Global estimates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary units

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the value of ecosystem services of 10 main biomes expressed in monetary units. In total, over 320 publications were screened covering over 300 case study locations. Approximately 1350 value estimates were coded and stored in a searchable Ecosystem Service Value Database (ESVD). A selection of 665 value estimates was used for the analysis. Acknowledging the uncertainties and contextual nature of any valuation, the analysis shows that the total value of ecosystem services is considerable and ranges between 490 int$/year for the total bundle of ecosystem services that can potentially be provided by an ?average? hectare of open oceans to almost 350,000 int$/year for the potential services of an ?average? hectare of coral reefs. More importantly, our results show that most of this value is outside the market and best considered as non-tradable public benefits. The continued over-exploitation of ecosystems thus comes at the expense of the livelihood of the poor and future generations. Given that many of the positive externalities of ecosystems are lost or strongly reduced after land use conversion better accounting for the public goods and services provided by ecosystems is crucial to improve decision making and institutions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable ecosystem management.Peer reviewe

Exploring spatiotemporal changes in ecosystem-service values and hotspots in China

“…de Groot et al (2012) provide a detailed description of this procedure. Here, to obtain a more comprehensive unit value for ecosystem services, we upgraded the previous Ecosystem Service Valuation Database (ESVD;de Groot et al, 2012). We used more recent information with the same ESVD procedure.…”

“…The importance of these services has stimulated considerable interest in their conservation. After the seminal work of Costanza et al (1997), the body of research on methods of estimating, mapping, and quantifying ecosystem services has grown exponentially (Fisher et al, 2009), particularly since the release of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA; de Groot et al, 2010Groot et al, , 2012, an international study involving over 1300 scientists. The MA provided important evidence of the ongoing degradation of approximately 60% of the world's ecosystems over the past five decades (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).…”

Valuing and Evaluating Marine Ecosystem Services: Putting the Right Price on Marine Environments?

“…Th ese are presented in table 3. Th is demonstrates that, despite the diff ering sample size, the considerable variation in coral reef values identifi ed through the current survey is refl ected in the broader sampling conducted by de Groot et al (2012). While the mangrove case studies display a relatively smaller magnitude of variation (table 4), there is a wide discrepancy between the lowest value of $105 ha -1 yr -1 (Islam and Ikejima 2010) and the highest value of $23,724 ha -1 yr -1 (Donato et al 2011).…”

“…Th ese values can be contextualized with reference to de Groot et al (2012), wherein a wider sample of coral reef valuation exercises were analyzed. Th ese are presented in table 3.…”

“…It has also found expression in a reinvigoration of neoclassical economic approaches to environmental issues, ranging from the economic rationale for action on climate change (Stern 2007) to the value of ecosystem services at the global, national and regional level (Hein et al 2006;de Groot et al 2012;Bateman et al 2014;Kubiszewski et al 2013) and the value of services provided by specifi c ecosystems Lal et al 2009). A recent survey indicated that the publication of academic articles involving ecosystem services has increased exponentially since the late 1990s, these being published in over 50 diff erent journals (Crossman et al 2013).…”