Incorporating environmental costs of ecosystem service loss in political decision making: A synthesis of monetary values for Germany

Germany faces on-going degradation and biodiversity loss. As a consequence, goods and services provided by biodiversity for human well-being, so-called ecosystem services, are being lost. The associated economic costs and benefits are often unknown. To fill this gap, we conducted a literature review and developed a database of monetary values for the changes in ecosystem services that result from ecosystem change in Germany. In total, 109 monetary valuation studies of regulating and cultural ecosystem services were identified, with the majority focusing on forests and wetlands. In collaboration with valuation experts and the German Federal Environment Agency—Umweltbundesamt (UBA), we defined a set of criteria that economic valuation studies should meet in order to qualify for being used in decision making on national policies. Only 6 out of 109 valuation studies (5.5%) fulfilled the quality criteria for informing such decisions. Overall, monetary information on regulating and cultural ecosystem services is scattered and scarce compared to information on provisioning services, which is accounted for in detail in national statistics. This imbalance in information likely contributes to the distortion in land-use policies, giving preference to maximizing provisioning services in agricultural production and forestry, while neglecting the societal relevance of regulating and cultural services. Decision makers have to rely on only a few cost estimates that are scientifically robust, while being pragmatic to include also vague estimates in cases where data is lacking. The transferability of the monetary values included in our database depends on the biophysical and socio-economic site conditions as well as the decision context of the intended application. Case specific adjustments following guidance for benefit transfer are recommended. Given the lack of applicable studies, we call for more decision-relevant economic assessments. Even in cases where monetary estimates are available, we suggest decision makers to consider also other benefit information available to capture the multiple values ecosystems provide to humans.

德国正面临持续的生态退化与生物多样性丧失问题。由此，生物多样性为人类福祉所提供的产品与服务——即所谓的生态系统服务（ecosystem services）——正不断流失。与之相关的经济成本与收益往往尚不明确。为填补这一研究空白，我们开展了文献综述，并构建了一套针对德国境内因生态系统变化引发的生态系统服务变动的货币价值数据库。最终共筛选得到109项针对生态系统调节服务与文化服务的货币价值评估研究，其中绝大多数研究聚焦于森林与湿地生态系统。我们联合生态价值评估专家与德国联邦环境署（Umweltbundesamt，简称UBA），制定了一套经济评估研究需满足的标准，以确保其可用于国家政策决策环节。在全部109项评估研究中，仅有6项（占比5.5%）符合用于支撑此类政策决策的质量标准。总体而言，相较于在国家统计中已有详细核算的供给服务相关信息，针对调节与文化生态系统服务的货币价值信息既分散又稀缺。这种信息失衡可能加剧土地利用政策的扭曲：当前政策更倾向于在农业生产与林业中最大化供给服务的效益，却忽视了调节与文化服务的社会价值。决策者往往只能依赖少数具备科学严谨性的成本估算，同时在数据匮乏的情况下也会务实纳入一些模糊估算。本数据库收录的货币价值的可迁移性，取决于生物物理与社会经济的场地条件，以及目标应用的决策场景，建议遵循收益转移（benefit transfer）的相关指南进行针对性调整。鉴于当前适用研究的匮乏，我们呼吁开展更多与决策相关的经济评估。即便已有货币估值结果，我们仍建议决策者同时考虑其他可用的收益信息，以全面捕捉生态系统为人类提供的多元价值。