Deliberative and non-monetary valuation methods

Abstract There is an increasing interest in methods that can understand our values of ecosystem services in broad and multidimensional way. This chapter discusses a range of deliberative, analytical-deliberative, psychological and interpretive approaches to value the environment. Deliberative methods allow people to ponder, debate and negotiate their values, which can inform, moralise and democratise the valuation process. Analytical-deliberative approaches combine deliberative methods with more formal decision-support tools. Interpretive methods help us understand the narratives of places and what they mean to us as individuals and to our communities and culture. Psychological methods can survey the multi-faceted nature of how ecosystem services contribute to human well-being, and can also investigate our deeper held, 'transcendental' values. The way we approach valuation impacts on the type of values that are highlighted. Embracing values as a pluralistic concept means that, to comprehensively value ecosystem services, we need to embrace a diversity of methods to assess them

Ecosystem Services in the Service-Dominant Logic Framework.

Peer reviewe

Embedding an Ecosystems Approach in Decision Making: Measuring the Added Value

Overview Report. Centre for Environmental Management Report No 18

Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services

International audienceno abstrac

Considerations in environmental science and management for the design of natural asset checks in public policy appraisal

In 2010, the Government Economic Service Review of the Economics of Sustainable Development recommended that a natural asset check should be investigated for use in the appraisal of public policy options. Considerations in environmental science and management can help to ensure that issues such as the ecological thresholds, cumulative impacts, the selection of appropriate accounting units and risk are handled appropriately in any natural asset check. Based on assessment of the contribution of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA) and other work, this paper makes a series of propositions in relation to the design of a natural asset check: 1. While the UK NEA draws together much of the information needed to design a natural asset check, a development of this framework will be required in order to perform the check. 2. Some kind of accounting model is likely to be more useful as a basis for a natural asset check than the frameworks used for ecosystem assessments. 3. A classification approach that links ecosystem services to the natural assets that underpin them is probably more efficient in capturing what is important in policy terms, than one that is based on a more abstract and generic classification of assets. 4. There are sufficient data resources available for a preliminary audit of natural assets to be made. 5. While a focus on non-marginal or irreversible changes in natural systems is important, it would be too restrictive to make this the exclusive concern of any natural asset check. 6. What might be considered critical natural assets may change as knowledge develops or circumstances change. Therefore, a ‘one-off’ natural asset check is unlikely to be reliable for policy analysis in the long term. Periodic audit will be necessary