Nature's bank account: Natural capital is the stock of natural resources available on Earth.
The points to remember
- Natural capital is the stock of natural resources on Earth: what is there now.
- It works like money in a bank: a stock that can give an income each year.
- It can be living (a forest, a fish population) or non-living (groundwater, ice, metal ores).
- It is measured as an amount: hectares of forest, tonnes of fish, cubic metres of water.
- If the stock shrinks, there is less to use in the future.
Remember it as: Capital is the stock; income is what the stock gives each year.
Real example: about 1,400 glaciers in the Swiss Alps store fresh water as ice. Their meltwater feeds the Rhine and the Rhône. In 2022 and 2023 alone they lost about 10% of their volume: this natural capital is shrinking.
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The guide asks for local examples of three types of natural capital. Sort them by whether, and how, the stock renews.
Three types of natural capital
- Living natural capital grows and reproduces: forests, fish stocks, farm soils' life, wild plants.
- Non-living capital renewed by natural cycles: fresh water in rivers and aquifers, the ozone layer.
- Non-living capital that does not renew in a human lifetime: oil, coal, metal ores, sand and gravel.
- Find all three locally: a wood or park, a river or aquifer, a quarry or mine.
Real example: about 30% of London's tap water is pumped from the chalk aquifer under the city; the rest comes from the Thames and the Lee. Rain refills it each winter.
Three different types: Three examples of the same type, such as three forests, show only one type. Pick one living, one renewed by cycles, one that does not renew.
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Stock or flow?: Questions often give a fact file and ask for natural capital. Separate the stock from what it yields.
Capital or income?
- Capital = the stock in the place: ice, water, nutrients, sediment, soil, trees, the fish population.
- Income = what flows from it: the fish caught, the timber cut, the electricity made, the tourism money.
- Asked for natural capital? Name the stock, never the income.
- Mentioning a use is fine: 'water, used for hydropower' still names the capital, the water.
Natural capital (the stock)
- Corals that build the reef
- Fish populations on the reef
- Sand and sediment
Natural income (the yield)
- Fish caught and sold
- Money from diving tourists
- Coast protected from waves
Real example: on the Great Barrier Reef the corals and the fish populations are the capital; the fish caught and the money tourists spend are the income.
Not income: Tourism, hydroelectric power and money earned are income, not capital. They score nothing when the question asks for natural capital.
How this comes up: Paper 1, from the resource booklet: identify forms of natural capital in a fact file.
Figure 1 is a fact file on the glaciers of the Swiss Alps.
With reference to Figure 1, identify two forms of natural capital provided by the glaciers.
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