UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow On: Economics of ecosystem services
1 January 2012 - 1 January 2014
Awarded to: Professor Ian J. Bateman
Co-investigators: Dr Amy Binner, Professor Brett Day, Dr Silvia Ferrini, Dr Carlo Fezzi
Research partners: Amii Harwood, Kevin Hiscock, Andrew Lovett, Antara Sen (University of East Anglia) Mike Bowes, Rosie Hails (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) Ben Ditchburn, Robert Matthews, Pat Snowdon, Gregory Valatin (Forestry Commission) Nick Hanley (University of Stirling) John Hiller, Pete Smith, Silvia Vetter (University of Aberdeen) Mark Hulme, Gavin Siriwardena (British Trust for Ornithology), University of East Anglia, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Forestry Commission, University of Stirling, University of Aberdeen and British Trust for Ornithology.
Funding awarded to Exeter £ 300,000
Sponsor(s): Defra, NERC, ESRC, AHRC
Project webpage(s)
UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow On: Economics of ecosystem services
About the project
In 2011 the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA) delivered a wealth of information on the state, value (economic and social) and possible future of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems across the UK, but also identified a number of key uncertainties.
The government has now committed to a two-year follow-on phase of the UK NEA.
The follow-on phase will further develop and promote the arguments that the UK NEA put forward and make them applicable to decision and policy making at a range of spatial scales across the UK to a wide range of stakeholders.
Aim:
To conduct economic analysis of the value of ecosystem service change to the UK, examining the trade-offs between selected ecosystem services and their values arising from alternative land-uses.
Summary:
The research seeks to link policy, market forces, spatial variation in the physical environment, and climate change, to land-use. It will allow policy-makers to examine the impact of a variety of changes in land-use policy while accounting for the ongoing effects of the other drivers listed above. The analysis will then link changes in land-use to their impacts upon:
- Food production and its value
- Farm income
- Water quality
- Multi-purpose woodland
- Greenhouse gas balance
- Recreation
- Habitat and biodiversity
Where possible, the project will provide comparable economic measures of these impacts. In so doing, the research aims to provide the UK policy community with a sophisticated and policy-relevant analysis concerning the diversity of effects arising from land-use change.
Methods/tools being developed:
- Land-use modeling linking policy, market and environmental drivers
- Linking land-use to greenhouse gas modelling
- Linking land-use to biodiversity modeling
- Linking land-use to water quality analysis
- Linking land-use to recreation demand modeling
- Examining the impacts of uncertainty on the above relationships
Anticipated Case Studies:
- The whole of Great Britain from a fine resolution (approx. 1km squares) up to national level
- Water quality management options at a catchment scale.
Outputs/outcomes:
- Linked models describing the drivers of land-use change and their major impacts in physical and economic terms.
Download the final report
UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-on:
Work Package Report 3: Economic value of ecosystem services