Wetland economic valuation approaches and prospects in China

Abstract

Ecosystem services valuation seeks to increase the social relevance of ecosystem characteristics, the underlying biological mechanisms that support services, by making the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being explicit. Economic valuation can help management by clarifying the full range of benefits and costs of proposed management actions. In the past two decades, economic valuation of wetland ecosystem services has become one of the most significant scientific priorities for wetland protection. In this paper, we provide an overview of ecosystem services, and summarize the main interdisciplinary approaches to measure and value wetland ecosystem services. We identified four main methodological gaps preventing progress on wetland valuation of ecosystem services in China, which are: 1) confusion on terminology like intermediate and final ecosystem services, 2) lack of ecological production functions to link ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services, 3) static valuation making it difficult to evaluate the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services, and 4) lack of clear guidance on relating ecological compensation programs to conservation targets. Overcoming these gaps is important to inform wetland compensation mechanisms and conservation policies. We propose future research on wetland ecosystem services in China should be focused on: 1) defining final ecosystem services based on beneficiary preferences and underlying biophysical mechanisms, 2) establishing wetland monitoring programs at specific sites to collect data on final ecosystem service indicators and ecosystem characteristic metrics to create ecological production functions for economic valuation and rescaling techniques, and 3) incorporating wetland ecosystem service values into decision-making processes to inform wetland management.

Wetland Park Planning and Management Based on the Valuation of Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of the Tieling Lotus Lake National Wetland Park (LLNWP), China

“…According to the data analysis, the characteristics of the functions of the ecosystem services of the LLNWP can be classified as follows. Ecological functions include substance production, water purification, water conservation, carbon fixation and oxygen release, climate regulation, and biodiversity protection; socio-cultural functions are entertainment and education [ 36 ]. Figure 8 shows the proportion of ecosystem services in each type of wetland, and it is clear the ecological functions of each type of wetland work well, accounting for over 90%; however, socio-cultural functions were seriously lacking in the LLNWP.…”

Valuation and effective management of the Dal Lake's diverse ecosystem using choice experiment method

“…In recent years, several studies dealing with bio‐economic modelling of wetland ecosystems and studies related to ecological‐economic values using computer simulations have appeared (e.g., Chopra & Saroj, 2004). The available literature on the economic valuation of wetland ecosystems, especially wetland biological resources, and other relevant studies have focused on aspects of economic values, such as direct and indirect use values (Sharma et al, 2015; Gregg & Wheeler, 2018); people's WTP for conservation of wetland ecosystem attributes (Kwak et al, 2007; Akankali & Jamabo, 2012; Siew et al, 2015; Jayathilaka & Serasinghe, 2018); WTP for recreational benefits derived from wetland ecosystems (Khosravi & Salarpour, 2009; Azizi & Seyedan, 2014; Zarandi et al, 2019); WTP for specific economic, environmental and social attributes of wetlands and their determinants (Bhatt et al, 2014; Khan et al, 2019); and various conceptual, methodological and technical issues concerning the economic valuation of wetlands (Jiang et al, 2016), from diverse angles. In literature, both revealed preference and stated preference methods are used to value the environmental amenities provided by wetland ecosystems.…”

Tourism and beach erosion: valuing the damage of beach erosion for tourism in the Hoi An World Heritage site, Vietnam

“…The market price method allows estimating the direct damage to local livelihoods, housing, infrastructure, crops, etc. (Logar and Bergh 2013;Jiang et al 2016); the hedonic pricing method assesses revenue changes along eroded beaches (Parsons and Powell 2001;Alexandrakis et al 2015); the prevention cost, contingent valuation, and travel cost methods allow to determine revenue-raising opportunities for coastal zone (Blakemore and Williams 2008) and coastal tourism managers (Birdir et al 2013). Quantitative data on the economic damage are an important input for coastal management and sustainable use decisions and allow establishing priorities for sectors/fields.…”