A proposed framework for economic valuation and assessment of damages cost to national wetlands ecosystem services using the benefit-transfer approach

Abstract

Wetland valuation is a policy tool available to environmental planners and policy-makers to justify the general costs of wetland preservation activities. Because there is no integrated procedure for valuing goods and services in the country, this article is the first attempt in Iran to provide a comprehensive yet simple and practical framework on how to value ecosystem goods and services. Estimating the cost of damage to ecosystem services can be effective in preventing further damage to wetland ecosystems. The study aims to propose a framework for estimating the environmental costs of development activities and estimating the damage to the values of the wetland ecosystem services within the direct and indirect effects of development activities. The benefit transfer method was used to estimate the values of ecosystem services of each land use/land cover (LULC) class and damage costs to ecosystem goods and services provided by wetlands. Using the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD), the coefficients of the average values of ecosystem services for the country over a period of one year were estimated using the equation for adjusting the overall price levels. The mean values of ecosystem services per hectare of coastal and inland wetlands were updated based on the price levels in 2021. Then the corresponding values were adjusted for Iran. The sum of the “means” of the adjusted ecosystem service values per hectare for the Iranian coastal mangrove wetland ecosystems and inland wetland ecosystems are estimated to be 67,665 USD and 42,171 USD, respectively.