Measuring Ecosystem Service Benefits: The Use of Landscape Analysis to Evaluate Environmental Trades and Compensation

Ecosystem compensation and exchange programs require benefit analysis in order to guarantee that compensation or trades preserve the social benefits lost when ecosystems are destroyed or degraded. This study derives, applies, and critiques a set of ecosystem benefits indicators (EBIs). Organized around the concept of ecosystem services and basic valuation principles we show how GIS mappings of the physical and social landscape can improve understanding of the ecosystem benefits arising from specific ecosystems. The indicator system focuses on landscape factors that limit or enhance an ecosystem's ability to provide services and that limit or enhance the expected value of those services. The analysis yields an organized, descriptive, and numerical depiction of sites involved in specific mitigation projects. Indicator-based evaluations are applied to existing wetland mitigation projects in Florida and Maryland in order to practically illustrate the virtues and limits of the approach.Ecosystem Valuation, Wetlands, Spatial Analysis, Landscape Analysis

Measuring Ecosystem Service Benefits: The Use of Landscape Analysis to Evaluate Environmental Trades and Compensation

Ecosystem compensation and exchange programs require benefit analysis in order to guarantee that compensation or trades preserve the social benefits lost when ecosystems are destroyed or degraded. This study derives, applies, and critiques a set of ecosystem benefit indicators (EBIs). Organized around the concept of ecosystem services and basic valuation principles we show how GIS mappings of the physical and social landscape can improve understanding of the ecosystem benefits arising from specific ecosystems. The indicator system focuses on landscape factors that limit or enhance an ecosystem's ability to provide services and that limit or enhance the expected value of those services. The analysis yields an organized, descriptive, and numerical depiction of sites involved in specific mitigation projects. Indicator-based evaluations are applied to existing wetland mitigation projects in Florida and Maryland in order to practically illustrate the virtues and limitations of the approach

Benefit Relevant Indicators: Ecosystem Services Measures that Link Ecological and Social Outcomes

There is a growing movement in government, environmental non-governmental organizations and the private sector to include ecosystem services in decision making. Adding ecosystem services into assessments implies measuring how much a change in ecological conditions affects people, social benefit, or value to society. Despite consensus around the general merit of accounting for ecosystem services, systematic guidance on what to measure and how is lacking. Current ecosystem services assessments often resort to biophysical proxies (e.g., area of wetland in a floodplain) or even disregard services that seem difficult to measure. Valuation, an important tool for assessing trade-offs and comparing outcomes, is also frequently omitted due to lack of data on social preferences, lack of expertise with valuation methods, or mistrust of valuation methods for non-market services. To address these shortcomings, we propose the use of a new type of indicator that explicitly reflects an ecosystem’s capacity to provide benefits to society, ensuring that ecosystem services assessments measure outcomes that are demonstrably and directly relevant to human welfare. We call these Benefit-relevant indicators (BRIs) and describe a process for developing them using causal chains that link management decisions through ecological responses to effects on human well-being. BRIs identify what is valued and by whom, but stop short of valuation. A BRI for the ability of wetlands to ameliorate flooding would connect measures of the quantity and quality of wetland in a floodplain, as affected by wetlands management decisions, to the number of people or properties downstream that are vulnerable to flooding. BRIs can support monetary or non-monetary valuation, but are particularly useful when valuation will not be conducted; in such cases they serve as stand-alone measures of “what is valued” by particular beneficiaries. BRIs are valid measures of ecosystem services in that they are directly linked to human well-being. Flexibility in the development of BRIs helps to ensure that they are broadly applicable across practitioner and stakeholder communities and decision contexts

Best Practices for Integrating Ecosystem Services into Federal Decision Making

Federal agencies take many actions on behalf of the American public that influence ecosystem conditions and change the provision of a variety of ecosystem services valued by the public. To date, most decisions affecting ecosystems have relied on ecological assessments with little or no consideration of the value of ecosystem services. Best practice for ecosystem service assessments applies quantitative measures and methods that express both an ecosystem’s ability to provide people with valued services, and the social benefit (value) provided by those services. Well established preference evaluation methods, both market and non‐market economic valuation, as well as non‐monetary decision analysis methods can be used to estimate values for ecosystem services. These approaches are sometimes used by federal agencies. However, preference evaluation methods can be impractical because of time or resource constraints, particularly where new data need to be collected. In such cases, the minimum standard required for an ecosystem service assessment is to use quantitative or categorical measures that reflect the ecosystem’s ability to provide benefits to society but stop short of a formal assessment of people’s preferences. We call these quantitative measures of ecosystem services benefit relevant indicators (BRIs). Examples of BRIs include; instances of respiratory distress caused by wildfire smoke inhalation, number of bald eagles and number of people who value their existence, and storage volume of wetland areas upstream of a flood prone area with a community of 1,000 homes. While a number of insights that can be drawn from knowledge of BRIs alone, a more robust comparative analysis is provided by a more complete analysis that includes people’s preferences or values. If ecosystem service values or BRIs are not used in some manner, ecosystem services are not being assessed, and no direct insights can be drawn about effects on social welfare. This minimum best practice is broadly achievable across agencies and decision contexts with current capacity and resources

So You Want Your Research to be Relevant? Building the Bridge Between Ecosystem Services Research and Practice

There is growing demand for information regarding the impacts of decisions on ecosystem services and human benefits. Despite the large and growing quantity of published ecosystem services research, there remains a substantial gap between this research and the information required to support decisions. Research often provides models and tools that do not fully link social and ecological systems; are too complex, specialized, and costly to use; and are targeted to outcomes that differ from those needed by decision makers. Decision makers require cost-effective, straightforward, transferable, scalable, meaningful, and defensible methods that can be readily understood. We provide illustrative examples of these gaps between research and practice and describe how researchers can make their work relevant to decision makers by using Benefit Relevant Indicators (BRIs) and choosing models appropriate for particular decision contexts. We use examples primarily from the United States, including cases that illustrate varying degrees of success in closing these gaps. We include a discussion of the challenges and opportunities researchers face in adapting their work to meet the needs of practitioners