The Valuation of River Ecosystem Services Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Fakultät für Agrarwissenschaften der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen vorgelegt von Wei Jiang geboren in Fujian, VR China Göttingen, November, 2016 D 7 1. Referentin/Referent: Prof. Dr. Rainer Marggraf 2. Korreferentin/Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Heiko Faust Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 09.11.2016 Acknowledgement I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Marggraf and Professor Faust for their guidance and encouragement in carrying out this dissertation. I also wish to thank my colleague in the division of environmental and resource economics who shared their knowledge and rendered their help. Last but not least, I appreciate my parents for their understanding and support during my doctoral period. Table of contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 References .............................................................................................................................. 8 Paper 1: The origin of cost-benefit analysis: a comparative view of France and America ........ 9 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 9 2 The origin and development in France .............................................................................. 10 2.1 The pre-revolutionary period ...................................................................................... 11 2.2 The revolutionary period ............................................................................................ 12 2.3 The post-revolutionary period .................................................................................... 13 3 The beginning and rise in America.................................................................................... 20 3.1 The beginning of CBA ............................................................................................... 21 3.2 The issuing of the Green Book ................................................................................... 23 3.3 The Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of the Budget ........................................ 25 3.4 Takeover by the economists ....................................................................................... 27 4 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 28 References ............................................................................................................................ 30 Paper 2: The historical development of environmental valuation methods and concepts in the context of cost-benefit analysis ................................................................................................ 34 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 34 2 The origin of environmental valuation .............................................................................. 35 3 The further development of travel cost method................................................................. 37 4 The further development of contingent valuation method ................................................ 42 5 The concept of total economic value ................................................................................. 46 6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 49 References ............................................................................................................................ 50 Paper 3: Ermittlung geeigneter Flächen für die Auenwaldetablierung in Niedersachsen anhand eines ökologisch-ökonomischen Auswahlkriteriums ............................................................... 60 1 Einleitung .......................................................................................................................... 60 2 Methodik und Datengrundlage .......................................................................................... 64 3 Vorgehensweise und Ergebnis........................................................................................... 66 3.1 Ökologische Faktoren ................................................................................................. 66 3.2 Kosten I: Ankauf von Flächen .................................................................................... 74 3.3 Kosten II: Anpflanzung von Auenwaldbestand ......................................................... 75 3.4 Nutzen I: Hochwasserschutz ...................................................................................... 76 3.5 Nutzen II: Nährstoffretention ..................................................................................... 82 3.6 Nutzen III: Kohlenstoffspeicherung ........................................................................... 89 3.7 Nutzen IV: Biodiversität ............................................................................................. 92 3.8 Ergebnisse ................................................................................................................... 93 4 Schlussfolgerung ............................................................................................................... 95 Literatur ................................................................................................................................ 97 Paper 4: Assessing cultural ecosystem services through indicators: A case study of the Weser River in Germany ................................................................................................................... 102 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 102 2 Identifying the indicators ................................................................................................. 104 I 2.1 Sense of place ........................................................................................................... 104 3.2 Cultural heritage ....................................................................................................... 105 3.3 Spiritual and religious ............................................................................................... 106 3.4 Inspirational .............................................................................................................. 107 3.5 Educational ............................................................................................................... 107 3.6 Aesthetic ................................................................................................................... 108 3.7 Recreation and tourism ............................................................................................. 108 3 Study area ........................................................................................................................ 109 4 Results ............................................................................................................................. 111 4.1 Sense of place ........................................................................................................... 111 4.2 Cultural heritage ....................................................................................................... 114 4.3 Spiritual and religious ............................................................................................... 115 4.4 Inspirational .............................................................................................................. 115 4.4 Educational ............................................................................................................... 131 4.5 Aesthetic ................................................................................................................... 132 4.6 Recreation and tourism ............................................................................................. 132 5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 138 References .......................................................................................................................... 139 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 145 II Introduction Since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was released in 2005, ecosystem services have become the hot-spot research subject in the last decade. MA (2005a) defines ecosystem services as the benefits people obtain from ecosystems, including provisioning, regulating and cultural services that directly affect people and supporting services necessary to maintain the other services (Table 1). The conceptual framework of MA (2005b) places human well-being with five main constituents as the central focus and pays particular attention on the linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being by assuming that a dynamic interaction exists between people and other parts of ecosystems, with the changing human condition driving, both directly and indirectly, changes in ecosystems and thereby causing changes in human well-being. At the same time, many other factors (indirect drivers) unrelated