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ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS AND SERIVCES FROM RESTORATION ALTERNATIVES: EMERGY-BASED METHOD OF BENEFIT VALUE
Citation:
Cai, T, T. W. Olsen, AND D E. Campbell. ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS AND SERIVCES FROM RESTORATION ALTERNATIVES: EMERGY-BASED METHOD OF BENEFIT VALUE. Presented at iv Biennial International Workshop Advances in Emergy Studies, Campinas, San Paulo, Brazil, June 15-19, 2004.
Description:
Although economic benefit-cost analyses of environmental regulations has been conducted since the 1970s, an effective methodology has yet to be developed for the integrated assessment of regulatory impacts on the larger system as a whole, including its social and environmental as well as economic processes. All of these processes together are essential to human well-being. A complete analysis of the benefits and costs of an environmental policy or restoration alternative requires a method for assigning value to its environmental, social, and economic effects. According to the prevailing environmental economic paradigm, human preference provides a common basis for valuating direct and indirect effects on markets and ecosystems. Practical application of this basis requires a viable mechanism for signaling preferences among potentially disparate effects. Because the benefits of restoration are derived primarily from effects on ecosystems, however, and these effects are difficult to relate to preferences as revealed by market behavior, benefit valuation problems have proven particularly problematic and controversial within the prevailing paradigm. For situations in which restoration effects on the energetics of ecosystem goods and services can be quantified, emergy can provide a basis for valuation of benefits that are otherwise difficult to include in our economic accounts. Here we describe our use of emergy analysis to assess the change in value of the potential goods and services provided by stream ecosystems when water quality is restored.