On the Mismatches between the Monetary and Social Values of Air Purification in the Colombian Andean Region: A Case Study

Andres Suarez,Gloria Y Flórez-Yepes,Cesar Ruiz-Agudelo,Luis A Vargas-Marín,Edisson Castro-Escobar

doi:10.3390/f12091274

Abstract

There is growing interest in air quality and air purification, due to current high pollution levels, their effects on human health, and implications for urban economies. Since the improvement of air quality carries important economic value, air-related benefits have been evaluated monetarily from two perspectives: the first relates to air quality improvements, while the second values air purification as an ecosystem function. This research opted for the second perspective, given that the study area (two Colombian municipalities) does not suffer from poor air quality conditions, but stakeholders prioritized this function as highly important to them. Contingent valuation methods were applied in order to identify the population’s probability of willingness to maintain the air purification function. Although individuals (n = 245) attribute a yearly monetary value of USD 1.5 million to air purification, it was found that, despite the high level of social importance that respondents assigned to air purification (mean = 4.7/5), this had no correlation with payment values (rho = 0.0134, p = 0.8350); that is, households do not really recognize the monetary value of all the benefits they receive or the benefits they would lose if the service suffers changes. Hence, it is posed that monetary values do not necessarily reflect the social importance that individuals assign to ecosystem services, and attention is called to the need to integrate social and monetary values into decision-making processes, so as to encompass the complexity of ecosystem services and conciliate conflicting valuation language.

Highlights

It is well known that humankind’s well-being relies on different ecosystems and their benefits, on multiple scales, in urban areas
Helping ecosystem services’ monetary and social values to match is of great interest for both the academic and policy-making communities since this joint analysis would allow for the obtention of a broader understanding of the values of ESs in specific contexts
One conclusion from this investigation is that the economic valuation, expressed in monetary units, does not necessarily reflect the social importance attributed to the air purification (AP) ecosystem service

Summary

Introduction

It is well known that humankind’s well-being relies on different ecosystems and their benefits, on multiple scales, in urban areas. In this regard, ecosystem services (ESs) have gained momentum, as this approach is insightful for decision-making purposes. The generation of ESs begins with the presence of one or more ecosystem structures, which have a variety of ecological functions, and provide societal benefits [2,3]. As stated by [4], the ecosystem services approach enabled a better understanding of the complexity of human-environmental systems. As stressed by [5], it is necessary to manage ecosystem functions in order to ensure that the composition and structure of ecosystem elements continuously provide well-being for humanity. There are certain ecosystem functions that are essential to the maintenance of said well-being, which makes the case for the maintenance of good environmental conditions for these reasons, including air quality, which has received special attention in the past few years [6,7]

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Discussion

Conclusion