Values of natural and human‐made wetlands: A meta‐analysis

Ghermandi, Andrea; Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. van den; Brander, Luke; Groot, H.L.F. de; Nunes, Paulo A.L.D.

doi:10.1029/2010wr009071

Cited by 222 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…Similar results were found, where water quality improvement was among the three highest valued ecosystem services of wetlands [24]. Studies have shown that wetlands properly constructed and maintained could be effective for protecting water quality [25,26].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 74%

Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Wetlands Mitigation in the United States

Adusumilli

2015

Land

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Section 404 of the U.S. Clean Water Act includes most wetlands in its jurisdiction and requires wetland mitigation to compensate for permitted wetland losses. These mitigation wetlands can provide ecosystem services similar to original wetlands if properly constructed. Improvement of wetland monitoring requirements coupled with economic assessment is critical for effective implementation of the mitigation policy. The economic assessment when left out of evaluation of mitigation policy could result in mitigation wetlands being given too little weight in policy decisions. Under the assumption that mitigation requirements reported in the Army Corps permit files represent actual wetland creation, ecosystem services value is estimated using a wetland benefit-function transfer approach. Wetland mitigation requirements during 2010-2012 recorded in the Army Corps permit files is used for the analysis. The results indicate that cumulative ecosystem services value per acre per year is in the range of $5000 to $70,000, which translates to a nationwide annual aggregate benefit of $2.7 billion. Given the history of the ecosystem services not fully captured nor adequately quantified, the current analysis is an initial step in understanding the value of wetland mitigation.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 74%

Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Wetlands Mitigation in the United States

Adusumilli

2015

Land

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“…They estimated worldwide reactive nitrogen removal by wetlands to be approximately 17% of anthropogenic nitrogen inputs, though they did not explore the role of wetland size on nutrient processing. A meta-analysis of 186 wetland sites, however, found a negative correlation between wetland size and water quality [Ghermandi et al, 2010]. Further, in a review of 17 constructed wetlands receiving agricultural runoff in Europe, Braskerud et al [2005] found specific particulate phosphorus retention (g P retention/m 2 /year) to decrease as wetland area increased.…”

Section: Background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeochemical hotspots: Role of small water bodies in landscape nutrient processing

Cheng

Basu

2017

Water Resources Research

193

157

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Increased loading of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from agricultural and urban intensification has led to severe degradation of inland and coastal waters. Lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands (lentic systems) retain these nutrients, thus regulating their delivery to downstream waters. While the processes controlling N and P retention are relatively well-known, there is a lack of quantitative understanding of how these processes manifest across spatial scales. We synthesized data from 600 lentic systems around the world to gain insight into the relationship between hydrologic and biogeochemical controls on nutrient retention. Our results indicate that the first-order reaction rate constant, k [T 21 ], is inversely proportional to the hydraulic residence time, s [T], across 6 orders of magnitude in residence time for total N, total P, nitrate, and phosphate. We hypothesized that the consistency of the relationship points to a strong hydrologic control on biogeochemical processing, and validated our hypothesis using a sediment-water model that links major nutrient removal processes with system size. Finally, the k-s relationships were upscaled to the landscape scale using a wetland size-frequency distribution. Results suggest that small wetlands play a disproportionately large role in landscape-scale nutrient processing-50% of nitrogen removal occurs in wetlands smaller than 10 2.5 m 2 in our example. Thus, given the same loss in wetland area, the nutrient retention potential lost is greater when smaller wetlands are preferentially lost from the landscape. Our study highlights the need for a stronger focus on small lentic systems as major nutrient sinks in the landscape. Plain Language Summary Excess nutrient pollution from intensive fertilizer use and farming operations poses an increasing threat to water quality worldwide. Lakes, streams, and wetlands restrict the movement of nutrients, and thus protect downstream waters. We have a limited understanding, however, of how removal processes are affected by the size and type of the water body. Based on a synthesis of data from lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands worldwide, we found that smaller water bodies tend to have higher nutrient removal rates. We applied our findings to the landscape scale and found that for the same wetland area lost, the loss of small wetlands corresponds to a greater loss in wetland nutrient removal potential. Such findings are significant to wetland protection and restoration efforts, which have historically focused on maximizing total wetland area rather than on preserving a distribution of different wetlands sizes within a landscape.

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“…Useful summaries and meta-analyses of the valuation literature on forests are provided by Barrio and Loureiro (2010), Lindhjem (2007), Ojea et al (2010), Zanderson and Tol (2009); and on wetlands by Brander et al (2006Brander et al ( , 2012, Brouwer et al (1999), Ghermandi et al (2010) and Woodward and Wui (2001). Descriptive overviews of the valuation literature on natural open space proximate to urban areas are provided in Fausold and Lilieholm (1999) and McConnell and Walls (2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A generic marginal value function for natural areas

2016

Self Cite

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We conduct a CV and a CE experiment using a generic rather than a situation-specific study design in order to obtain a generic marginal value function for different types of natural areas with different characteristics in the Netherlands. We develop a modelling approach in which we use CV and CE choice data in one model. The value function obtained shows that people attach value to the presence of natural areas, and that these values vary due to differences in the magnitude of areas, in distance to areas, and differences in accessibility and fragmentation of natural areas. We discuss how the value function can be used to incorporate potential substitution between natural areas. We also show that for approximately one-fifth of our sample there is no added value having any kind of natural area nearby and that people living in small municipalities tend to be indifferent between accessible and inaccessible areas. Our approach produces a generic marginal value function, which may be used to inform cost-benefit analyses and land use planning decisions that wish to incorpo- rate positive and negative welfare externalities related to changes in the provision of natural areas. However, we also show that applying this value function to the regional or local scale may produce biased value estimates.JEL Classification H40 · Q26 · Q51

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Values of natural and human‐made wetlands: A meta‐analysis

Cited by 222 publications

References 58 publications

Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Wetlands Mitigation in the United States

Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Wetlands Mitigation in the United States

Biogeochemical hotspots: Role of small water bodies in landscape nutrient processing

A generic marginal value function for natural areas

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