Conference Agenda

The UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) offers a framework for integrating ecosystem services into national statistics, but its economic service account outputs depend on the spatial resolution and ecological detail of the underlying extent accounts. This study examines how ecosystem extent accounting methods and ecosystem typology choices influence economic valuation, using Ireland as a diagnostic case study. Four accounting scenarios were compared, combining coarse and more refined ecosystem maps with two alternative classification schemes to assess their effects on service estimates. Uncertainty was incorporated through a probabilistic Monte Carlo simulation. Results show that differences in spatial resolution and typological aggregation systematically alter how ecosystem service values are allocated across ecosystem types and space, with changes in aggregate magnitude reflecting secondary accounting effects rather than the primary object of analysis. The direction and magnitude of valuation differences depend on how ecosystem extent is delineated and aggregated. This demonstrates that marine ecosystem valuation fundamentally relies on how ecosystems are defined and classified at the extent-account stage, with direct implications for transparency, comparability, and policy relevance under SEEA EA.

Wildlife cultural values, such as spiritual values, remain among the least studied in the ecosystem valuation literature and among the most difficult to estimate, limiting their use in conservation planning. This paper provides empirical evidence on how such values shape coexistence with large carnivores by studying Indigenous Rabari pastoralists and non-Rabari herders living alongside leopards (Panthera pardus) in the Jawai–Bera region of Rajasthan, India. Leveraging an institutional setting in which compensation for livestock losses is already well established, we design a discrete choice experiment with goat herders that varies leopard population and goat predation increases resulting from a conservation program, compensation amounts, and the administrative burdens of obtaining compensation. Results show that, while herders generally view predation negatively, Rabari herders and others expressing strong spiritual beliefs exhibit nonlinear tolerance for predation: they derive positive marginal values from moderate predation levels—consistent with the interpretation of kills as offerings—up to a threshold beyond which welfare declines. These preferences generate quantifiable spiritual values associated with leopards that can be meaningfully incorporated into conservation benefit-cost analyses aimed to support species conservation planning.

The deep sea remains among the least economically documented ecosystems on Earth, yet it is becoming increasingly central to global governance debates, particularly over deep-sea mining. To our knowledge, this study provides the first Bayesian hierarchical meta-analysis of deep-sea ecosystem-service values, drawing on DEEPVAL, a new open database of 119 harmonized estimates from 37 primary studies published between 1990 and 2024. To address the pronounced heterogeneity, limited sample size, and within-study dependence of this sparse literature, we estimate separate hierarchical models for stated-preference and market-based approaches, preserving welfare-theoretic consistency across valuation regimes. Under common reference scenarios, we further derive the first posterior-adjusted value distributions for deep-sea ecosystem services, providing full posterior distributions as structured reference points for cautious benefit transfer rather than collapsing the underlying uncertainty into single point estimates. The results reveal two distinct value structures: Minerals rank first in the market-based model (337 Int.$/ha/yr), whereas Waste treatment dominates the stated-preference model (280 Int.$/ha/yr). Regulating, supporting, and cultural services are, by contrast, structurally compressed or absent in market-based accounts. This asymmetry suggests that a purely market-based accounting systematically understates the welfare costs of deep-sea degradation, with direct consequences for seabed mining appraisal and marine protected area design.

Stated preference discrete choice experiments (DCEs) allow for valuing tourism and recreation experiences, by providing data for estimating willingness to pay (WTP) for specific trip attributes. However, the credibility of these estimates remains a concern, particularly in hypothetical settings where respondents face no real financial consequences. Recent methodological advances in environmental economics have demonstrated that information scripts, designed to align respondent beliefs with key behavioral assumptions, can significantly improve the validity of WTP estimates. Yet similar methodological advances have received limited attention in tourism and recreation contexts. This study applies and adapts information script treatments to examine whether reinforcing three fundamental DCE assumptions (choice realism, task independence, and opt-out awareness) affects WTP estimates for mountain hiking trip attributes in Poland using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) administered to 2131 Polish residents; all of whom had taken a hiking trip in the Polish mountains within the past three years. The information treatment significantly affected WTP estimates, though effects varied across attributes. Most notably, the treatment reduced the trip-specific constant (interpreted as the base WTP for taking any trip, regardless of attributes) from 9.53 to 5.91 PLN. Treatment effects on attribute-specific WTP followed two distinct patterns. For landscape attributes such as meadows and rocks, the treatment reduced marginal WTP. In contrast, for wildlife and amenity attributes, the treatment increased marginal WTP. The travel time disutility also intensified under treatment. This study demonstrates that reinforcing fundamental DCE assumptions through repeated information scripts significantly affects WTP estimates for recreation trip attributes, and suggest that survey studies omitting similar attention to essential behavioral assumptions in DCEs may produce biased estimates characterized by inflated baseline valuations and attenuated attribute trade-offs.