Ecosystem Services Valuation; Concepts and Methods

Mankind always need to ecosystem services and goods to survive, but there has been the problem of no market to valuation of this services and assume those being free. Ecosystem services valuation studies have considerably increased our knowledge of the value of ecosystems. Ecosystem services valuation can be interpreted as asking about the value of the current flow of benefits provided by that ecosystem, or about the value of future flows of benefits and also, be asking about the value of conserving that ecosystem rather than converting it to some other use. Valuation is not a single activity, and the seemingly simple question ‘how valuable is an ecosystem?’ Because ecosystem services are not fully negotiable in commercial markets, or they are not quantifying so that comparable to financial services and productive investment and they often little importance in politics, there are need to methods for their valuation. Given that understanding the principal and proper use of valuation methods, can help to policy makers and planners in order to design appropriate and effective Sustainable development policies related to environmental problems.

This study has studied the subject through literature review and applying internet databases, and is trying to answer to this important question, how ecosystem services valuation affected environmental planning using to consider the concepts and methods of valuation of ecosystem services. 

Key concepts about ecosystem services were stated and the different types of of ecosystem goods and services values and their valuation approaches such as direct valuation approach and revealed preferences and expressed preferences and their shortcomings were introduced and investigeted.

Ecosystem economic valuation, provides useful information for planning, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources to planners and executives, social and economic managers by estimating the quantitative value of ecosystem functions, goods and services.