Potential of the economic valuation of soil-based ecosystem services to inform sustainable soil management and policy

Abstract

The concept of ecosystem services, especially in combination with economic valuation, can illuminate trade-offs involved in soil management, policy and governance, and thus support decision making. In this paper, we investigate and highlight the potential and limitations of the economic valuation of soil-based ecosystem services to inform sustainable soil management and policy. We formulate a definition of soil-based ecosystem services as basis for conducting a review of existing soil valuation studies with a focus on the inclusion of ecosystem services and the choice of valuation methods. We find that, so far, the economic valuation of soil-based ecosystem services has covered only a small number of such services and most studies have employed cost-based methods rather than state-of-the-art preference-based valuation methods, even though the latter would better acknowledge the public good character of soil related services. Therefore, the relevance of existing valuation studies for political processes is low. Broadening the spectrum of analyzed ecosystem services as well as using preference-based methods would likely increase the informational quality and policy relevance of valuation results. We point out options for improvement based on recent advances in economic valuation theory and practice. We conclude by investigating the specific roles economic valuation results can play in different phases of the policy-making process, and the specific requirements for its usefulness in this context.

Application of the Governance Disruptions Framework to German agricultural soil policy

“…In this section, we discuss each dimension of the Governance Disruptions Framework (GDF) by addressing the questions from Given the low specificity of the soil-related objectives identified in the above-mentioned policy documents, scale considerations can only limitedly be assessed. Some work has been done on the temporal and spatial dimensions and mismatches associated with different soil-based ecosystem services (mentioned in the EU Biodiversity Strategy), which can be linked to soil functions (BBodSchG) (Bartkowski et al, 2020). However, the consequences of these mismatches for governance have not yet been spelled out and constitute a research gap.…”

Application of the governance disruptions framework to German agricultural soil policy

“…Given the low specificity of the soil-related objectives identified in the above-mentioned policy documents, scale considerations can only limitedly be assessed. Some work has been done on the temporal and spatial dimensions and mismatches associated with different soil-based ecosystem services (mentioned in the EU Biodiversity Strategy), which can be linked to soil functions (BBodSchG) (Bartkowski et al, 2020). However, the consequences of these mismatches for governance have not yet been spelled out and constitute a research gap.…”

“…Given the general formulation of most targets related to agricultural soil governance in Germany, it is difficult to assess tradeoffs between them. The exception is the BBodSchG's reference to soil functions, which are known to involve trade-offs (Bartkowski et al, 2020;Paul and Helming, 2019), especially when considered in specific environmental and management contexts (Schröder et al, 2020). For instance, organic fertilization is desirable in terms of nutrient cycling, but may be detrimental to water quality because of the mismatch between N/P ratios in organic fertilizer and the demands of most crops (idib.).…”

La valoración económica como fundamento de políticas ambientales: una revisión sistemática

“…En cuanto a investigaciones de corte bibliográfico y analítico, se tienen los relacionados con el análisis, discusión conceptual y metodológica (Bardy et al, 2016;Tinch et al, 2019;Milon y Alvarez, 2019;Schröter et al, 2020;Shapiro et al, 2019;Droste y Bartkowski, 2018). Igualmente, se tienen artículos que utilizan la revisión del Estado del Arte y uso de Mapeo y Evaluación de Servicios de los Ecosistemas (Bartkowski et al, 2020). En la misma línea, se tienen los Estudios de Caso (Ripka, Da Silva y Hernández,…”

“…Instrumento de recolección de datos. (Bartkowski et al, 2020). Y, utilización de información secundaria (Martínez y Sainz, 2017;Onofri y Nunes, 2020;Sinha et al, 2018) además, aplicación de un modelo conceptual (Vannevel y Goethals, 2020).…”