ИСТИНА

The concept of ecosystem services is relatively new; this term was first introduced into scientific circulation in the late 1960s. The use of such tool as ecosystem services can be considered a kind of preparatory stage of the transition to paid nature management, because the modern society is becoming aware that if ecosystems can provide certain “services”, it means that these services must be paid for. Ecosystem services are all those benefits that people receive from ecosystems. The most detailed analysis of ecosystem services was given in the final report of the international work program “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment” (2005). Four types of ecosystem services are distinguished: providing, regulatory and cultural services, as well as supporting services that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services. Regulatory services include climate and disease regulation, protection against disaster, as well as treatment of air and water, and others. The concept of "green infrastructure" is actively developing in the practice of territorial planning of developed foreign countries since the early 1990s, but has not yet become widespread in Russia. Japan has achieved great success in this field. The "green infrastructure" includes both natural areas (forests, meadows, wetlands, and others), and artificially created green spaces. Various components of the "green infrastructure" perform the following regulatory functions: local and global climate control, river flow regulation, groundwater retention and accumulation, prevention of soil erosion, protection against floods and other dangerous natural processes, purification of air and water, and others. Japan has a long tradition of integrated, multifunctional use of various elements of green infrastructure. The current intensification of the Japanese economy, along with such processes as population decline and aging, especially in rural areas, leads to a significant loss of many important ecosystem functions and services. At the present stage, much attention is paid to the maintenance of traditional methods of nature management in order to preserve ecosystems and their services. The article examines ecosystem services of various elements of the "green infrastructure" of Japan such as forests, paddy fields, coastal landscapes, and others. Forests occupy almost 70% of the country's area.They play very important role in Japanese nature and culture and provide many ecosystem services including not only material support (production of wood and other natural materials), but also intangible, such as regulatory, supportive and cultural. The most characteristic type of cultural landscape in Japan is paddy fields. Historically, they served not only to their intended purpose the production of the main Japanese food crop rice, but also provided a range of diverse ecosystem services including regulatory and cultural. In many coastal areas of Japan, sand dunes are a very important element of the "green infrastructure". Sand dunes serve as a kind of bio protective screen that prevents the onset of sand; protects the villages from strong winds and tsunamis. The Japanese experience is extremely interesting and can be useful for other countries, including Russia, where research in this area has only got started. The work was supported by Lomonosov Moscow State University (grant I.7 АААА-А16-116032810093-2 “Mapping, modeling and risk assessment of dangerous natural processes”).