Marine ecological capital is defined as marine ecological resources which are able to have direct or indirect positive influences in human’s social and economic production and provide benefits for human. Marine ecological capital value consists of the existing value of marine ecological resources, as well as the marine ecosystem service value. The assessment of marine ecological capital includes marine ecological resources and marine ecosystem services. Marine ecosystem services consist of four groups of services (i.e. provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services) and 16 subgroups of services. Provisioning services consist of maricultral production, fishing production, oxygen production, raw material production, and genetic resources supply; Regulating services consist of climate regulation, waste treatment, biological control, and disturbance regulation; Cultural services consist of recreational service, cultural usage, and scientific service; Supporting services consist of primary production, nutrients cycling, species diversity maintenance, and ecosystem diversity maintenance.
Considering the utilization patterns of ecosystem services in China coastal waters, this paper developed the assessment methods of marine ecosystem services in both mass and monetary under the marine ecological capital frameworks. We selected 9 services among the above 16 services to be valued and summed up as the total value of ecosystem services. Moreover for each service, its evaluation methods, calculation formulas, parameters and data resources are given too. Maricultural, fishing, and oxygen productions are selected to assess provisioning services. Climate regulation and waste treatment are selected to assess regulating services. Recreational and scientific services are chosen to assess cultural services. Species and ecosystem diversity maintenances are chosen to assess supporting services. The market-price method is recommended to valuate maricultural and fishing productions. The replaced-cost method is recommended to valuate oxygen production, waste treatment, and scientific service. The replaced-market-price method is recommended to valuate climate regulation. The travel-cost method and replaced-income method are recommended to valuate recreational service. The contingent-value method is recommended to valuate species and ecosystem diversity maintenances.Currently, the services including raw material, cultural usage, biological control, and disturbance regulation services from marine ecosystems were excluded from the calculation monetary value of marine ecosystem services, because it is difficult to access the statistical data for assessment; also it is unclear to how to valuate cultural usage and genetic resources supply provided from marine ecosystem. Primary production provides energy and carbon, while nutrients cycling provide nitrogen, phosphorous and silicate, to support the smooth run of marine ecosystem. However human being does not directly or indirectly use primary production, nutrients cycling from sea. Moreover the benefits human get from these two services have been calculated during calculating the other services (i.e. maricultural, fishing and raw material production, waste treatment). Therefore, primary production and nutrients cycling should not be evaluated in monetary term, but they may be evaluated in mass term.
This set of assessment methods of marine ecosystem services has been applied to evaluate the ecosystem services of Shandong provincial coastal waters located in Yellow Sea and of Dongshan and Luoyuan bays located in East China Sea. These assessment methods have been adopted by China's "Technical Directives for Marine Ecological Capital Assessment" after passing review of several expert committees. This set of methods provide an applicable technical tool to enforce the policies for ecological capital accounting, compensation against ecological damage accidents, payment for ecosystem services of marine protected areas, and marine and fisheries management effectiveness assessment.