Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect benefits that ecosystems provide humans. Agroecosystems, rangelands, and forests provide suites of ecosystem services that support and sustain human livelihoods. These services are typically broken down into four categories:
  • Provisioning services: the material or energy outputs from an ecosystem, including food, forage, fiber, fresh water, and other resources
  • Regulating services: benefits obtained through moderation or control of ecosystem processes, including regulation of local climate, air, or soil quality; carbon sequestration; flood, erosion, or disease control; and pollination
  • Supporting services: services that maintain fundamental ecosystem processes, such as habitat for plants and wildlife, or the maintenance of genetic and biological diversity
  • Cultural services: the non-material benefits that ecosystems provide to human societies and culture, including opportunities for recreation, tourism, aesthetic or artistic appreciation, and spirituality

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An oak woodland in California.

California's forests play a critical role in providing ecosystem services such as fresh air, clean water, timber, and spaces for cultural and recreational opportunities. From the open, grassy hillsides of blue oak woodlands, to the park-like settings of ponderosa forests, to the…

Keeping California Forests and Woodlands Healthy

Covers of brochures

The USDA Northern Forests Climate Hub and the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS) have partnered with the regional partners to develop a series of brochures designed to help private landowners consider climate change in the context of their woods. The brochures…

Forest Climate and Action Scorecards

The High Line is a green space in New York City

It’s important to properly plan an urban forest first in order to ensure the greatest chance of success. Location, planting timing, and tree species are all important aspects of a plan. To assist planners, West Virginia Division of Forestry recently updated two …

Tips for Urban Forest Planning

monarch butterfly and a bee visiting a swamp milkweed plant

Monarch conservation has inspired people across North America to protect and enhance pollinator habitat. Milkweed plants that serve as hosts for caterpillars and a nectar source for adult monarchs, are also important to other insects, birds, small mammals, amphibians and…

Monarch Butterfly and Milkweed Conservation Resources

Phyciodes pulchella in the Great Basin National Park Credt: Robert Webster / xpda.com / CC-BY-SA-4.0

Our national forests, shrublands and grasslands are composed of diverse assemblages of native forb species that support numerous pollinators. Disturbances, invasives and climate change threaten the diversity and abundance of native forbs, and therefore pollinators. Research and…

Investments in native forb research to promote pollinator health

Wild Rice

Non-forested wetlands are important habitats that can also help reduce climate change impacts within watersheds. The USDA Northern Forests Climate Hub and the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science has partnered with the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts to…

Climate Adaptation Tools for Wetland Conservation and Management

Huckleberries on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Huckleberries are culturally and ecologically important plant species in the Northwest that are affected by climate change and land management practices. In the Northwest, the majority of huckleberry habitat is located on lands managed by the US Forest Service. Fire management…

What We Know About Climate Change and Northwest Huckleberries

a typical silvopasture field that was developed from a slash pine plantation. Brush species invaded abundantly after the canopy was opened up and goats were used to manage the brush. Jim Robinson, USDA-NRCS

Forests store or sequester a lot of carbon. Nationwide, USDA Greenhouse Gas Inventories indicate that forests, urban trees, and harvested wood account for the majority of natural sinks of carbon dioxide (USDA OCE 2016). However, trees outside of forests, including those planted…

How can agroforestry support climate change mitigation in the Northeast?

Tree at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

The USDA Northern Forests Climate Hub and the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS) have partnered with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to develop a series of brochures that describe options landowners and land managers have to adapt…

NRCS practices can support climate change adaptation

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