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Spatially explicit and institutionally extended valuation of ecosystem services

Applicant Dr. Jan Barkmann
Subject Area Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
Term from 2007 to 2011
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 29937865
 
Efforts to protect “mega-diverse” regions are confronted with severe spatial externalities: Global net benefits of conservation of natural ecosystems are estimated up to 100 times higher than benefits of ecosystem conversion, but local opportunity costs of conservation by far exceed local benefits. Spatial externalities are also likely to exist in the wider project region where land-use change results in downstream effects on ecosystem services such as flood control or water availability. In face of these externalities, the systematic design and valuation of biodiversity conservation strategies (afforestation scenarios, biosphere reserve zoning, payments for ecological services) needs (i) empirical data on the global, regional and local benefits of conservation, (ii) financial data on smallholder production options, and (iii) a spatially explicit modeling approach that (iv) accounts for the cultural and institutional context of proposed conservation strategies, and that (v) incorporates scientific information on the impacts of smallholder production on ecosystem services. Methodologically innovative aspects include a multiple-scale choice experiment, and an agent-centred modeling strategy with explicit endogenisation of non-market preferences depending on the match of institutional context and local adaptive capacity (model Ec-SIEHL).
DFG Programme Research Units
 
 

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