Including uncertainty in valuing blue and green infrastructure for stormwater management

Richard Ashley, Berry Gersonius, Christopher Digman, Bruce Horton, Brian Smith and Paul Shaffer

Ecosystem Services, 2018, vol. 33, issue PB, 237-246

Abstract: Blue and green infrastructure (BGI) provides a wide range of ecosystem services (ES) and other benefits when managing stormwater, beyond flow and pollution control. A number of tools have been developed to value these benefits. In the UK, stormwater measures that utilise BGI are known as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). This paper outlines the Benefits of SuDS Tool (B£ST), developed in the UK by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) for valuing the benefits of BGI stormwater measures. The tool has been applied to case studies across Europe. B£ST includes a set of benefits based on ecosystem services applied to the use of BGI for stormwater management. The paper focuses on the uncertainties in this multiple benefit assessment, detailing the processes used in the tool. Examples illustrate the scale of the uncertainties in tools like B£ST. The uncertainties when using BGI valuation tools such as B£ST to help inform the delivery of stormwater measures are demonstrated in the paper as potentially of sufficient magnitude to warrant explicit consideration by professionals and decision makers.

Keywords: Uncertainty; Benefit assessment; Ecosystem services; Valuation; Stormwater; Blue and green infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:33:y:2018:i:pb:p:237-246

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.08.011

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