Valuation of ecotoxicological impacts from tributyltin based on a quantitative environmental assessment framework

Abstract

In the scientific literature, few valuations of biodiversity and ecosystem services following the impacts of toxicity are available, hampered by the lack of ecotoxicological documentation. Here, tributyltin is used to conduct a contingent valuation study as well as costbenefit analysis (CBA) of measures for improving the environmental status in Swedish coastal waters of the Baltic Sea. Benefits considering different dimensions when assessing environmental status are highlighted and a quantitative environmental assessment framework based on available technology, ecological conditions, and economic valuation methodology is developed. Two scenarios are used in the valuation study: (a) achieving good environmental status by 2020 in accordance with EU legislation (USD 119 household -1 year -1 ) and (b) achieving visible improvements by 2100 due to natural degradation (USD 108 household -1 year -1 ) during 8 years. The later scenario was used to illustrate an application of the assessment framework. The CBA results indicate that both scenarios might generate a welfare improvement.

Ship pollution promotion – the strong economic incentives of scrubbers

“…Due to the lack of integrated global marine status assessments that incorporate economic and social aspects [32], the cost of not restricting scrubber water discharge was limited to the Baltic Sea Area and includes only the aspect of marine ecotoxicity damage cost based on WTP studies [9,29,30]. On a Baltic Sea level, the monetary gain of the scrubber eet, by not switching to more expensive fuels, could be put in relation to the societal damage cost that their choice of installing scrubbers have on the marine environment.…”

“…A selection of the scrubber eet, operating within the Baltic Sea Area, is further assessed with respect to societal damage cost as an example of the cost of not restricting scrubber water discharge. The societal damage cost associated to marine ecotoxicity from scrubber water discharge is estimated by combining results from previous willingness-to-pay (WTP) studies [29,30] with calculated toxicity potentials (from ReCiPe characterization factors [31]) of open and closed loop scrubber water.…”

Comparison of Different Monetization Methods in LCA: A Review

“…For Environmental Prices the impact modelling is based on ReCiPe 2013 between individualist and hierarchist perspectives and the economic valuation is based on the data by Kuik et al [82]. For the Ecovalue method, the values are based on a study by Noring et al [112] on tributyline pollution, but no documentation could be found how the tributylene pollution was transferred to 1,4-DCB equivalents. Even though Noring et al [112] excluded very high answers, the obtained values are the highest.…”

“…For the Ecovalue method, the values are based on a study by Noring et al [112] on tributyline pollution, but no documentation could be found how the tributylene pollution was transferred to 1,4-DCB equivalents. Even though Noring et al [112] excluded very high answers, the obtained values are the highest. The value is based on contingent valuation and WTP that was linked to reaching a certain policy target that would increase the environmental status of several snails and other species.…”

Assessing Costs and Benefits of Measures to Achieve Good Environmental Status in European Regional Seas: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learnt

“…No benefits could be estimated for contaminants in the marine environment (D8) and contaminants in seafood (D9) due to a lack of site-specific evidence. The few existing valuation studies on contaminants in the Baltic Sea focus on individual substances, e.g., tributyltin (Noring et al, 2016) or oil (Ahtiainen, 2007;Juntunen et al, 2013). Moreover, the new measures targeting contaminants are related to research activities (measures 30 and 31 in Table 3) thus their contribution to achieving GES by 2020 was assessed to be very low (Oinonen et al, 2016, Table S2).…”