Natural systems make their natural capital and ecosystem services available to human economy. A careful analysis of
the interplay between natural and human-made capital is needed to prevent natural capital being over exploited for
present economic benefits, affecting lifestyles and well being of future generations. In this study, the emergy synthesis
is used to evaluate the natural and the human-made capital of Cam pania region (southern Italy) by accounting
for the environmental support directly and indirectly provided by nature to resource generation. Furthermore, geographic
information system (GIS)models are integrated with the emergy accounting procedure to generate maps of
the spatial patterns of both natural and human-made capital distribution. Regional storages of natural and human made
capital are identified and evaluated in emergy units (seJ). The human-made capital of the Cam pania region
(6.29E + 24 seJ) results to be about 11 times higher than the natural capital (5.69E + 23 seJ) due to the past and
present exploitation of the natural resources needed to generate it over time.
Moreover, by overlaying the total natural capital map and the total human-made capital map with a map of the
protected areas within the region, only the 19% of the regional natural capital appears to be concentrated within
protected areas, while most of it (81%) is concentrated outside. These findings suggest that the conservation of natural
resources is also necessary outside protected areas by means of suitable policies, directives and investments. The
human-made capital is mainly concentrated (88%) inside non-protected areas and interacts with the local natural
capital. A management of the interactions between the two categories of wealth is crucial to prevent that the growth
of human-made storage degrades the natural ecosystems and the environment. The proposed emergy–GIS framework
reveals to be a useful tool for environmental planning and resource management aimed to conserve and protect
the regional environmental heritage.