Table 1.

Glossary

Notion and definition	Observations/Interdependencies
Critical areas or hotspots of ecological degradation. Areas showing highest rates of ecosystem capital degradation (stocks, resource accessibility and ecosystem health) or highest intensity of use indices.
Ecological value: non-monetary assessment of ecosystem integrity or health through indicators determining critical thresholds and minimum requirements for ecosystem services provision.Economic valuation: the process of expressing a value for a particular good or service in a certain context (e.g., of decision-making) in monetary terms. The monetary value results from market transactions.Both market and ecological values are social constructs, the former measuring utilities, the latter assessing intrinsic ecosystem dimensions.Ecosystem assets and services that lack market have no price. However, they have value that the economic values cannot replace (Gómez-Baggethun & Barton, 2013; Walker, 2005; Weber, 2018). The value of the ecosystem capital is considered an alternative to the use value, the latter being directed by utility and profit maximisation.The use value implies that the natural capital consists of stocks of monetary assets, the capital degradation being defined as loss of monetary assets value.The ecological value in ENCA integrates physical stocks in socio-ecological landscape units (SELU; see also Figure 1b,c).	The ecological value differs from economic value as it does not consider the monetary benefits provided by the ecosystem services but the state, that is, the health, of ecosystems functions (Rapport et al., 1998). Therefore, the ecological value restricts possibilities of substitution to the ecosystem capital itself (strong sustainability), while targeting the long-term functions of the ecosystem measured through their health, potential or capability to supply ecosystem services (Weber, 2014).The change of paradigm from monetary valuation to ecological evaluation is fundamental in a global change context and the necessity to embed the economy in nature. Using it would allow:–making the economy and other human activities compatible with the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the biosphere (Rees, 2015b; Røpke, 2004;)–targeting the social value of ecosystem capital instead of use value (Ekins et al., 2003; Gómez-Baggethun & Barton, 2013)–analysis to envisage the amortisation of an ecosystem’s capital degradation through accounting norms and standards required for efficient ecosystem management and conservation actions.
Ecosystem health implies maintaining the system’s organisation, functions and autonomy over time (Rapport et al., 1998). The integrity of Earth ecosystems is evaluated in terms of productivity, morphological and functional diversity and resilience to stress. Ecosystem health in this work refers to ecosystem condition or state, a constituent of the bidirectionally coupled socio-ecological framework (Binder et al., 2013).Ecosystem potential is the capability of a given ecosystem category to maintain its functions and provide the range of services that they supply. It is estimated in terms of health status and the intrinsic injunction of no net degradation of ecosystems. It is deliberately associated with an ecosystem response capacity. In ENCA, the potential is expressed in ecological capability units (ECU) for each ecosystem category.	Capability and potential are synonymous, but the latter term is frequently used in the sense of absolute potential referring to the natural condition (e.g., climax or a pre-industrial reference) while capability refers to a social target (e.g., no net degradation in reference to a given year, such as 1990, the baseline year of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).The potential approach has some similarities with the human appropriation of net primary production concept (Haberl et al., 2007).
Landscape (the) is a representation of sociocultural dynamics at an organisation level that can integrate structural, functional and compositional processes of biodiversity (Noss, 1990).	The landscape’s importance has been highlighted mainly in land-use decisions. Such decisions are strongly influenced by local socio-political priorities that change through time (Mace, 2013; Zvoleff & An, 2014) and increasingly mobilise participatory approaches. The modelling at various scales of spatio-temporal trends in ecosystem services, supply and demand is being used in landscape management, spatial planning and regional development and financial policies (Boesing et al., 2020; Rieb & Bennett, 2020).
Sustainability A characteristic or state whereby the needs of the present and local population can be met without compromising the ability of future generations or population in other locations to meet their needs (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, 2008)Economic benefits result from combining several types of capital: produced, human, social, cultural and natural. In this perspective, aggregates of total or inclusive wealth cover possible substitutions between these types of capital, as acknowledged with the concept of weak sustainability. Its foundation is the substitutability among various forms of capital—gains in other capital forms can offset the loss of natural capital. The bottom line of strong sustainability is that substitutions are possible within but not between capital categories. Ecosystem capacities must be maintained so there will be no net degradation.	Strong sustainability, considered here in terms of an inclusive social and ecological system (Binder et al., 2013; Downing et al., 2020; Fischer-Kowalski & Steinberger, 2017), constitutes a frame allowing to address the ecosystem capital of a given territory through the lens of ecological rather than monetary value.In the search of a single indicator of strong environmental sustainability, Ekins et al. (2019) propose a dashboard of environmental sustainability indicators across a range of environmental and resource issues (Source, Sink, Life-Support and Human Health and Welfare). Data availability remains the major limitation towards the computation of lead indicators that form the thematic overview.
WatershedAlso named water catchments or river basins, watersheds are important conceptual frameworks and natural systems for investigating complex socio-ecological processes (Jenkins et al., 2018; Parkes et al., 2010). They are functionally coherent hierarchical networks that can mobilise social and territorial actors and institutions located within their boundaries through a shared history of social and environmental issues (such as land-use policies, water governance and ecosystem management) and local knowledge and know-how. The purpose is ‘building better and more resilient connections between institutions and ecological resources. All too often, administrative boundaries divide vital ecological resources, which make nonsense of the natural landscape. This is especially the case with rivers and wider watersheds, where the geographic integrity of the river basin is rarely matched by an administrative system with the powers required to manage upstream-downstream interactions’ (Toulmin, 2017).	A political resource space where decisions are made on territorial resources in the form of governed projects that reflect the potential and the specifics of the corresponding resource space. That context facilitates coordinating disjoint public policies (water, land, agriculture, health, environment) and private sector activities with a long view on the common purpose (public interest).

Abbreviations: ECU, ecological capability units; ENCA, ecosystem natural capital accounting.