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.

德国正面临着持续的退化与生物多样性丧失的挑战。由此，对人类福祉产生影响的生物多样性提供的商品与服务，即所谓的生态系统服务，正在逐渐消失。与之相关的经济成本与效益往往不为人知。为填补这一空白，我们进行了文献综述并构建了一个数据库，用以存储德国生态系统变化导致的生态系统服务变化的货币价值。总计识别出109项关于调节与文化生态系统服务的货币估值研究，其中大多数集中于森林和湿地。在估值专家和德国联邦环境局（Umweltbundesamt，简称UBA）的合作下，我们制定了一套标准，经济估值研究需满足这些标准方可用于国家政策决策。在109项估值研究中，仅有6项（占比5.5%）符合作为决策信息来源的质量标准。总体而言，与提供性服务相比，调节与文化生态系统服务的货币信息显得分散且稀缺，而提供性服务在国家统计中已有详细记录。这种信息不平衡可能导致了土地利用政策上的偏差，偏好于最大化农业生产和林业的提供性服务，而忽视了调节与文化服务的公共价值。决策者不得不依赖于少量科学稳健但实际中又需包括模糊估计的成本估计，以应对数据缺失的情况。我们数据库中包含的货币价值在适用性上依赖于特定的生物物理和社会经济条件以及应用决策的背景。建议根据利益转移的指导原则进行案例特定的调整。鉴于适用研究的缺乏，我们呼吁进行更多与决策相关的经济评估。即使在货币估计可用的情况下，我们也建议决策者考虑其他可用的利益信息，以捕捉生态系统为人类提供的多重价值。