CC-LandStraD: Economic valuation of public goods provided by forests

Background and Objective

The primary goal of the forestry subproject is to analyse und assess in monetary terms climate adapted forestry and its effects on the provision and the regional distribution of forest goods and services. Within this subproject these questions will be dealt with from two different perspectives, one forest economic and one environmental economic part. The environmental economic part of the subproject will deal with the effects of carbon mitigation and climate adaptation strategies on the provision of nonmarket ecosystem goods and services (no exclusivity, no rivalry) of forests and their economic valuation.

Approach

For the monetary valuation of cultural ecosystem services of forests a random sample of the population will be interviewed nationwide. Therefore, a separate questionnaire will be developed, using stated preferences methods, i.e. choice experiments.

Data and Methods

Economic valuation is conducted by means of a choice experiment. In a choice experiment respondents are successively presented several different alternatives with different attributes. They are then asked to choose the one that is most preferred. Using statistical methods trade-offs between single attributes of the alternatives are determined. This is also done with the price attribute, which indicates the economic value of changes of accompanying attributes.

Results

Results of the monetary valuation show that positive willingness to pay values exist for increasing the Share of forest, and negative willingness to pay values (i.e., compensation requests) are found for decreasing the Share of forest.
Changes in forest characteristics leading to an increase in Biodiversity and Age of forests are valued positively. All other changes are valued negatively. This includes reductions in the amount of Understorey in forests and substantial reductions in the amount of Unused forests. Regarding the choice of tree species negative willingness to pay values are found for changes in the amount of Exotic tree species as well as high levels of Coniferous trees.
Measures changing the Field size (in any direction) are valued negatively.
Results depend to some extent on current situations in respondents' surroundings.