Spatially explicit and institutionally extended valuation of ecosystem services

• Applicant: Dr. Jan Barkmann
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: from 2007 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 29937865

Efforts to protect “mega-diverse” regions are confronted with severe spatial externalities: Global net benefits of conservation of natural ecosystems are estimated up to 100 times higher than benefits of ecosystem conversion, but local opportunity costs of conservation by far exceed local benefits. Spatial externalities are also likely to exist in the wider project region where land-use change results in downstream effects on ecosystem services such as flood control or water availability. In face of these externalities, the systematic design and valuation of biodiversity conservation strategies (afforestation scenarios, biosphere reserve zoning, payments for ecological services) needs (i) empirical data on the global, regional and local benefits of conservation, (ii) financial data on smallholder production options, and (iii) a spatially explicit modeling approach that (iv) accounts for the cultural and institutional context of proposed conservation strategies, and that (v) incorporates scientific information on the impacts of smallholder production on ecosystem services. Methodologically innovative aspects include a multiple-scale choice experiment, and an agent-centred modeling strategy with explicit endogenisation of non-market preferences depending on the match of institutional context and local adaptive capacity (model Ec-SIEHL).

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 816: Biodiversity and Sustainable Management of a Megadiverse Mountain Ecosystem in Southern Ecuador
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Rainer Marggraf; Professor Dr. Roland Olschewski