The INCA Tool is a QGIS plugin to support the calculation of ecosystem services accounts. The methodology implemented in the tool is aligned with the proposed European legislation on ecosystem accounts. Additionally, the tool supports the calculation of two voluntary accounts in line with the global standard of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA EA).
The tool covers the following ecosystem services:
- Provisioning services: wood provision, crop provision
- Regulating and Maintenance services: air filtration, global climate regulation, flood control (voluntary), soil retention (voluntary)
- Cultural services: nature-based tourism
INCA Tool requirements
The minimum requirements for installing and using the tool are:
- Administration rights for installing for the first time, not always needed for updates of the tool as during the first installation, the tool will install also OSGeo4W and additional libraries for proper execution
- If operating under a proxy, the proxy password will be prompted for
- Having QGIS in the LTR (3.28) version installed
It is highly recommended to read the installation manual before installing the tool and the user guide for running the models. Different requirements may apply for different Operating Systems
Default input data
The Commission makes available default preprocessed EU wide input data for running all models in the tool. Users may replace the default data with their own data, please see the user manual for further instructions.
Code repository
This repository is tailored for advanced users who possess a solid understanding of coding and software development. It provides access to the source code of the INCA Tool, allowing users to explore its structure, versions and gain insights into its implementation. Please note that familiarity with QGIS plugin development in Python is recommended.
The code repository for the INCA Tool is available at:
Copyright (c) 2023 European Union. The tool was developed by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, with the contribution of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/
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