Global, England | Tropical and temperate forests, coastal and coral ecosystems, rivers and lakes and cultivated areas, ESVD update, review process development, ESVD structure development | Status: Finished, June 2019 - May 2020
Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD)
Update of global ecosystem service valuation data
The Ecosystem Services Valuation Database is a follow-up to the “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” (TEEB) database which contained over 1,300 data points from 267 case studies on monetary values of ecosystem services across all biomes. The TEEB database had not been updated since 2010 and naturally many gaps exist across biomes, ecosystems and services.
Recognising the importance of information on spatial ecosystem service values to decision making, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) commissioned a project to update the database, which started in July 2019 and ended 31 May 2020. Before adding new data, the TEEB database structure was updated with additional variables (now 51) including, amongst others, additional information on study site location, size and condition. In addition to the TEEB ecosystem services classification, the values are also linked to CICES V5.1.
Key results:
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The current (2020) version of ESVD now contains 4,042 value records (i.e. three times as much as the original TEEB database) based on 693 studies. The number of value estimates that could be standardised to Int.$/ha/year for all relevant beneficiaries at 2020 price level is 2,917.
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2,159 value estimates to calculate mean values per ecosystem service for each biome.
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Development of a review process. As part of a quality control development, a review process has been set-up and 20% of the data has been newly reviewed.
Involved user groups and ESVD applications
In this project we aim to show the benefits of using the ecosystem services approach to take the 'full' value of mainly UK-related ecosystems into account. We are specifically targeting the following user groups through the following ESVD applications:
Governments
The usefulness of spatial ecosystem services values was recognized by DEFRA. The ESVD update assists Defra in their decision-making process by highlighting the importance of nature.