ارزش قائل شدن برای خدمات اکوسیستم از بازسازی تالاب ها در دره آبرفتی می سی سی پی

This study assesses the value of restoring forested wetlands via the U.S. government's Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley by quantifying and monetizing ecosystem services. The three focal services are greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, nitrogen mitigation, and waterfowl recreation. Site- and region-level measurements of these ecosystem services are combined with process models to quantify their production on agricultural land, which serves as the baseline, and on restored wetlands. We adjust and transform these measures into per-hectare, valuation-ready units and monetize them with prices from emerging ecosystem markets and the environmental economics literature. By valuing three of the many ecosystem services produced, we generate lower bound estimates for the total ecosystem value of the wetlands restoration. Social welfare value is found to be between $1435 and $1486/ha/year, with GHG mitigation valued in the range of $171 to $222, nitrogen mitigation at $1248, and waterfowl recreation at $16. Limited to existing markets, the estimate for annual market value is merely $70/ha, but when fully accounting for potential markets, this estimate rises to $1035/ha. The estimated social value surpasses the public expenditure or social cost of wetlands restoration in only 1 year, indicating that the return on public investment is very attractive for the WRP. Moreover, the potential market value is substantially greater than landowner opportunity costs, showing that payments to private landowners to restore wetlands could also be profitable for individual landowners.

Ecosystem services, a collective term for the goods and services produced by ecosystems that benefit humankind, have traditionally been undervalued as they often fall outside of conventional markets (NRC, 2005). Without market prices, the incentive to provide them privately has been low relative to competing land uses, such as crops or timber. Reinforcing this notion, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported that about 60% of global ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably (MEA, 2005). Increasingly, society is recognizing the essential link between healthy ecosystems and human welfare and seeks ways to increase the provision of ecosystem services.

As public goods, ecosystem services have been traditionally underprovided due to their lack of value in the marketplace. Thus far, government conservation programs such as WRP have sought to increase the flow of these services, and they have attained a certain level of success, as this analysis demonstrates. However, increasing recognition of the importance of healthy ecosystems to human welfare creates the potential for new economic opportunities in the form of private ecosystem markets. Policymakers and business entrepreneurs need good information on the economic value of ecosystem services to guide their programs and market development efforts. This paper begins to address that need.