. 2016. Ecosystem Services Indicators: Improving the Linkage between Biophysical and Economic Analyses. International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics 8:359-443.}

Impact/Purpose

Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) are outward facing environmental outcome measures. As such they are biophysical outcomes that facilitate communication with lay publics as well as social and economic analysis. They are well grounded in economic theory and practice. The FEGS concept is a m parsimonious approach to identifying and organizing meaningful ecological indicators.

Citation

U.S. EPA. Metrics for National and Regional Assessment of Aquatic, Marine, and Terrestrial Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/645/R-20/002, 2020.

This document has been reviewed in accordance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

• Metrics for National and Regional Assessment of Aquatic, Marine, and Terrestrial Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) (PDF)  (109  pp, 3.2 MB, about PDF)
• Phifer - FEGS Metrics Report Appendix - Dec 2020 (PDF)  (48  pp, 2.4 MB, about PDF)
• Phifer - FEGS Metrics Report Appendix - Dec 2020 (Excel)

Related Link(s)

• EPA Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) Home