Sustainability assessment and causality nexus through ecosystem service accounting: The case of water purification in Europe

The paper builds on the Supply and Use Tables module within the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts - Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA-EEA), a consistent proposal for ecosystem services accounting developed by the UN in collaboration with several other international organizations and aimed at launching applications worldwide. We explore developments and evolution of Supply and Use Tables from the System of National Accounts (SNA) to the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts - Central Framework (SEEA-CF) to the SEEA-EEA, and we propose a further extension. We in fact hypothesise to enlarge the scope of the SNA production boundary in order to include ecosystem types as accounting units reporting production, consumption and changes in regeneration and absorption rates. The implications of this choice are first explained in the methodological section and then shown in the application where the water purification service is tested against two major policy issues: sustainability assessment and causality nexus. The paper highlights how the overall outcomes change when considering different scales: continental and national levels. Taking advantage of the experimental opportunities offered by operating with external satellite accounts we are able to show how the proposed complementary tables could support policy action.JRC.D.3-Land Resource