scholarly journals Ecosystem Services of Birds: A Review of Market and Non-market Values

Author(s):  
Mahendiran M ◽  
Azeez PA
2015 ◽  
pp. 26-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Konyushkov

Foreign publications devoted to the problems of determination and valuation of ecosystem services and their practical application in planning economic activities are under review. This direction of studies is being rapidly developed. It was clearly shaped after the global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment performed in 2005 on the initiative of the United Nations. In the recent decade, this direction has got an official status; specialized journals have been founded; regular conferences and workshops have been conducted. The number of publications in this field has increased considerably. The contribution of soil scientists to the valuation of ecosystem services remains modest. It is argued that the assessment and valuation of the ecosystem services of soils is a promising direction for soil science. Ecosystem services are subdivided into the groups of provisional, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. The latter group is considered the natural basis ensuring the efficient performance of other ecosystem services with their direct or indirect impact on human well-being. The assessment of ecosystem services implies three major directions: ecological, economic (monetary), and social. For each of the groups of ecosystem services, specific methods of their economic valuation are applied. Thus, provisional services are mainly assessed according to their market values. The contribution of provisional services to the total value of ecosystem services is relatively small. Regulating services are often estimated by the avoided cost and replacement cost methods, and cultural services (recreation, inspiration source, aesthetic value, spiritual value) are valued by the travel cost method. The methods of nonmarketable valuation are essentially based on the willingness-to-pay approach. Upon valuation of ecosystem services at the local level, a systems approach should be applied; it is necessary to taken into account cooperation bonus obtained by the particular stakeholders. It should also be noted that the removal of additional pressures from ecosystems in a given place might result in the increase of the anthropogenic loads on ecosystems in other places. The separation, mapping, and valuation of ecosystem services are performed with an ultimate goal to ensure sustainable development of the society and human well-being. The ecological and economic approaches in this field are actually aimed at strengthening of the role of market mechanisms in the environmental protection policy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 248-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bożena Kornatowska ◽  
Jadwiga Sienkiewicz

Abstract Forest ecosystems represent the most important values of natural assets. In economic valuation techniques, to estimate the value of forest ecosystem services, the attention is still focused mainly on their market values, i.e. the value of benefits measured in the economic calculation based, first of all, on the price of timber. The valuation of natural resources is currently supported by considerations of the global policy, in order to strengthen the argumentation justifying the need to incur expenditure related to the protection of biodiversity. There is increasing evidence that biodiversity contributes to forest ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. Natural capital of forests can be consumed directly as food, wood and other raw materials or indirectly – by benefitting from purified water and air, safeguarded soils or protected climate. At the same time, forest ecosystems provide us with a range of intangible values – scientific, cultural, religious as well as encompass heritage to pass on to future generations. In the era of increasing pressure on the use of free public goods (natural resources), it is necessary to improve understanding of the role of forests in creating national natural capital, and in enhancing the quality of human life. All things considered, the so called non-market forest ecosystem services may have a much higher value than the profits from the production of timber and raw materials. Needless to say, non-market values of forest ecosystems are of great importance for the quality of human life, and the awareness of this should translate into social behavior in the use of natural resources. This paper reviews the methods to estimate the value of forest ecosystem services in view of recently acknowledged paradigm to move forward from economic production to sustainable human well-being.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-66
Author(s):  
Louis Lategan ◽  
Juaneé Cilliers ◽  
Zinea Huston ◽  
Nadia Blaauw ◽  
Sarel Cilliers

<p>Urban green spaces (UGSs) deliver ecosystem services and potential economic benefits like increases in proximate residential property prices. The proximity principle (PP) premises that property prices increase as distance to UGS decreases. The PP has generally been confirmed by studies using municipal valuations and market values internationally. Conversely, South African studies have mostly employed municipal valuations and results have rejected the PP. There is an accepted interrelationship, but also often discrepancies, between municipal valuations and market values, presenting scope for this article to explore whether negative results are confirmed when market values replace municipal valuations in PP studies in the South African context. Accordingly, a statistical analysis of market values is completed in the Potchefstroom case study, where five test sites are replicated from studies that employed municipal valuations for longitudinal comparison. Results verify generally higher market values than municipal valuations and confirm the PP in two, but reject the PP in three, of five test sites. Previous studies employing municipal valuations in the case study confirmed the PP in one instance, thus presenting certain, but limited, inconsistencies between findings based on municipal valuation vs. market value. Results suggest that the market’s willingness to pay for UGS proximity is sensitive to the ecosystem services and disservices rendered by specific UGS, but not significantly more than reflected in municipal valuations. Overall, findings underscore the need to protect and curate features that encourage willingness to pay for UGS proximity to increase municipal valuations and property taxes to help finance urban greening.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3477
Author(s):  
Richard Yao ◽  
David Palmer ◽  
Barbara Hock ◽  
Duncan Harrison ◽  
Tim Payn ◽  
...  

Planted forest ecosystems provide a wide range of goods and services such as timber, carbon sequestration, and avoided erosion. However, only ecosystem services with market values (e.g., timber) are usually represented in decision making while those with non-market values (e.g., avoided erosion) that are difficult to quantify are often ignored. A spatial economic tool, the Forest Investment Framework (FIF), integrates data from forest growth models with spatial, biophysical, and economic data, to quantify the broader value of planted forests and to represent non-market values in sustainable forest management. In this paper, we have tested the applicability of FIF in three types of case studies: assessment of afforestation feasibility, regional economic analyses, and ecosystem service assessment. This study provides evidence that a spatial economic tool that quantifies the economic, environmental, and social values of the planted forest ecosystem is valuable in informing land management decisions for maintaining and enhancing the provision of market and non-market ecosystem services to society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Philip Brick ◽  
Kent Woodruff

This case explores the Methow Beaver Project (MBP), an ambitious experiment to restore beaver (Castor canadensis) to a high mountain watershed in Washington State, USA. The Pacific Northwest is already experiencing weather regimes consistent with longer term climate projections, which predict longer and drier summers and stronger and wetter winter storms. Ironically, this combination makes imperative more water storage in one of the most heavily dammed regions in the nation. Although the positive role that beaver can play in watershed enhancement has been well known for decades, no project has previously attempted to re-introduce beaver on a watershed scale with a rigorous monitoring protocol designed to document improved water storage and temperature conditions needed for human uses and aquatic species. While the MBP has demonstrated that beaver can be re-introduced on a watershed scale, it has been much more difficult to scientifically demonstrate positive changes in water retention and stream temperature, given hydrologic complexity, unprecedented fire and floods, and the fact that beaver are highly mobile. This case study can help environmental studies students and natural resource policy professionals think about the broader challenges of diffuse, ecosystem services approaches to climate adaptation. Beaver-produced watershed improvements will remain difficult to quantify and verify, and thus will likely remain less attractive to water planners than conventional storage dams. But as climate conditions put additional pressure on such infrastructure, it is worth considering how beaver might be employed to augment watershed storage capacity, even if this capacity is likely to remain at least in part inscrutable.


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