The EcoValue Project:

1. The EcoValue Project: A Web-based, Geographic Approach to the Delivery of the Economic Values of Ecosystem Services: Current Status and Issues of Concern USSEE Conference Tacoma, Washington July 2005 Treg Christopher, Matthew A. Wilson PhD. & Austin Troy PhD The Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, School of Business Administration, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont tchristo@uvm.edu

2. Introduction to the Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Goods and Services • Goals and Steps of the EcoValue Project • Current Limitations and Future Directions Presentation Outline

3. Provisioning • Goods produced or provided by ecosystems • food • fresh water • fuel wood • genetic resources • Regulating • Benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes • climate regulation • disease regulation • flood regulation • Cultural • Non-material benefits from ecosystems • spiritual • recreational • aesthetic • inspirational • educational • Supporting • Services necessary for production of other ecosystem services • Soil formation • Waste Treatment and Nutrient cycling • Primary production Millennium Assessment (MA) 2003 Typology of Ecosystem Goods and Services Adapted from Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Ecosystems and Human Well Being (2003)

4. The economic valuation of ecosystem services represent the tradeoffs that individuals make between alternative conditions of these services. Valuation Methods: • Direct Use: Goods traded in the market • Non-Direct Use: Hedonic Pricing, Travel Cost, Replacement Cost • Non-Use: Contingent Valuation Advantages: • Cost-Benefit Analyses • “Greening” National Income Accounts • Natural Resource Damage Assessments

5. A work in progress at the University of Vermont by: Treg Christopher, Matthew A. Wilson PhD, Austin Troy PhD, Robert Costanza PhD, Shuang Liu • Scaling-up individual, “environmental economic” studies • Modifying these values to account for spatio-temporal, context and scale • Disseminating information to stakeholders via the web Introduction to the EcoValue Project

6. Steps in the EcoValue Project Literature review and collection Processing the literature into the database MS Access Database Integrating the literature database with spatial data in a GIS Delivery of the values for ecosystem services via the internet

7. Relationship Between Land Cover and Ecosystem Services

8. Economic References

9. The EcoValue Project’s website http://ecovalue.uvm.edu

10. Select a state in the northern forests

11. Vermont Map Viewer

12. A color ramp of total economic value by county

13. Identifying a spatial unit

14. Results of a query of a spatial unit

15. Marginal utility • Spatio-temporal context • Spatio-temporal scale • Quality of original studies • Aggregation of economic values • Limited availability of Land Cover change-detection data Current Issues and Future Directions

16. What was the initial condition and what is the proposed change? • Water Quality and Recreation • Spatial context • Topological elements of a cover type such as area, connectivity, fragmentation, and proportion of the landscape • Ecosystem Dynamics • Threshold of service • Non-linear change Supply-side Issues

17. Socio-economic factors • Income • Demographics • Ethnicity and other cultural characteristics • Population • Substitutability Demand-side Issues

18. Temporal scale • Distribution of the impact of service • Time lags • Spatial scale: • Who are the stakeholders? Who are the appropriate valuers? • Disjunct between human scales of perception and scales at which services operate or generate impacts • “Only a fraction of what exists, is perceived and only a fraction of what is perceived is responded to” (Jedrzejczak, 2004) Scale Issues

19. Thank You! Treg Christopher tchristo@uvm.edu EcoValue Project website: http://ecovalue.uvm.edu Funding: The northern forest module of the EcoValue Project was developed with support from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative.