Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Valuing New Jersey’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital: A Spatially Explicit Benefit Transfer Approach

  • Published:
Environmental Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We intend to estimate the value of ecosystem services in the U.S. State of New Jersey using spatially explicit benefit transfer. The aggregated net rent, a conservative underestimate for the total economic value of the state’s natural environment, ranged from $11.6 to $19.6 billion/year, conditional on how inclusive we were in selecting the primary studies used to calculate the central tendency values to transfer. In addition to calculating the range, mean, and standard deviation for each of 12 ecosystem services for 11 Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) types, we also conduct a gap analysis of how well ecosystem service values are represented in the literature. We then map these values by assuming a mean value for each LULC and apply this to spatial data. As to sensitivity analysis, we calculate the net present value of New Jersey’s natural environment utilizing three different methods of discounting. These research results provide a useful, albeit imperfect, basis for assessing the value of ecosystem services and natural capital, and their comparison with the value of conventional human and built capitals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen BP, Loomis J (2008) The decision to use benefit transfer or conduct original valuation search valuation research for benefit-cost and policy analysis. Contemporary Economic Policy 26:1–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Azar C, Sterner T (1996) Discounting and distributional considerations in the context of global warming. Ecological Economics 19:169–184

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bergstrom JC, Taylor LO (2006) Using meta-analysis for benefits transfer: theory and practice. Ecological Economics 60:351–360

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bishop RC, Champ PA, Brown TC, McCollum DW (1997) Measuring non-use values: theory and empirical applications. In: Kopp RJ, Pommerehne WW, Schwarz N (eds) Determining the value of non-marketed goods. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, pp 59–81

    Google Scholar 

  • Boumans R, Costanza R, Farley J, Wilson MA, Portela R, Rotmans J, Villa F, Grasso M (2002) Modeling the dynamics of the integrated earth system and the value of global ecosystem services using the GUMBO model. Ecological Economics 41:529–560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brookshire DS, Neill HR (1992) Benefit transfers—conceptual and empirical issues. Water Resources Research 28:651–655

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brouwer R (2000) Environmental value transfer: state of the art and future prospects. Ecological Economics 32:137–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Champ PA, Boyle KJ, Brown TC (eds) (2003) A primer on nonmarket valuation. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands

    Google Scholar 

  • Costanza R, Folke C (1997) Valuing ecosystem services with efficiency, fairness and sustainability as goals. In: Daily G (ed) Nature’s services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 49–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Costanza R, Farber SC, Maxwell J (1989) Valuation and management of wetland ecosystems. Ecological Economics 1:335–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costanza R, dArge R, deGroot R, Farber S, Grasso M, Hannon B, Limburg K, Naeem S, Oneill RV, Paruelo J, Raskin RG, Sutton P, van den Belt M (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:253–260

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Costanza R, Wilson M, Troy A, Voinov A, Liu S, D’Agostino J (2007) The value of New Jersey’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Project report to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

  • Costanza R, Perez-Maqueo O, Martinez ML, Sutton P, Anderson SJ, Mulder K (2008) The value of coastal wetlands for hurricane protection. Ambio 37:241–248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daily G (1997) Nature’s services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Desvousges WH, Naughton MC, Parsons GR (1992) Benefit transfer—conceptual problems in estimating water—quality benefits using existing studies. Water Resources Research 28:675–683

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eade JDO, Moran D (1996) Spatial economic valuation: benefits transfer using geographical information systems. Journal of Environmental Management 48:97–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ehrlich PR, Pringle RM (2008) Where does biodiversity go from here? A grim business-as-usual forecast and a hopeful portfolio of partial solutions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105:11579–11586

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Farber S, Costanza R, Childers DL, Erickson J, Gross K, Grove M, Hopkinson CS, Kahn J, Pincetl S, Troy A, Warren P, Wilson M (2006) Linking ecology and economics for ecosystem management. BioScience 56:121–133

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farley J (2008) The role of prices in conserving critical natural capital. Conservation Biology 22:1399–1408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Finnoff D, Tschirhart J (2008) Linking dynamic economic and ecological general equilibrium models. Resource and Energy Economics 30:91–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman AK III (2003) The measurement of environmental and resources values. Resource for the Future, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont (2008) Multiscale Integrated Models of Ecosystem Services (MIMES). http://www.uvm.edu/giee/mimes/

  • Hasse J, Lathrop R (2001) Measuring urban growth in New Jersey: a report on recent land development patterns utilizing the 1986–1995 NJ DEP Land Use/Land Cover Dataset. Cook College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 41 pp

  • Howarth RB, Farber S (2002) Accounting for the value of ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 41:421–429

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iovanna R, Griffiths C (2006) Clean water, ecological benefits, and benefits transfer: a work in progress at the US EPA. Ecological Economics 60:473–482

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Limburg KE, O’Neill RV, Costanza R, Farber S (2002) Complex systems and valuation. Ecological Economics 41:409–420

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu S, Stern DI (2009) A meta-analysis of contingent valuation studies in coastal and near-shore marine ecosystems. Socio-Economics and the Environment Discussion (SEED) working paper 25, CSIRO

  • Liu S, Robert C, Stephen F, Austin T (2010) Valuing ecosystem services. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1185:54–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu S, Portela R, Ghermandi A, Rao N, Wang X (in press) Environmental benefit transfers of ecosystem service valuation. In: van den Belt M, Costanza R (eds) Treatise on estuarine and coastal science. Elsevier

  • Loomis JB (1992) The evolution of a more rigorous approach to benefit transfer - benefit function transfer. Water Resources Research 28:701–705

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003) Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment. Island Press, Washington, DC

  • Mitchell RC, Carson RT (1989) Using surveys to value public goods: the contingent valuation method. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

  • Moran D (1999) Benefits transfer and low flow alleviation: what lessons for environmental valuation in the UK? Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 42:425–436

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munda G (2005) Multiple criteria decision analysis and sustainable development. In: Figueira J, Greco S, Ehrgott M (eds) Multiple criteria decision analysis: state of the art surveys. Springer, New York, NY, pp 954–986

    Google Scholar 

  • Navrud S, Ready R (2007a) Lessons learned for environmental value transfer. In: Navrud S, Ready R (eds) Environmental value transfer: issues and methods. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp 283–290

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Navrud S, Ready R (2007b) Preface. In: Navrud S, Ready R (eds) Environmental value transfer: issues and methods. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, p vii

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Newell RG, Pizer WA (2003) Discounting the distant future: how much do uncertain rates increase valuations? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 46:52–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nordhaus W (2007) Economics: critical assumptions in the Stern review on climate change. Science 317:201–202

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pearce D, Atkinson G, Mourato S (2006) Chapter 17 Benefit transfer. In: Pearce D, Atkinson G, Mourato S (eds) Cost-benefit analysis and the environment: recent developments. OECD Publishing, Paris, France, pp 253–267

    Google Scholar 

  • Plummer ML (2009) Assessing benefit transfer for the valuation of ecosystem services. Frontier in Ecology and the Environment 7(1):38–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Proctor W, Drechsler M (2006) Deliberative multicriteria evaluation. Environment and Planning C-Government and Policy 24:169–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberger RS, Loomis JB (2000) Benefit transfer of outdoor recreation use values. USDA Forest Service

  • Rosenberger RS, Loomis JB (2003) Benefit transfer. In: Champ PA, Boyle KJ, Brown TC (eds) A primer on nonmarket valuation. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp 445–483

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberger RS, Stanley TD (2006) Measurement, generalization, and publication: Sources of error in benefit transfers and their management. Ecological Economics 60:372–378

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shrestha RK, Loomis JB (2003) Meta-analytic benefit transfer of outdoor recreation economic values: testing out-of-sample convergent validity. Environmental Resource Economics 25:79–100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith VK, Pattanayak SK (2002) Is meta-analysis a Noah’s ark for non-market valuation? Environmental Resource Economics 22:271–296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spash CL, Vatn A (2006) Transferring environmental value estimates: issues and alternatives. Ecological Economics 60:379–388

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stern N, Taylor C (2007) Economics: climate change: risk, ethics, and the Stern review. Science 317:203–204

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sukhdev P (2008) The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity: an interim report. European Communities

  • Sumaila UR, Walters C (2005) Intergenerational discounting: a new intuitive approach. Ecological Economics 52:135–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Troy A, Wilson MA (2006) Mapping ecosystem services: practical challenges and opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer. Ecological Economics 60:435–449

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • US National Research Council (2005) Valuing ecosystem services: toward better environmental decision-making. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Weitzman ML (1998) Why the far-distant future should be discounted at its lowest possible rate. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 36:201–208

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson MA, Hoehn JP (2006) Valuing environmental goods and services using benefit transfer: the state-of-the art and science. Ecological Economics 60:335–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Contract No. SR04-075, “Valuation of New Jersey’s Natural Capital” from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, William Mates, Project Officer. We thank Dr Matthew Wilson for his suggestions in conducting the research and DEP’s Bureau of Geographic Information services for providing original LULC data.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GPO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

    Shuang Liu

  2. Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Shuang Liu, Robert Costanza & Austin Troy

  3. NJDEP, Trenton, NJ, USA

    John D’Aagostino & Willam Mates

Authors
  1. Shuang Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Robert Costanza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Austin Troy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. John D’Aagostino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Willam Mates
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shuang Liu.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOC 1199 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Liu, S., Costanza, R., Troy, A. et al. Valuing New Jersey’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital: A Spatially Explicit Benefit Transfer Approach. Environmental Management 45, 1271–1285 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9483-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9483-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation