Ecosystem Service Value Transfer Repository

Growing demand of resources increases pressure on ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity. Monetary valuation of ES is frequently seen as a decision-support tool by providing explicit values for unconsidered, non-market goods and services. Despite all criticism benefit transfer, i.e. estimations of values for unsampled areas utilizing results from distant studies, is frequently applied in situations of resource constraints (information, time and money). Here we present the database used for meta-analytic value transfer functions developed in Schmidt et al. 2016. The database contains 194 valuation studies of ES including 839 monetary values for 12 ES. We combined two, peer reviewed databases (Seppelt et al. 2011, De Groot et al. 2012). ES were harmonized to a common, comparable set of ES types using a standardized classification system (McVittie et al. 2008) to avoid semantical differences between varying ES terminologies. Besides the original monetary values we also extracted information about the investigation area and the methodological approach of valuations. Global geo-datasets that were not compiled from valuation studies and used as covariates in Schmidt et al. 2016 are not listed, but are openly available. The sources are mentioned in Schmidt et al. 2016.