Economic valuation of biodiversity: A comparative study

Nijkamp, Peter; Vindigni, Gabriella; Nunes, Paulo A.L.D.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.03.003

Cited by 140 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The valuation of ecosystem services has been a complicated task in the scientific community (Nunes and van den Bergh, 2001;Nijkamp et al, 2008), although in recent years there has been a large increase in such studies (Bateman et al, 2011). There is, however, no standardized definition and system of measurement for ecosystem services.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem services in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action

et al. 2012

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The extent to which ecosystem services have been considered in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) and the proposed adaptation projects is assessed. By August 2010, 44 least developed countries had prepared their NAPAs in response to climate change. The NAPAs constitute a starting point for planning adaptation nationally and sub-nationally, but need to be evaluated and improved as new knowledge emerges. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is an emerging approach that recognizes that ecosystem services play an important role in reducing people's vulnerability to climate change. The importance of ecosystem services is acknowledged in more than 50% of the NAPAs. Approximately 22% of the proposed projects include ecosystem activities for social well-being or adaptation, with most of them in support of other adaptation measures (e.g. infrastructure). These projects deal mainly with regulating services (soil rehabilitation, erosion control and water regulation) and provisioning services (food, fibre and fuel wood). They also have the potential to promote integrative and cross-sectoral adaptation, as many of them consider multiple ecosystem services and beneficiary sectors. However, more technical, political and financial support is needed to foster the role of ecosystem services in adaptation.Keywords: adaptation; ecosystem-based adaptation; ecosystem services; least-developed countries; National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) La mesure dans laquelle les services écosystémiques ont été considérés dans les programmes d'action nationaux d'adaptation (PANA) et les projets d'adaptation proposés est évaluée. En août 2010, 44 des pays les moins avancés avaient préparé leurs PANA, en réponse au changement climatique. Les PANA constituent un point de départ pour la planification de l'adaptation à l'échelle nationale et sous-nationale, mais doivent être évaluées et améliorées en fonction de l'évolution des connaissances. L'adaptation fondée sur les écosystèmes (EbA) est une approche émergente qui reconnaît que les services écosystémiques jouent un rôle important dans la réduction de la vulnérabilité des populations au changement climatique. L'importance des services écosystémiques est reconnu dans plus de 50% des PANA. Environ 22% des projets proposés comprennent des activités écosystémiques liées au bien-être social ou à l'adaptation, et la plupart d'entre eux proposent d'autres mesures d'adaptation (par exemple dans l'infrastructure). Ces projets portent principalement sur les services de régulation (réhabilitation des sols, lutte contre l'érosion et régulation de l'eau) et les services d'approvisionnement (alimentation, fibres et bois de chauffage). Ces projets ont le potentiel de promouvoir une adaptation intégrée et transversale, car beaucoup d'entre eux couvrent les multiples services écosystémiques et secteurs bénéficiaires. Cependant, un soutien plus technique, politique et financier est nécessaire pour favoriser le rôle des services écosystémiques dans l'adaptation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem services in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action

et al. 2012

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“…There is a considerable debate on the usefulness of the TEV approach (e.g. see a review by Nijkamp et al 2008;Seppelt et al 2011). Given the complex nature of ecosystem services, double-counting is a major problem of TEV approach (Balmford et al 2008).…”

Section: Analytical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Cost of Land Degradation

Nkonya¹,

Anderson

Kato³

et al. 2015

Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement – A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development

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Land degradation-defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report as the long-term loss of ecosystems services-is a global problem, negatively affecting the livelihoods and food security of billions of people. Intensifying efforts, mobilizing more investments and strengthening the policy commitment for addressing land degradation at the global level needs to be supported by a careful evaluation of the costs and benefits of action versus costs of inaction against land degradation. Consistent with the definition of land degradation, we adopt the Total Economic Value (TEV) approach to determine the costs of land degradation and use remote sensing data and global statistical databases in our analysis. The results show that the annual costs of land degradation due to land use and land cover change (LUCC) are about US$231 billion per year or about 0.41 % of the global GDP of US$56.49 trillion in 2007. Contrary to past global land degradation assessment studies, land degradation is severe in both tropical and temperate countries. However, the losses from LUCC are especially high in Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 26 % of the total global costs of land degradation due to LUCC. However, the local tangible losses (mainly provisioning services) account only for 46 % of the total cost of land degradation and the rest of the cost is due to the losses of ecosystem services (ES) accruable largely to beneficiaries other than the local land users. These external ES losses include carbon sequestration, biodiversity, genetic information and cultural services. This implies that the global community bears the largest cost of land degradation, which suggests that efforts to address land degradation should be done bearing in mind that the global community, as a whole, incurs larger losses than the local communities experiencing land degradation. The cost of soil fertility mining due to using land degrading management practices on maize, rice and wheat is estimated to be about US$15 billion per year or 0.07 % of the global GDP. Though these results are based on a crop simulation approach that underestimates the impact of land degradation and covers only three crops, they reveal the high cost of land degradation for the production of the major food crops of the world. Our simulations also show that returns to investment in action against land degradation are twice larger than the cost of inaction in the first six years alone. Moreover, when one takes a 30-year planning horizon, the returns are five dollars per each dollar invested in action against land degradation. The opportunity cost accounts for the largest share of the cost of action against land degradation. This explains why land users, often basing their decisions in very short-time horizons, could degrade their lands even when they are aware of bigger longer-term losses that are incurred in the process.

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“…The loss of biodiversity is generally considered to be very costly from a societal standpoint and hence many studies have now attempted to assess the economic value of biodiversity (Nunes and Nijkamp, 2011). In this regard, a comparative, meta-analytic review of the economic valuation of biodiversity can be found in Nijkamp et al (2008).…”

Section: Preliminariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity prospecting over time and under uncertainty: a theory of sorts

Batabyal¹,

Nijkamp²

2014

Handbook on the Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Biodiversity Prospecting Over Time and Under Uncertainty: A Theory of Sorts AbstractBiodiversity prospecting refers to the exploration of the commercial value of genetic and biochemical resources. In this chapter, we study a drug producing pharmaceutical firm (PF) that searches for potentially useful chemicals made by wild organisms in a conservation area. This PF is able to assign quality levels to the wild organisms in the conservation area. Organism quality is a proxy for the potential usefulness of the chemicals in an organism. At each date, our PF must decide whether to search for a new wild organism with a certain quality or to produce the drug in question with an extant wild organism with its own quality. Our theoretical analysis leads to four results. First, we show that if our PF discards a wild organism with a certain quality at a point in time then it will never use this same organism at a subsequent point in time. Second, we show that if our PF uses a particular organism with its quality at a point in time then it will continue to produce the drug with the chemicals from this organism at all later points in time. Third, we show that there is a threshold level of organism quality and that our PF's optimal policy involves using (discarding) all organisms with quality above (below) this threshold. Finally, we study the impacts of increases in an exogenous income source and the discount factor on our PF's threshold quality.

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Economic valuation of biodiversity: A comparative study

Cited by 140 publications

References 32 publications

Ecosystem services in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action

Ecosystem services in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action

Global Cost of Land Degradation

Biodiversity prospecting over time and under uncertainty: a theory of sorts

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