Default monetary values for environmental change

• This report presents the results of a project which responds to the need for and difficulties faced in describing changes in ecosystem services and the environment in monetary terms. This means that there is a great risk of environmental change and impacts on ecosystem services being undervalued. There is therefore a need for default monetary values for environmental change and ecosystem services with associated guidelines on how these values are to be applied. Using these default values, the Swedish authorities are to be able to make overarching and comparable descriptions of changes in ecosystems and the environment that follow from measures to achieve the environmental objectives. Jointly developed default values create the necessary basis for the authorities to describe changes to the environment and ecosystems in a uniform way. The default values are not to be regarded as permanent but should be updated as new information becomes available, for example new results from new valuation studies. Work under the project has been divided into the following three phases: 1. Surveying (a) existing Swedish valuation studies, (b) what values are used at present by Swedish authorities and (c) how any default values adopted should be designed to be usable in practice. The survey was conducted firstly by sending a questionnaire to a selection of Swedish authorities and secondly by reviewing existing Swedish valuation studies. 2. On the basis of results obtained in Phase 1 assessing for what environmental changes there is sufficiently detailed information on monetary values to enable them to be suitable for the development of default values, and creating intervals of monetary values for this selection of environmental changes. 3. On the basis of the intervals in Phase 2 assessing monetary value which could be used as a default value for the selected environmental changes. An inventory of studies in databases of valuation studies was compiled to review Swedish valuation studies. The inventory was focused on Swedish primary studies, i.e. studies based on Swedish primary data, and a total of 141 studies were found. The studies were classified into groups on the basis of the object of valuation. It was found possible to create intervals of monetary values for the groups of Recreational Fishing and Water Quality. In addition, during the course of the project SIKA investigated whether the ASEK values are suitable for use as general default values outside the transport sector. The results were that (a) the ASEK value of a statistical life (VSL) for road-traffic accidents should be usable for general valuation of life and health, (b) the ASEK value of carbon dioxide emissions should not be used outside the transport sector, (c) some of the ASEK values for local and regional impacts of air pollutants may be usable as general default values, while others may not and (d) the ASEK value for noise should not be used as a general default value. To enable usable intervals to be created for the groups of Recreational Fishing and Water Quality, it was necessary to (a) express the environmental change which has been the object of valuation in the same physical unit and (b) express the estimated economic value in the same monetary unit. These two steps involved a number of different conversions and corrections. The default value was then calculated as a mean value of the observations from various valuation studies on which the intervals were based. The final result for the Recreational Fishing group was the following intervals in Swedish kronor (SEK) for mean willingness to pay per recreational fisherman and default value for game fish:• One extra kg: 13-207. Default value: 78. • One extra fish: 7-358. Default value: 105. • One extra fishing day: 17-229. Default value: 94. Equivalent intervals and default values for other fish were as follows: • One extra kg: 5-79. Default value: 23. • One extra fish: 2-16. Default value: 9. • One extra fishing day: 7-158. Default value: 55. It is proposed as a guideline for the use of these default values that the values are used by Swedish authorities in economic analysis relating to recreational fishing, provided the economic analysis does not concern a particular type of fish or fishing for which more specific values of satisfactory quality are available. Such specific values may, for example, be estimates of willingness to pay for a better angling or a particular species in a particular part of Sweden. When using the default values it should be borne in mind that they only capture the willingness to pay of recreational fishermen. Non-recreational fishermen in all likelihood also have a considerable willingness to pay for improved recreational fishing. The final result for the Water Quality group was the following intervals in SEK for mean willingness to pay and default values for reduced loadings of nitrogen and phosphorus to the coast:• Nitrogen: 4-70 per reduced kg. Default value: 31. • Phosphorus: 127-2140 per reduced kg. Default value: 1023. Equivalent corrected intervals and default values for improvement in water clarity (measured as Secchi depth) in coastal waters of one metre were as follows: • Per person and year: 268-369. Default value: 315. • Per visit: 45-360. Default value: 130. It is proposed as a guideline for the use of these default values that the values are used by Swedish authorities in economic analysis relating to water quality, provided that the economic analysis does not concern a particular type of water quality for which more specific values of satisfactory quality are available. Such specific values may, for example, be estimates of willingness to pay for specific changes in water quality in particular water areas. In addition, the following circumstances should be considered when using the default values: • They can be expected to be valid for improvements of quality in marine waters. • It should be examined for each application relating to the default values for reduction of nitrogen or phosphorus whether it is reasonable to interpret a significant decrease in the nutrients as a halving. • It should be borne in mind for each application relating to the default values for reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus that they are valid for extreme cases where either nitrogen loadings or phosphorus loadings have been halved. They thus cannot be used additively, for example for a valuation of 4000 kg less nitrogen and 40 kg less phosphorus. • It should be examined for each application relating to the default values for improvements in water clarity whether it relates to a relationship between population and site of improvements which is comparable with the studies on which the default values are based. In addition to the results above relating to intervals and default values, it can be noted that too few valuation studies exist in Sweden today to enable the existing need to value environmental change and impacts on ecosystem services to be satisfied. It would therefore be desirable to conduct a number of valuation studies on a broad front to enable more intervals and default values to be created and the intervals and default values calculated in this project to be updated. With a larger base of valuation studies it would additionally be possible to calculate intervals and default values by more advanced methods (e.g. quantitative analysis) than has been possible in this project. There is also a need for a clearly specified and uniformly valued change in the valuation studies carried out.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

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