Economic Valuation of Freshwater Ecosystem Services in the United States: 1971-1997

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Wilson ◽  
Stephen R. Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystem

scholarly journals Analyzing the impacts of land use policies on selected ecosystem services in the upper Chattahoochee Watershed, Georgia, United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 115001
Author(s):  
Fabio Jose Benez-Secanho ◽  
Puneet Dwivedi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Wildlife Habitat ◽  
Baseline Scenario ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Land Use Policies

Abstract The rapid rate of urbanization within the Upper Chattahoochee Watershed (UCW) is threatening the provision of ecosystem services (ESs) for six million residents of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. This study uses the land cover change model TerrSet to project future land cover from 2016 to 2040. The modular toolset InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) is used to assess the efficacy of four land use policies in maintaining the provision of three ESs (carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and water quality) within the UCW. The Baseline scenario represents past urbanization trends, whereas the Urbanization scenario accounts for a higher urban growth rate. The Plan 2040 scenario includes existing policy guidelines, and the Conservation scenario adds forested riparian buffer areas. Two integrated indexes and an economic valuation of ESs were used to combine all ESs and analyze the overall performance of each policy. The first index uses unequal weights for ESs based on the Analytical Hierarchical Process, whereas the second index uses equal weights. The values of both integrated indexes and economic values were highest in the Conservation scenario and lowest in the Urbanization scenario. No significant differences in the provision of ESs were found between the Baseline and the Plan 2040 scenarios. However, the integrated indexes and economic values for both land use policies declined over time. Our study will feed into the ongoing movement of sustainable watershed management for ensuring the provision of ESs, especially for rapidly urbanizing cities worldwide, in general, and in the United States, in particular.

A synoptic survey of ecosystem services from headwater catchments in the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 106-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian H. Hill ◽  
Randall K. Kolka ◽  
Frank H. McCormick ◽  
Matthew A. Starry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Headwater Catchments

scholarly journals The Woods around the Ivory Tower: A Systematic Review Examining the Value and Relevance of School Forests in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 531
Author(s):  
Kimberly J. Coleman ◽  
Elizabeth E. Perry ◽  
Dominik Thom ◽  
Tatiana M. Gladkikh ◽  
William S. Keeton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Research And Teaching

Throughout the United States, many institutions of higher education own forested tracts, often called school forests, which they use for teaching, research, and demonstration purposes. These school forests provide a range of benefits to the communities in which they are located. However, because administration is often decoupled from research and teaching, those benefits might not always be evident to the individuals who make decisions about the management and use of school forests, which may undervalue their services and put these areas at risk for sale, development, or over-harvesting to generate revenue. To understand what messages are being conveyed about the value and relevance of school forests, we conducted a systematic literature review and qualitatively coded the resulting literature content using an ecosystem services framework. While school forests provide many important benefits to academic and local communities, we found that most of the existing literature omits discussions about cultural ecosystem services that people may receive from school forests. We discuss the implications of this omission and make recommendations for addressing it.

A Comparative Analysis of Accountability Mechanisms for Ecosystem Services Markets in the United States and the European Union

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Glicksman ◽  
Thoko Kaime
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Performance Standards ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Market Manipulation ◽  
The European Union

AbstractMarkets in ecosystem services have the potential to provide financial incentives to protect the environment either in lieu of or in addition to more traditional regulatory programmes. If these markets function properly, they can provide enhanced levels of environmental quality or more efficient mechanisms for protecting natural resources that provide vital services to humans. The theoretical benefits of ecosystem services markets may be undercut, however, if care is not taken in creating the legal infrastructure that supports trading to ensure that trades actually provide the promised environmental benefits. This article identifies five essential pillars of an ecosystem services market regime that are necessary to provide operational accountability safeguards. These include financial safeguards, verifiable performance standards, transparency and public participation standards, regulatory oversight mechanisms, and rule of law safeguards. The article assesses whether the laws of the United States (US) and European Union (EU) are well designed to provide such accountability. It concludes that despite recognition of the risk of market manipulation and outright fraud, regulators in the US and the EU to date have responded to these risks largely in an ad hoc and incomplete fashion, rather than embedding the mechanisms for operational accountability discussed in this article into the regulatory framework that governs ecosystem services trading markets.

scholarly journals Assessment and economic valuation of air pollution impacts on human health over Europe and the United States as calculated by a multi-model ensemble in the framework of AQMEII3

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 5967-5989 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulas Im ◽  
Jørgen Brandt ◽  
Camilla Geels ◽  
Kaj Mantzius Hansen ◽  
Jesper Heile Christensen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Anthropogenic Emissions ◽  
External Costs ◽  
Model Ensemble ◽  
Premature Deaths ◽  
The Us

Abstract. The impact of air pollution on human health and the associated external costs in Europe and the United States (US) for the year 2010 are modeled by a multi-model ensemble of regional models in the frame of the third phase of the Air Quality Modelling Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII3). The modeled surface concentrations of O3, CO, SO2 and PM2.5 are used as input to the Economic Valuation of Air Pollution (EVA) system to calculate the resulting health impacts and the associated external costs from each individual model. Along with a base case simulation, additional runs were performed introducing 20 % anthropogenic emission reductions both globally and regionally in Europe, North America and east Asia, as defined by the second phase of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF-HTAP2). Health impacts estimated by using concentration inputs from different chemistry–transport models (CTMs) to the EVA system can vary up to a factor of 3 in Europe (12 models) and the United States (3 models). In Europe, the multi-model mean total number of premature deaths (acute and chronic) is calculated to be 414 000, while in the US, it is estimated to be 160 000, in agreement with previous global and regional studies. The economic valuation of these health impacts is calculated to be EUR 300 billion and 145 billion in Europe and the US, respectively. A subset of models that produce the smallest error compared to the surface observations at each time step against an all-model mean ensemble results in increase of health impacts by up to 30 % in Europe, while in the US, the optimal ensemble mean led to a decrease in the calculated health impacts by  ∼  11 %. A total of 54 000 and 27 500 premature deaths can be avoided by a 20 % reduction of global anthropogenic emissions in Europe and the US, respectively. A 20 % reduction of North American anthropogenic emissions avoids a total of  ∼  1000 premature deaths in Europe and 25 000 total premature deaths in the US. A 20 % decrease of anthropogenic emissions within the European source region avoids a total of 47 000 premature deaths in Europe. Reducing the east Asian anthropogenic emissions by 20 % avoids  ∼  2000 total premature deaths in the US. These results show that the domestic anthropogenic emissions make the largest impacts on premature deaths on a continental scale, while foreign sources make a minor contribution to adverse impacts of air pollution.

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