CICES V4 excludes non-ecosystem based natural flows, i.e. renewable abiotic energy sources and abiotic materials.

The renewable abiotic energy sources included wind, hydro, solar, tidal and thermal; and abiotic materials included mineral resources. These have been excluded from  CICES version 4 and the UNSD has proposed combining these into a section called ‘other environmental flows’ because these could become a separate table in the SEEA Volume 2.

Question: Should 1: abiotic energy and material be excluded from the classification or included? They could be included by having them as distinct categories in provisioning as in CICES Version 3. For accounting purposes it may make sense to exclude them, for mapping and assessment purposes the rationale is less clear.