Forest ecosystem services – assessment methods

Abstract

Forest ecosystems represent the most important values of natural assets. In economic valuation techniques, to estimate the value of forest ecosystem services, the attention is still focused mainly on their market values, i.e. the value of benefits measured in the economic calculation based, first of all, on the price of timber. The valuation of natural resources is currently supported by considerations of the global policy, in order to strengthen the argumentation justifying the need to incur expenditure related to the protection of biodiversity. There is increasing evidence that biodiversity contributes to forest ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. Natural capital of forests can be consumed directly as food, wood and other raw materials or indirectly – by benefitting from purified water and air, safeguarded soils or protected climate. At the same time, forest ecosystems provide us with a range of intangible values – scientific, cultural, religious as well as encompass heritage to pass on to future generations. In the era of increasing pressure on the use of free public goods (natural resources), it is necessary to improve understanding of the role of forests in creating national natural capital, and in enhancing the quality of human life. All things considered, the so called non-market forest ecosystem services may have a much higher value than the profits from the production of timber and raw materials. Needless to say, non-market values of forest ecosystems are of great importance for the quality of human life, and the awareness of this should translate into social behavior in the use of natural resources. This paper reviews the methods to estimate the value of forest ecosystem services in view of recently acknowledged paradigm to move forward from economic production to sustainable human well-being.

Methods for monetary valuation of ecosystem services: A scoping review

“…Other articles defined the term 'value' similarly as ecosystem service contributions to human well-being (Costanza et al 2017;Chen 2020). In addition, some articles discussed the concept of the value in more detail and provided multiple definitions of 'value' (Hattam et al 2015;Costanza et al 2017;Kornatowska, Sienkiewicz, 2018).…”

“…-Substitute cost method is recognized as an original method that differs from replacement cost approach (Van Beukering et al, 2015;Kornatowska, Sienkiewicz 2018). However, most of the articles included in the scoping review do not distinguish between these two methods and both replacement cost and substitute cost concepts are summarized under the umbrella of replacement cost method.…”

“…Despite the fact that there is neither commonly accepted methodology nor statistical standards for ES assessment (Whitham et al 2015;Kornatowska, Sienkiewicz 2018;Mengist, Soromessa 2019), the number of published articles dedicated to ecosystem services and, in particular, to the assessment of ES is increasing (McDonough et al 2017;Acharya et al 2019). Furthermore, the number of studies devoted to the assessment of forest ES has gradually increased in recent years (Mengist, Soromessa 2019;Di Franco et al 2021).…”

Applications of TLS and ALS in Evaluating Forest Ecosystem Services: A Southern Carpathians Case Study

“…At the moment, the ecosystem services specific to regulating functions represent a great challenge in the evaluating processes [54]. This function includes services for air quality regulation, moderation of extreme events, erosion prevention, and carbon sequestration [51,55,75].…”

“…Despite the difficulties encountered in the process of applying ecosystem evaluation methods, they have an essential role in communicating the value of nature to the decisional factors and policymakers [54]. In this regard, there is an absolute need for objective ecological indicators that can provide information about ecosystem health status and structure.…”