The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies and a few original calculations. For the entire biosphere, the value (most of which is outside the market) is estimated to be in the range of US$16-54 trillion (10^(12)) per year, with an average of US$33 trillion per year. Because of the nature of the uncertainties, this must be considered a minimum estimate. Global gross national product total is around US$18 trillion per year.

https://www.esd.ornl.gov/benefits_conference/nature_paper.pdf

The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital

Humans are altering the composition of biological communities through a variety of activities that increase rates of species invasions and species extinctions, at all scales, from local to global. These changes in components of the Earth's biodiversity cause concern for ethical and aesthetic reasons, but they also have a strong potential to alter ecosystem properties and the goods and services they provide to humanity. Ecological experiments, observations, and theoretical developments show that ecosystem properties depend greatly on biodiversity in terms of the functional characteristics of organisms present in the ecosystem and the distribution and abundance of those organisms over space and time. Species effects act in concert with the effects of climate, resource availability, and disturbance regimes in influencing ecosystem properties. Human activities can modify all of the above factors; here we focus on modification of these biotic controls. The scientific community has come to a broad consensus on many aspects of the re- lationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, including many points relevant to management of ecosystems. Further progress will require integration of knowledge about biotic and abiotic controls on ecosystem properties, how ecological communities are struc- tured, and the forces driving species extinctions and invasions. To strengthen links to policy and management, we also need to integrate our ecological knowledge with understanding of the social and economic constraints of potential management practices. Understanding this complexity, while taking strong steps to minimize current losses of species, is necessary for responsible management of Earth's ecosystems and the diverse biota they contain.

/pdf/effects-of-biodiversity-on-ecosystem-functioning-a-consensus-13j8vabcus.pdf

Effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a consensus of current knowledge

Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action - 'Water for Life' - 2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and approximately 0.8% of the Earth's surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100000 species out of approximately 1.8 million - almost 6% of all described species. Inland waters and freshwater biodiversity constitute a valuable natural resource, in economic, cultural, aesthetic, scientific and educational terms. Their conservation and management are critical to the interests of all humans, nations and governments. Yet this precious heritage is in crisis. Fresh waters are experiencing declines in biodiversity far greater than those in the most affected terrestrial ecosystems, and if trends in human demands for water remain unaltered and species losses continue at current rates, the opportunity to conserve much of the remaining biodiversity in fresh water will vanish before the 'Water for Life' decade ends in 2015. Why is this so, and what is being done about it? This article explores the special features of freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities. We document threats to global freshwater biodiversity under five headings: overexploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Their combined and interacting influences have resulted in population declines and range reduction of freshwater biodiversity worldwide. Conservation of biodiversity is complicated by the landscape position of rivers and wetlands as 'receivers' of land-use effluents, and the problems posed by endemism and thus non-substitutability. In addition, in many parts of the world, fresh water is subject to severe competition among multiple human stakeholders. Protection of freshwater biodiversity is perhaps the ultimate conservation challenge because it is influenced by the upstream drainage network, the surrounding land, the riparian zone, and - in the case of migrating aquatic fauna - downstream reaches. Such prerequisites are hardly ever met. Immediate action is needed where opportunities exist to set aside intact lake and river ecosystems within large protected areas. For most of the global land surface, trade-offs between conservation of freshwater biodiversity and human use of ecosystem goods and services are necessary. We advocate continuing attempts to check species loss but, in many situations, urge adoption of a compromise position of management for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning and resilience, and human livelihoods in order to provide a viable long-term basis for freshwater conservation. Recognition of this need will require adoption of a new paradigm for biodiversity protection and freshwater ecosystem management - one that has been appropriately termed 'reconciliation ecology'.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/96AA265E3D88C95FB802E7A73CCB4332/S1464793105006950a.pdf/div-class-title-freshwater-biodiversity-importance-threats-status-and-conservation-challenges-div.pdf

Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

http://portal.nceas.ucsb.edu/working_group/ebm-matrix/pdf-reprints/de%20Groot_2002.pdf/attachment_download/file

A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services

Public transit agencies face a transformed landscape of rider demand and political support as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. We explore people’s motivations for returning to or avoiding public transit a year into the pandemic. We draw on a March 2021 follow-up survey of over 1,900 people who rode transit regularly prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, and who took part in a prior survey on the topic in May 2020. We investigate how transit demand changes associated with the pandemic relate to changes in automobile ownership and its desirability. We find that pre-COVID frequent transit users between the ages of 18–29, a part of the so-called “Gen Z,” and recent immigrants are more attracted to driving due to the pandemic, with the latter group more likely to have actually purchased a vehicle. Getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is also a strong and positive predictor of buying a car and anticipating less transit use after the pandemic. Our results suggest that COVID-19 may have increased the attractiveness of auto ownership among transit riders likely to eventually purchase cars anyway (immigrants, twentysomethings), at least in the North American context. We also conclude that getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is a positive predictor of having bought a car. Future research should consider how having COVID-19 transformed some travelers’ views, values, and behaviour. 

/pdf/facing-the-future-of-transit-ridership-shifting-attitudes-gflpmji3.pdf

Facing the future of transit ridership: shifting attitudes towards public transit and auto ownership among transit riders during COVID-19

THE study of cyclical price behavior has been a debate over the extent to which prices behave in a classical manner: falling in recessions and rising in expansions. At one extreme in this debate, the proponents of administered prices state that "In recessions administered prices tend to fall less than market dominated prices; . . . similarly, since administered price does not fall as much in recession, it rises less in recovery" [8, p. 292]. Some proponents [4][I][7, p. ii] have suggested a response lag in administered price industries, resulting in countercyclical price behavior in these industries. At the other extreme in this debate, Stigler and Kindahl (SK and annual data do not exactly test cyclical hypothesis. Rice [i i] used three concentration intervals and found little relation to the standard deviation of the percentage change in average annual prices. He used both BLS list price data and NBER transactions price data. His test is also biased against any cyclical hypotheses since business cycles are not annual phenomena. If the relation between price changes and concentration is U-shaped the concentration intervals selected will be crucial to any U-shape test. Also, a Chi-square test of this sort is weaker than the parametric tests which could have been used on the same data. Weiss investigated the relations between concentration, percentage price changes, and deviation from trend for the NBER transactions price series over different stages of the business cycle using three concentration groups. He found that in recessions prices in the least concentrated industries were more likely to fall both absolutely and relative to trend then other price series but there was no distinction between price behavior in the two most concentrated

Cyclical Price Flexibility: A Test of Administered Pricing

Market-Based Instruments, Overview

Public transit agencies face a transformed landscape of rider demand and political support as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. We explore people’s motivations for returning to or avoiding public transit a year into the pandemic. We draw on a March 2021 follow up survey of over 1,900 people who rode transit regularly prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, and who took part in a prior survey on the topic in May, 2020. We model how transit demand has changed due to the pandemic, and investigate how this relates to changes in automobile ownership and its desirability. We find that pre-COVID frequent transit users between the ages of 18-29, a part of the so-called “Gen Z,” and recent immigrants are more attracted to driving due to the pandemic, with the latter group more likely to have actually purchased a vehicle. Getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is also a strong and positive predictor of buying a car and anticipating less transit use after the pandemic. Our results suggest that COVID-19 heightened the attractiveness of auto ownership among transit riders likely to eventually purchase cars anyways (immigrants, twentysomethings), at least in the North American context. We also conclude that getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is a significant and positive predictor of having bought a car. Future research should consider how the experiencing of having COVID-19 has transformed some travelers’ views, values, and behaviour.

Facing the future of transit ridership: which riders bought a car; who is planning on riding less?

Geographers and health researchers routinely analyze data on food-related behaviors to understand potential relationships between the food environment and diet. Analytical uncertainties arise, however, from discounting the sequential connections and household coordination of various food tasks. This study employed the time-geographic construct of the project, which is defined as a series of goal-oriented activities conducted by one or more individuals, to understand the composition and influencing factors of household food provision. To demonstrate the usefulness of the project concept, this study delineated how food activities were woven into a select couple’s daily life paths with the aid of sequence visualizations, and developed an analytical test case using time-use diaries of coupled adults living in Toronto, Canada. Ten dinner project archetypes were identified with distinct characteristics of activity composition and coordination. The study further explored how the dinner project archetypes were related to geographic food environments and meal consumption. By employing the project concept in research on food environments, the interconnectedness between various diet-related activities and diverse patterns of coordination between household members can be captured. Finally, a discussion on how the project perspective can improve the understanding of food environments and healthy eating was presented.

Stephen Farber

Papers

Facing the future of transit ridership: shifting attitudes towards public transit and auto ownership among transit riders during COVID-19

Cyclical Price Flexibility: A Test of Administered Pricing

Market-Based Instruments, Overview

Facing the future of transit ridership: which riders bought a car; who is planning on riding less?

Time-Geographic Project of Household Food Provision: Conceptualization and a Pilot Case Study