Understanding the economic value of water ecosystem services from tropical forests: A systematic review for South and Central America

Elena Ojea and Julia Martin-Ortega

Journal of Forest Economics, 2015, vol. 21, issue 2, 97-106

Abstract: There is a well-established body of literature on monetary valuation of water ecosystem services to support the case for sustaining tropical forests. However, this literature is heterogeneous in its purposes and approaches and has not been carefully compared, providing a fragmented view of the values of forest water services. This paper addresses this knowledge gap through an orderly review and a regression meta-analysis of existing valuation studies at the regional level in South and Central America. This analysis allows identifying some factors that systematically influence forest values. However, it also reveals a lack of a systematized approach to valuation and a lack of sufficiently coherent evidence. This represents a barrier for the incorporation of the values of water ecosystem services into decision-making.

Keywords: Extractive water supply; In-stream water supply; Latin America; Meta-analysis; Service users; Water services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q00 Q23 Q25 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1104689915000173
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:foreco:v:21:y:2015:i:2:p:97-106

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/701775/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 701775/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfe.2015.02.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Forest Economics is currently edited by P. Gong and R. Brännlund

More articles in Journal of Forest Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().