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Valuing Community Benefits of Final Ecosystem Goods and Services: Human Health and Ethnographic Approaches
Citation:
Johnston, JohnM, R. DeJesus-Crespo, M. Harwell, C. Jackson, M. Myer, N. Seeteram, K. C. WILLIAMS, S. Yee, AND J. Hoffman. Valuing Community Benefits of Final Ecosystem Goods and Services: Human Health and Ethnographic Approaches. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-17/309, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
As part of the Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, the National and Community Benefits of Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Task is focused on translating the provisioning of final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS) into community health and well-being. As stated by the EPA Science Advisory Board, “The science of sustainability must emphasize the interrelated aspects of human actions and [human] well-being and the functions of human altered and natural supporting ecosystems”. While other tasks in the SHC Research Program are centered on assessing the economic valuation of FEGS, the Benefits task will create a complementary link to indicators of human health and well-being, providing a more comprehensive accounting of the benefits that ecosystems provide.
Description:
This report provides a summary of three of our research projects: 1) an evaluation of the quality of scientific evidence associating green spaces with health benefits, along with ensuing research in San Juan, Puerto Rico; 2) a Health Impact Assessment of a Long Island sewering pilot program in Suffolk County, NY that revealed health benefits associated with control of sewage- and effluent-related ecosystem goods and services; and 3) a community case study that used ethnographic methods to characterize how a Great Lakes community values FEGS affected by aquatic ecosystem remediation and restoration. Each chapter is written as a standalone section with a narrative synthesis. Each study represents the experiences of social, public health, and environmental scientists recruited to ongoing multidisciplinary research projects at the Agency. This report covers a period from October 2016 to May 2017 and work was completed as of June 2017.