Ecosystem Services

Monetary valuation methods appropriately applied and based on sound biophysical data can deliver robust estimates of ecosystem service values useful for policy. However key challenges remain for full incorporation into policy appraisal. This chapter provides an overview of some of the key challenges as well as opportunities in the economic valuation of ecosystem services in practice. It is largely based on overviews made at DEFRA, 2007, Morse-Jones et al., 2010, and TEEB, 2012. There are two main groups of challenges: challenges in the availability of data and challenges on the concrete use of data into policy appraisal.