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Title: | Costs of land degradation and benefits of land restoration: A review of valuation methods and suggested frameworks for inclusion into policy-making |
Authors: | Quillérou, Emmanuelle Thomas, Richard J. |
Keywords: | land restoration;economic valuation;ecosystem services;limited data;limited capacity |
Publication Date: | 20-Sep-2012 |
Publisher: | CABI |
Citation: | Quillérou, E., Thomas, R.J. (2012) Costs of land degradation and benefits of land restoration: A review of valuation methods and their application. CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources. Volume: 7 Issue: 060, 1-12. Invited submission. |
Abstract: | Land degradation has become a growing concern with the current increase in demand for arable land. Sustainable land management and land restoration practices are required in order to meet the demands to provide food and other services. Adoption of improved practices has, however, not been widespread partly because of a lack of clarity on the true economic value and setting of proper financial incentives. This review focuses on the economic costs of land degradation as a prelude to two ongoing initiatives involving the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). We review how ecosystem services derived from land have been economically valued to date. Economic valuation has mostly focused on the use value of provisioning services and cultural services, with limited valuation of non-use value of cultural services. Also, no unique valuation method has been applied following methodological developments, varying study objectives and data availability constraints. These factors impair coherent and consistent estimation of the total economic value of land degradation across countries. We identify a need to develop harmonized valuation methods to estimate total economic value under strong data and capacity constraints. We propose two alternative frameworks for harmonized total economic valuation of land degradation at country level to guide further research in making environmental valuation more relevant and practical under strong data and capacity constraints. |
Description: | Review Methodology: We started off from existing reports on land degradation and ecosystem valuations [1, 2]. We also reviewed existing economic reviews by Nkonya et al. [3], Adhikari and Nadella [4], Requier-Desjardins [5] and Requier-Desjardins et al. [6]. In addition, we searched the following database and journals: Google Scholar, Land Degradation and Development, Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental and Resource Economics, Ecological Economics (keyword search terms used: land degradation, cost of land degradation, economic valuation, economic valuation and developing country, payments for ecosystem services, payments for ecosystem services and developing countries). We used the references from the articles obtained by this method to check for additional relevant material. We also spoke to colleagues and checked for any upcoming studies not yet published. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/11375/15699 |
Appears in Collections: | Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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Quillerou and Thomas_2012 - Costs of land degradation and benefits of land restoration..._MACSPHERE.pdf | accepted manuscript version | 352.25 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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