It is now widely recognised that components of the environment play the role of economic assets, termed natural capital, that are a foundation of social and economic development. National governments monitor the state and trends of natural capital through a range of activities including natural capital accounting, national ecosystem assessments, ecosystem service valuation, and economic and environmental analyses. Indicators play an integral role in these activities as they facilitate the reporting of complex natural capital information. One factor that hinders the success of these activities and their comparability across countries is the absence of a coherent framework of indicators concerning natural capital (and its benefits) that can aid decision-making. Here we present an integrated Natural Capital Indicator Framework (NCIF) alongside example indicators, which provides an illustrative structure for countries to select and organise indicators to assess their use of, and dependence on, natural capital. The NCIF sits within a wider context of indicators related to natural, human, social and manufactured capital, and associated flows of benefits. The framework provides decision-makers with a structured approach to selecting natural capital indicators with which to make decisions about economic development that take into account national natural capital and associated flows of benefits.

现在，人们普遍认识到，环境的组成部分起着称为自然资本的经济资产的作用，这些资产是社会和经济发展的基础。各国政府通过一系列活动来监测自然资本的状态和趋势，包括自然资本核算，国家生态系统评估，生态系统服务评估以及经济和环境分析。指标在这些活动中起着不可或缺的作用，因为它们有助于报告复杂的自然资本信息。阻碍这些活动取得成功及其在各个国家之间可比性的一个因素是缺乏有关自然资本（及其收益）的指标框架，这些指标框架可以帮助决策。在这里，我们提出一个综合的自然资本指标框架（NCIF）和示例指标，为各国选择和组织指标以评估其对自然资本的使用和依赖提供了说明性结构。NCIF位于与自然，人力，社会和制造资本以及相关利益流相关的指标的更广泛范围内。该框架为决策者提供了一种结构化的方法，以选择自然资本指标，从而在考虑国家自然资本和相关利益流的情况下做出有关经济发展的决定。