Assessing economic impacts of environmental research infrastructures: overview of methodological tools
Abstract. The data generated by environmental research infrastructures (ENV RIs) are key material to forecast the development conditions of environment sensitive activities: in a context marked by emerging risks from global warming, atmosphere and ocean monitoring is taking up critical importance for these industries. The objective of this paper is to review the main tools used to assess the performance of ENV RIs via their economic impacts. Three impact categories are considered: (1) upstream impacts on equipment suppliers; (2) downstream impacts on observation and forecast performance; (3) feedback impacts on environment in terms of damage mitigation and risk avoidance. For each category, the main impact assessment methods are described against their application scope and limits. An ocean-related case study serves as a practical example: Argo, a global in-situ ocean observing system, helps to gain a better grasp of the chain of primary and processed data flows for ocean monitoring and forecast, and of its functioning. It highlights the issues involved in assessing the different categories of impacts.