Accounting for ecosystem services using extended supply and use tables: A case study of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

• Builds on the SEEA EA extended supply and use tables. • Uses real data to populate physical and monetary accounts for the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. • Separates the use of ecosystem services from the benefits for both industry and households. • Quantifies the contribution of the environment to economic and well-being benefits. • Improves decision making through adequately recognising the economy’s fundamental reliance on the environment. We implement natural capital accounts for ecosystem services (ES) using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) framework and a case study from the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Extended ES supply-use tables are presented that allow for the simultaneous reporting on multiple intermediate and final ES alongside data already available in traditional national economic accounts. We cover the ES of crop provisioning, grazed biomass provisioning, water supply, soil erosion control, recreational fishing, and carbon sequestration and storage. This study shows that extended ES supply-use tables using physical and monetary measures can provide feasible, although not necessarily complete, links between information recorded in the SEEA EA and traditional national economic accounts. It provides an integration of intermediate ES, final ES and produced goods and services in a single table and helps to distinguish benefits from the inputs that create these benefits. Going forward, more integrated recording of the economy and ecosystems’ contributions to wellbeing is needed to better understand the benefits derived from nature.