IP04 Valuation of Ecological Resources
B115 & B116
1:20 PM - 4:40 PM, Monday
(IP025) Valuation of ecological resources: Results of a 2003 SETAC Pellston workshop.
Stahl, R1, Kapustka, L2, Bruins, R3, Dorward King, E4, Meade, N5, Munns, W6, Randall, A7, Skrabis, K8, Tomasi, T9, Biddinger, G10, 1 DuPont Company, Wilmington, Delaware, USA2 ep and t, Corvallis, Oregon, USA3 US EPA, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA4 Rio Tinto, London, England5 NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA6 US EPA, Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA7 Ohio State Univ, Columbus, Ohio, USA8 US Dept of Interior, Washington, DC, USA9 Entrix, Wilmington, Delaware, USA10
ABSTRACT- Risk managers and other environmental decision-makers rely on a number of different kinds of information to choose among management options. The willingness to accept risk (risk tolerance) changes across the range of the perceived value of the resource, creating an intriguing challenge to ecologists, economists, and decision-makers. Numerous decisions would benefit from the inclusion of valuation of ecological resources, including natural resource damage assessments (NRDA), regional coordination of watershed activities such as those occurring in the CALFED program or various TMDL permitting processes, and various other conflict situations that require a balance of competing interests. To address the above issues, a SETAC Pellston Workshop was held in October 2003 that sought to advance the theory, concepts, and approaches for integrating cultural and social valuations, economics, and ecological risk assessment in support of better environmental decisions. Five overarching issues were addressed: 1. the role of economics in the environmental decision making process; 2. the scientific underpinnings for, and the roles of society, regulatory and legislative bodies in determining the value of complex ecological resources; 3. methods for valuation of ecological resources; 4. ecological and economic information sets, tools and analytical frameworks needed to make and support sound environmental decision making, and how these vary according to the type of decision being made; and, finally, 5. the types of approaches that have been used in previously conducted valuations, and their strengths and weaknesses. Key findings of the workshop will be discussed.
Key words: Ecological economics, Ecological valuation, Ecological risk assessment, Pellston workshops