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Valuation of Coastal Ecosystem Services Provided for non-commercial research and educational use. Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use. This chapter was originally published in Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author's benefit and for the benefit of the author's institution, for non- commercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues who you know, and providing a copy to your institution's administrator. All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including without limitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing copies or access, or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution's website or repository, are prohibited. For exceptions, permission may be sought for such use through Elsevier's permissions site at: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissionusematerial van den Belt M, Forgie V, and Farley J (2011) Valuation of Coastal Ecosystem Services. In: Wolanski E and McLusky DS (eds.) Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, Vol 12, pp. 35–54. Waltham: Academic Press. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Author's personal copy 12.03 Valuation of Coastal Ecosystem Services M van den Belt, Ecological Economics Research New Zealand (EERNZ), Palmerston North, New Zealand; Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand V Forgie, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand J Farley, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 12.03.1 Introduction 35 12.03.2 Valuation and Its Function in a Market System 36 12.03.2.1 Price versus Value 36 12.03.2.2 Why ESs Are Not Part of Market System 37 12.03.2.2.1 Nonexcludable resource regimes 38 12.03.2.2.2 Nonrival resources 38 12.03.2.2.3 Externalities 39 12.03.2.2.4 Uncertainty 40 12.03.3 Valuation Techniques to Use When People Perceive the Value of ESs 40 12.03.3.1 Theoretical Underpinning for Neoclassical Valuation Approach 40 12.03.3.2 Neoclassical Methods for Valuing ESs 42 12.03.3.2.1 Stated preference techniques 42 12.03.3.2.2 Revealed preferences techniques 43 12.03.3.2.3 Benefit transfer and rapid ES valuation assessment 44 12.03.3.3 Limitations of Neoclassical ES Valuation Techniques 45 12.03.4 When People Do Not Perceive the Benefits of ESs 46 12.03.4.1 Ecological Indicators 47 12.03.4.2 Participation and Stakeholder Involvement in Policymaking 47 12.03.4.3 Knowledge Integration 48 12.03.4.4 Multicriteria Analysis 49 12.03.4.5 Scenarios 49 12.03.4.6 Mapping and Modeling 50 12.03.4.7 Payments for ESs 50 12.03.4.7.1 Integrating ecosystem services into markets 50 12.03.4.7.2 Adapting institutions to ESs 51 12.03.5 Conclusion 51 References 52 Abstract Valuation is about tradeoffs between alternative options, regardless of whether these tradeoffs are consciously made or not. Natural capital contributes substantially to societal and individual well-being by sustaining economies, generating life support functions and innumerable amenities, and assimilating waste. Societies that rely on the market system for resource allocation generally underestimate the contribution of natural capital to human welfare. Valuation exercises are about making these contributions more visible and thereby generate a better understanding of the way we assess, negotiate, measure, and use tradeoffs. Short-term, enduring, localized, individual tradeoffs are more easily perceived and estimated, and markets in many cases automatically calculate a monetary value or the market system can be simulated to provide a value. Tradeoffs and, therefore, valuation of more systemic ecosystem services, provided free by natural capital, require capturing long-term, risky and uncertain, global, and co-evolving community-oriented perceptions, and are much more difficult to make explicit. This chapter aims to cover a valuation continuum and first presents the approaches that fall in the realm of neoclassical economics valuation tools by providing examples of valuation from an ecological economics perspective. 12.03.1 Introduction world predominantly means fossil fuels, whose combustion emits waste into the environment. Removing ecosystem structure and Valuation of ecosystem goods and services (ESs) refers to the art emitting waste, above the assimilative capacity both degrade ESs, and science of making tradeoffs explicit. All economic production so there is an unavoidable tradeoff between economic production requires the transformation of raw materials provided by nature, and ESs. The question is not whether we should value ESs but which otherwise serve as the structural building blocks of ecosys- rather how we should value them so that decision making con­ tems. All economic production requires energy, which in today’s cerning these tradeoffs becomes more transparent. 35 Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, 2011, Vol.12, 35-54, DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-374711-2.01203-1 Author's personal copy 36 Valuation of Coastal Ecosystem Services When addressing how to value, the choice of cardinal or and suggest tools better suited to improve management deci­ ordinal valuation is important. Cardinal valuation assigns spe­ sions and evaluation of tradeoffs concerning critical ecosystem cific quantitative and proportional values: e.g., shrimp resources. We offer an expanded conception of tradeoffs, and aquaculture is 2.3 times more valuable than fish aquaculture acknowledge that ESs have ethical, spiritual, cultural, and bio­ per hectare. Ordinal valuation simply requires that we can state centric values that directly or indirectly support or enhance the that one thing is more or less valuable than another without welfare of humans and other species, some of which may be specifying precisely how much: e.g., a mangrove ecosystem is lexicographic. Giving such perspectives, a voice in tradeoff more valuable than the shrimp aquaculture ponds that replace evaluation and decision making can include them without it. The distinction between ordinal valuation and cardinal requiring cardinal valuation. valuation can become difficult, however, for some types of The chapter is divided into three sections. Section 12.03.2 decisions. If the price of shrimp or productivity of shrimp discusses the concept of value in the market system and why ES aquaculture doubles, is the mangrove ecosystem still more does not fit well in this framework. Section 12.03.3 focuses on valuable? What if it quadruples, or increases 10-fold? One valuation techniques designed to bring ESs into the market type of ordinal valuation is known as lexicographic valuation, framework in order to increase economic efficiency. Section which states that a unit of one thing is more valuable than any 12.03.4 focuses on tools and governance structures to achieve quantity of another. Perhaps no amount of money justifies a variety of different goals, including (but not limited to) destroying a mangrove forest essential to the survival of an ecological sustainability, social justice, and economic endangered species. Either way, valuation measures are only efficiency. meaningful within established boundaries, which can only be established by moral and ethical values; not by economics only. 12.03.2 Valuation and Its Function in a Market System There are many valid reasons why we should not place 12.03.2.1 Price versus Value cardinal (e.g., monetary) values on ecosystems and their ser­ vices (Sagoff, 1988; Heal 2000; Bockstael et al., 2000; Spash The goal of monetary valuation is to extend the benefits of the et al., 2005). Valuation is an anthropocentric approach that price mechanism to nonmarketed ESs. In order to evaluate disregards other species. Valuation may be a pointless exercise monetary valuation, we must first understand the benefits of when ecosystems are essential and nonsubstitutable; as the price mechanism and the distinction between price and humans cannot exist without them, their value approximates value. infinity. Placing a monetary value on ecosystems suggests that Most people assume that market prices measure value, money serves as a substitute. Moral values cannot be reduced to but fail to think about what specific values they measure. the monetary calculation of cost–benefit analysis (CBA). The Economists long ago recognized that prices do not necessarily complexities of ESs make any scientific estimates of their con­ measure the actual contributions of commodities to our welfare. tribution highly uncertain. Appropriate use of cardinal As Adam Smith (1776) pointed out, diamonds contribute little valuation demands that these concerns are recognized. to human welfare, but are very expensive, whereas water is However, there is no inherent reason that cardinal valuation essential to life but is generally quite cheap. Economists realized should neglect the interests of other species more so than other that the value of diamonds is determined more by their scarcity decision aids, and other species may suffer the greatest disad­ than by the benefits they provide, which led them to distinguish vantage in the absence of valuation. Furthermore, humans between value in use and value in exchange (or simply exchange cannot exist without food, but few argue against its monetary value). The value in use of something is the contribution of all valuation in the supermarket. units consumed to our welfare. The first units of water consumed Although we must recognize the limitations of cardinal have essentially infinite value, but water is very abundant, and as valuation, and prefer to use ordinal or lexicographic valuation more and more water is consumed, each additional unit is used when appropriate, we must also recognize that ignoring the for less and less important uses with lower and lower marginal explicit valuation and inclusion in decision making of ecosys­ value. The very last units consumed are often simply wasted, tems and their services is not an option in the face of rapid with a marginal value approaching zero.
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