Abstract

Making trade-offs between ecological services and other contributors to human well-being is a difficult but critical process that requires valuation. This allows both better recognition of the ecological, social, and economic trade-offs and also allows us to bill those who use up or destroy ecological services and reward those that produce or enhance them. It also aids improved ecosystems policy. In this paper we clarify some of the controversies in defining the contributions to human well-being from functioning ecosystems, many of which people are not even aware of. We go on to describe the applicability of the various valuation methods that can be used in estimating the benefits of ecosystem services. Finally, we describe some recent case studies and lay out the research agenda for ecosystem services analysis, modeling, and valuation going forward.

Keywords

Ecosystem servicesValuation (finance)Ecosystem valuationProcess (computing)Ecological economicsEcosystemEnvironmental resource managementEcological systems theoryBusinessEcologyEconomicsComputer scienceEcosystem healthSustainability

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Publication Info

Year
2011
Type
article
Volume
3
Pages
14-14
Citations
143
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Veronica Dujon, Elise F. Granek, Stephen Polasky et al. (2011). Valuing ecological systems and services. F1000 Biology Reports , 3 , 14-14. https://doi.org/10.3410/b3-14

Identifiers

DOI
10.3410/b3-14
PMID
21876725
PMCID
PMC3155191

Data Quality

Data completeness: 81%