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The more one works with the self‐designing ability of Nature, the lower the costs of energy to maintain that system. Ecosystem‐specific space–time scales. Processes of ecosystems have characteristic time and space scales that should be accounted for in environmental management. Chemical and biological diversity Chemical and biological diversity contribute to the spectrum of buffering capacities and the self‐designing ability of ecosystems. A wide variety of chemical and biological components should be introduced or maintained for the ecosystem's self‐designing ability to choose from. Thereby, a broad spectrum of buffer capacities is available to meet the impacts of anthropogenic pollution. Transition zones and agricultural management. Transition zones are as important for ecosystems as membranes are for cells. Agricultural management should therefore consider the importance of transition zones. Coupling between ecosystems and agricultural management. Coupling between ecosystems should be used to the benefit of ecosystems in the application of ecotechnology and environmental management of agricultural systems. Ecotechnology, environmental management, and components of ecosystems. The application of ecotechnology and environmental management must consider that the components of an ecosystem are interconnected and interrelated and form a network, which implies that direct, as well as indirect, effects are relevant. Ecosystem history. It is important to realize that, overall, an ecosystem has a history in the application of ecotechnology and environmental management. Ecosystems and geographical edges. Ecosystems are most vulnerable at the geographical edges; therefore, ecological management should take advantage of ecosystems and their biota in their optimal geographical range. Ecosystem hierarchy. Ecosystems are hierarchical systems, and all the components forming the various levels of the hierarchy make up a structure that is important for ecosystem functioning.

1.3 Ecosystem Services: History, Concepts, and Dimensions

      Close your eyes, prick your ears, and from the softest sound to the wildest noise, from the simplest tone to the highest harmony, from the most violent, passionate scream to the gentlest words of sweet reason, it is by Nature who speaks, revealing her being, her power, her life, and her relatedness so that a blind person, to whom the infinitely visible world is denied, can grasp an infinite vitality in what can be heard.

       Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      Ancient thinkers emphasized the first concepts of services provided by Nature to human beings, nurturing what we today call provision services and enjoying sounds, auras, and odors that nurture body and soul. The book On Airs, Waters and Places by Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) – a Greek philosopher considered the father of medicine in the Western world – correlates the environment to different nosological frameworks and population features and includes aspects of daily activities and environmental effects on individuals' health in its analysis.

      Services provided by ecosystems to human beings have been described in mythological, philosophical, scientific, and poetic texts. However, it was naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt who bequeathed us our current vision of Nature. Humboldt – who was influenced by the poet Goethe, the philosopher Kant, English romantic writers, and American transcendentalists – offered the idea that Nature exists only insofar as we perceive it within us; according to him, the outer world, ideas, and feelings were associated with each other, so he wrote: “Nature must be known through feelings” [13]. In addition, Humboldt sought to unravel God's designs through Nature.

      Alexander von Humboldt's vision was lost over time; however, it was recovered from the 1970s onwards primarily due to the academic elaboration of the concept of Nature services by botanist Walter Westman. Certainly our current vision of services provided by ecosystems has deep roots stemming from Humboldt's contribution, such as the concept of cultural, leisure, and religious services, which play a fundamental role in nourishing the immaterial dimension of human beings.

      When Walter Westman formulated the concept of Nature services, he pointed out that benefits deriving from ecosystems should be listed to increase public interest in biodiversity conservation and ensure that decisions are made based on robust information. Later, in 1981, Paul and Anne Ehrlich [14] suggested the term ecosystem services, which is used today.

The contribution of ecosystems to human wellbeing has been described based on the concept of ecosystem services, which was introduced in the 1970s [15] – as previously highlighted – although it was only consolidated in the 1990s due to the economic valuation of 17 services by Costanza et al. [1]. The diffusion of this concept beyond the academic environment became evident after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [16], when studies associated with this concept began to gain attention (Figure 1.5). Its importance was acknowledged by various fields of knowledge (Figure 1.6); by professionals from all over the world (Figure 1.7), primarily from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Germany, and Australia; and by the business sector [17].

      Several definitions of ecosystem services are available in the literature. MEA, for example, has defined ecosystem services as the benefits humanity gets from ecosystems [16], whereas Constanza et al. [1] defined them as the direct and indirect human benefits resulting from ecosystem functions. Thus, functions are biophysical ecosystem features essential to their own functioning, and services are the product of two or more ecosystem functions; a single ecosystem function can contribute to two or more ecosystem services.

Figure 1.5 Articles, reviews, and books published on ecosystem services.

      Source: Data from 1984 to 2019, Scopus 2020.

Figure 1.6 Articles, reviews, and books published on ecosystem services by country or territory.

      Source: Data from 1984 to 2019, Scopus 2020.

The primary idea observed in the relevant literature on this topic is that the concept of ecosystem services is inherently anthropocentric – as seen in Costanza et al. [1], De Groot et al. [18], Daily and Farley [19], MEA [16], Boyd and Banzhaf [20], and Fisher et al. [21] – since human presence is a valorization agent that allows us to view basic ecological structures and processes as entities full of value, as advocated by De Groot et al. [18].

Figure 1.7 Articles, reviews, and books published on ecosystem services by area.

      Source:

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