Our approach integrates farm operational and production data, remote sensed imagery and data, ecological modelling and state and transition models to generate accounts that contain verifiable information about the extent and condition of natural capital assets, indicators of the ability of these assets to generate a range of intermediate and final ecosystem services (e.g. habitat maintenance for biodiversity, forage for livestock, carbon sequestration, pollination, soil regulation, shade and shelter) and environmental performance at the farm scale.
The demand for information about property-scale natural capital is growing rapidly as producers and supply chains respond to opportunities and pressures to report environmental performance information.
Natural Capital Accounting offers promise but agreed methods for farm-scale accounts are currently lacking. Here, we propose a framework, methods and models to quantify on-farm natural capital and ecosystem services that support agricultural production. The accounts are outcomes-based, data-driven, transparent and repeatable.