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Journal ArticleDOI

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

TLDR
In this paper, the authors 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.
Abstract
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.

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Citations
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A sequential decision support system and quality assessment issues

TL;DR: A place for monetary valuation within the pluralistic approach supported by ecological economics is identified and progress to date in the application of environmental valuation to ecosystem service provision is assessed.
Journal ArticleDOI

Multiple drivers of decline in the global status of freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Astacidea)

Nadia I. Richman, +42 more
TL;DR: This paper evaluated the extinction risk of the world's 590 freshwater crayfish species using the IUCN Categories and Criteria and found that 32% of all species are threatened with extinction, with proportionally more threatened species in the Parastacidae and Astacidae than in the Cambaridae.
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Enhancing the Resilience of Human–Environment Systems: a Social Ecological Perspective

TL;DR: The authors trace the intellectual roots and core principles of social ecology and demonstrate how these principles enable a broader conceptualization of resilience than may be found in much of the literature, and illustrate how the resulting notion of resilience as transactional process and multi-capital formation affords new perspectives on diverse phenomena such as global financial crises and adaptation to environmental stresses to communities and ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI

Expanding Exergy Analysis to Account for Ecosystem Products and Services

TL;DR: ECEC is shown to be closely related to emergy, and both concepts become equivalent if the analysis boundary, allocation method, and approach for combining global energy inputs are identical, shows that most of the controversial aspects of emergy analysis need not hinder its use for including the exergetic contribution of ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI

Biodiversity loss and the taxonomic bottleneck: emerging biodiversity science

TL;DR: In this article, the authors aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability.
References
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Book

Using surveys to value public goods : the contingent valuation method

TL;DR: Mitchell and Carson as discussed by the authors argue that at this time the contingent valuation (CV) method offers the most promising approach for determining public willingness to pay for many public goods, an approach likely to succeed, if used carefully, where other methods may fail.
Journal ArticleDOI

Nature's services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems.

Gretchen C. Daily
- 23 Jan 1998 - 
TL;DR: Nature's Services brings together world-renowned scientists from a variety of disciplines to examine the character and value of ecosystem services, the damage that has been done to them, and the consequent implications for human society.
Book

For The Common Good: Redirecting The Economy Towards Community, The Environment And A Sustainable Future

TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the scale of human activity in the biosphere has grown too large and that change is needed in the approach to economic activity: "correction and expansion a more empirical and historical attitude less pretense on being science and willingness to subordinate the market to purposes that it is not geared to determine."
Journal ArticleDOI

Primary production required to sustain global fisheries

TL;DR: In this paper, the mean of reported annual world fisheries catches for 1988-1991 (94.3 million t) was split into 39 species groups, to which fractional trophic levels, ranging from 1.0 (edible algae) to 4.2 (tunas), were assigned, based on 48 published Trophic models, providing a global coverage of six major aquatic ecosystem types.
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Natural Capital and Sustainable Development

TL;DR: In this paper, a minimum necessary condition for sustainability is the maintenance of the total natural capital stock at or above the current level, to be relaxed only when solid evidence can be offered that it is safe to do so.
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