A New Look at the Natural Capital Concept: Approaches, Structure, and Evaluation Procedure

Margarita Ignatyeva, Vera Yurak and Oksana Logvinenko
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Margarita Ignatyeva: Research Laboratory of Disturbed Lands’ and Technogenic Objects’ Reclamation, Ural State Mining University, 620144 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Vera Yurak: Research Laboratory of Disturbed Lands’ and Technogenic Objects’ Reclamation, Ural State Mining University, 620144 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Oksana Logvinenko: Department of Economics and Management, Ural State Mining University, 620144 Yekaterinburg, Russia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-21

Abstract: This article considers the concept of natural capital as a basic construct of sustainable development. However, after numerous studies, a number of aspects of accounting and valuation of natural capital remain unspecified. The relevance and imperfection of the guidelines used to assess natural capital make relevant the development of such issues as the conceptual apparatus and methods to natural capital assessment. Therefore, the core objectives of the paper are: (1) to substantiate the structure of natural capital, taking into account the natural resources and ecosystem approaches; (2) to clarify the concepts of “function” and “services” in relation to abiotic and biotic components of the environment; (3) to generalize and analyze the classifications of ecosystem services, and to develop the authors’ classification; (4) to identify the most common methods for the economic assessment of natural capital’s components, and to implement these methods within a specific territory. These methods have been tested on the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KhMAD, Russia). The most typical ecosystems of the region and their inherent ecosystem services have been identified. Assessment results are presented for (1) forest ecosystems, (2) mountain ecosystems, and (3) ecosystems of swamps, lakes, and rivers.

Keywords: natural capital; abiotic and biotic components; ecosystems; ecosystem services and functions; economic assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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