Valuing ecosystem resilience

Gabriela Scheufele and Jeffrey Bennett

No 107806, Research Reports from Australian National University, Environmental Economics Research Hub

Abstract: The concept of ecosystem resilience is being increasingly discussed as a driver of biodiversity values. It implies that marginal deteriorations in ecosystem conditions can abruptly result in non-marginal and irreversible changes in ecosystem functioning and the economic values that the ecosystem generates. This challenges the traditional approach to the valuation of biodiversity, which has focused on quantifying values attached to individual species or other elements of ecosystems. As yet, little is known about the value society attaches to changes in ecosystem resilience. This paper investigates this value. A discrete choice experiment is used to estimate implicit prices for attributes used to describe ecosystem resilience using the Border Ranges rainforests in Australia as an example. We find evidence that implicit prices for the attributes describing ecosystem resilience are positive and statistically significantly different from zero.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2011-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-res
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https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/107806/files/EERH_RR98.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Valuing ecosystem resilience (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:eerhrr:107806

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.107806

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