Costs of land degradation and benefits of land restoration: A review of valuation methods and suggested frameworks for inclusion into policy-making

CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources

Volumn 7, Issue , 2012, Pages

  Quillérou, Emmanuelle ^a   Thomas, Richard J ^a  

^a United Nations University   (Canada)

Author keywords

Economic valuation; Ecosystem services; Land restoration; Limited capacity; Limited data

Indexed keywords

EID: 84869744207     PISSN: None     EISSN: 17498848     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1079/PAVSNNR20127060     Document Type: Review

References (75)

1. Oldeman LR, Hakkeling RTA, Sombroek WG. World Map of the Status of Human Induced Soil Degradation: An Explanatory Note: Global Assessment of Soil Degradation GLASOD. Published in cooperation with Winand Staring Centre, International Society of Soil Science, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences. International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Wageningen; United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi 1991. ISBN 90-6672-046-8.
2. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Desertification Synthesis. World Resource Institute, Washington, DC; 2005.
3. Nkonya E, Gerber N, Baumgartner P, von Braun J, De Pinto A, Graw V, et al. The Economics of Desertification, Land Degradation, and Drought. Toward an Integrated Global Assessment. Contract No. 150, May 2011.
4. Adhikari B, Nadella K. Ecological economics of soil erosion: a review of the current state of knowledge. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2011;1219(1):134-52.
5. Requier-Desjardins M. The economic costs of desertification: a first survey of some cases in Africa. International Journal of Sustainable Development 2006;9(2):199-209.
6. Requier-Desjardins M, Adhikari B, Sperlich S. Some notes on the economic assessment of land degradation. Land Degradation and Development 2011;22(2):285-98.
7. UNCCD. Progress Report on the Preparation of the UNCCD Second Scientific Conference and Report on the Organization of Sessions of the Committee on Science and Technology in a Predominantly Scientific and Technical Conference-style Format; 2011.
8. Nater T. Measuring the Value of Land: The Economics of Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought. Buss, Philipp (GIZ) ed. Bonn; 2010. 12 p. Brochure available from: URL: http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/unccd-2011-en-measuringthe- value-of-land.pdf (accessed 28 December 2011)
9. Deininger K, Byerlee D, Lindsay J, Norton A, Selod H, Stickler M. Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can it Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits? Report No. 59463. World Bank, Washington, DC; 2011.
10. Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2011;108(50):20260-4.
11. The Economist. The Surge in Land Deals. When Others are Grabbing their Land. The Economist 5 May 2011.
12. Mann H, Smaller C. Foreign Land Purchases for Agriculture: What Impact on Sustainable Development? Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York; 2010.
13. FAO, IFAD, UNCTAD, World Bank. Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respects Rights, Livelihoods and Resources. A Discussion Note. 2010.
14. Thomas RJ, Akhtar-Schuster M, Stringer LC, Marques Perez M, Escadafal R. Fertile ground? Options for a science-policy platform for land. Environmental Science and Policy 2012;16:122-35.
15. Wily LA. Nothing new under the sun or a new battle joined? The political economy of African dispossession in the current global land rush. In International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, 6-8 April 2011. 26 p.
16. Provost C, McClanahan P. Sierra Leone: local resistance grows as investors snap up land. The Guardian 2012.
17. Bai ZG, Dent DL, Olsson L, Schaepman ME. Proxy global assessment of land degradation. Soil Use and Management 2008;24(3):223-34.
18. Winslow MD, Vogt JV, Thomas RJ, Sommer S, Martius C, Akhtar-Schuster M. Science for improving the monitoring and assessment of dryland degradation. Land Degradation and Development 2011;22(2):145-9.
19. FAO. Achieving Sustainable Gains in Agriculture. FAO, Rome; 2011.
20. WOCAT. Where the Land is Greener: Case Studies and Analysis of Soil and Water Conservation Initiatives Worldwide. In: Liniger H, Critchley W, editors. WOCAT/CTA/UNEP/FAO/CDE; 2007.
21. Liniger HP, Mekdaschi Studer R, Hauert C, Gurtner M. Sustainable Land Management in Practice - Guidelines and Best Practices for sub-Saharan Africa. TerrAfrica, World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); 2011.
22. Akhtar-Schuster M, Thomas RJ, Stringer LC, Chasek P, Seely M. Improving the enabling environment to combat land degradation: Institutional, financial, legal and science-policy challenges and solutions. Land Degradation and Development 2011;22(2):299-312.
23. Nkonya E, Gerber N, Baumgartner P, Braun JV, De Pinto A, Graw V, et al. The Economics of Land Degradation: Toward an Integrated Global Assessment. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, Germany; 2011.
24. Adeel Z, Safriel U, Niemeijer D, White R, de Kalbermatten G, Glantz M, et al. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Desertification Synthesis. A Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC; 2005.
25. Polasky S, Nelson E, Lonsdorf E, Fackler P, Starfield A. Conserving species in a working landscape: land use with biological and economic objectives. Ecological Applications 2005;15(4):1387-401.
26. Dominati E, Patterson M, Mackay A. A framework for classifying and quantifying the natural capital and ecosystem services of soils. Ecological Economics 2010;69(9):1858-68.
27. Bojö J. The costs of land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa. Ecological Economics 1996;16(2):161-73.
28. Ferraro PJ, Lawlor K, Mullan KL, Pattanayak SK. Forest figures: ecosystem services valuation and policy evaluation in developing countries. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 2012;6(1):20-44.
29. Noel S, Soussan J. Economics of Land Degradation: Supporting Evidence-Base Decision Making. Methodology for Assessing Costs of Degradation and Benefits of Sustainable Land Management. 2012. Paper commissioned by the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). September 2010.
30. Enters T. Methods for the Economic Assessment of the On- and Off-Site Impacts of Soil Erosion. International Board for Soil Research and Management (IBSRAM), The Soil, Water, and Nutrient Management Programme (SWNM), Bangkok; 1998.
31. Bishop J, Allen J. The On-Site Cost of Soil Erosion in Mali. Environment Working Paper 21. The World Bank, Washington, DC; 1989.
32. Nelson RA, Dimes JP, Silburn DM, Paningbatan EP, Cramb RA. Erosion/productivity modelling of maize farming in the Philippine uplands: Part II: simulation of alternative farming methods. Agricultural Systems 1998;58(2):147-63.
33. Alfsen KH, De Franco MA, Glomsrød S, Johnsen T. The cost of soil erosion in Nicaragua. Ecological Economics 1996;16(2):129-45.
34. Nelson RA, Cramb RA, Mamicpic MA. Erosion/productivity modelling of maize farming in the Philippine uplands: Part III: economic analysis of alternative farming methods. Agricultural Systems 1998;58(2):165-83.
35. Sutcliffe JP. Economic Assessment of Land Degradation in the Ethiopian Highlands - A Case Study. National Conservation Strategy Secretariat, Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, Addis Ababa; 1993.
36. Pimentel D, Harvey C, Resosudarmo P, Sinclair K, Kurz D, McNair M, et al. Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits. Science 1995;267(5201):1117-23.
37. Norse D, Saigal R. National economic cost of soil erosion - the case of Zimbabwe. Paper Prepared for The CIDIE Workshop on Environmental Economics and Natural Resource Management in Developing Countries, World Bank, Washington, DC, 22-24 January 1992. FAO, Rome; 1992.
38. Stocking M. The Cost of Soil Erosion in Zimbabwe in Terms of the Loss of Three Major Nutrients. FAO, Rome; 1986.
39. Stoorvogel JJ, Smaling EMA. Assessment of Soil Nutrient Depletion in sub-Saharan Africa: 1983-2000. Report 28. Winand Starting Center, Wageningen, The Netherlands; 1990.
40. Hein L. Assessing the costs of land degradation: a case study for the Puentes catchment, southeast Spain. Land Degradation and Development 2007;18(6):631-42.
41. Barbier EB. Valuing ecosystem services as productive inputs. Economic Policy 2007;22(49):177-229.
42. Crosson PR. The on-farm economic costs of erosion. In: Lal R, Blum WEH, Valentin C, Stewart BA, editors. Methods for Assessment of Land Degradation. CRC, Boca Raton, FL; 1997.
43. Ngugi GW, Newton LE, Muasya AM. The contribution of forest products to dryland household economy: the case of Kiang'ombe hill forest, Kenya. Ethnobotany Research and Applications 2011;9:2011.
44. Antle JM, Diagana B, Stoorvogel JJ, Valdivia RO. Minimumdata analysis of ecosystem service supply in semi-subsistence agricultural systems. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 2010;54(4):601-17.
45. Mekuria W, Veldkamp E, Tilahun M, Olschewski R. Economic valuation of land restoration: the case of exclosures established on communal grazing lands in Tigray, Ethiopia. Land Degradation and Development 2011;22(3):334-44.
46. King DA, Sinden JA. Influence of soil conservation on farm land values. Land Economics 1988;64(3):242-55.
47. Sayadi S, González-Roa MC, Calatrava-Requena J. Public preferences for landscape features: the case of agricultural landscape in mountainous Mediterranean areas. Land Use Policy 2009;26(2):334-44.
48. Birch JC, Newton AC, Aquino CA, Cantarello E, Echeverría C, Kitzberger T, et al. Cost-effectiveness of dryland forest restoration evaluated by spatial analysis of ecosystem services. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2010;107(50):21925-30.
49. Crossman ND, Connor JD, Bryan BA, Summers DM, Ginnivan J. Reconfiguring an irrigation landscape to improve provision of ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 2010;69(5):1031-42.
50. Gascoigne WR, Hoag D, Koontz L, Tangen BA, Shaffer TL, Gleason RA. Valuing ecosystem and economic services across land-use scenarios in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Dakotas, USA. Ecological Economics 2011;70(10):1715-25.
51. McFadden D. Contingent valuation and social choice. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 1994;76(4):689-708.
52. Bateman I, Munro A, Rhodes B, Starmer C, Sugden R. Does part-whole bias exist? An experimental investigation. The Economic Journal 1997;107(441):322-32.
53. Carson R, Flores NE, Hanemann WM. Sequencing and valuing public goods. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 1998;36(3):314-23.
54. Hanley N, Schläpfer F, Spurgeon J. Aggregating the benefits of environmental improvements: distance-decay functions for use and non-use values. Journal of Environmental Management 2003;68(3):297-304.
55. Hanley N, Wright R, Adamowicz V. Using choice experiments to value the environment. Environmental and Resource Economics 1998;11(3):413-28.
56. Tait P, Baskaran R, Cullen R, Bicknell K. Valuation of agricultural impacts on rivers and streams using choice modelling: a New Zealand case study. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research 2011;54(3):143-54.
57. Hajkowicz S, Higgins A, Miller C, Marinoni O. Targeting conservation payments to achieve multiple outcomes. Biological Conservation 2008;141(9):2368-75.
58. Bateman IJ, Jones AP, Lovett AA, Lake IR, Day BH. Applying Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to environmental and resource economics. Environmental and Resource Economics 2002;22(1):219-69.
59. Bateman IJ, Georgiou S, Lake I. The Aggregation of Environmental Benefit Values: A Spatially Sensitive Valuation Function Approach: Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), Report, University of East Anglia (UEA); CSERGE Working Paper EDM 05-04. 2005.
60. Naidoo R, Iwamura T. Global-scale mapping of economic benefits from agricultural lands: implications for conservation priorities. Biological Conservation 2007;140(1-2):40-9.
61. Norman L, Tallent-Halsell N, Labiosa W, Weber M, McCoy A, Hirschboeck K, et al. Developing an ecosystem services online decision support tool to assess the impacts of climate change and urban growth in the Santa Cruz watershed; where we live, work, and play. Sustainability 2010;2(7):2044-69.
62. Rolfe J, Windle J. Testing for differences in benefit transfer values between state and regional frameworks. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 2008;52(2):149-68.
63. Lovett AA, Brainard JS, Bateman IJ. Improving benefit transfer demand functions: a GIS approach. Journal of Environmental Management 1997;51(4):373-89.
64. Moeltner K, Boyle KJ, Paterson RW. Meta-analysis and benefit transfer for resource valuation-addressing classical challenges with Bayesian modeling. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 2007;53(2):250-69.
65. Lindhjem H, Navrud S. How reliable are meta-analyses for international benefit transfers? Ecological Economics 2008;66(2-3):425-35.
66. Pagiola S, von Ritter K, Bishop J. Assessing the Economic Value of Ecosystem Conservation: The World Bank Environment Department Paper No. 101. World Bank, Washington, DC; 2004.
67. Berry L, Olson J, Campbell D. Assessing the extent, cost and impact of land degradation at the national level: findings and lessons learned from seven pilot case studies. Commissioned by Global Mechanism with support from the World Bank; 2003.
68. Scarpa R, Gilbride TJ, Campbell D, Hensher DA. Modelling attribute non-attendance in choice experiments for rural landscape valuation. European Review of Agricultural Economics 2009;36(2):151-74.
69. Balcombe K, Fraser I. A general treatment of 'don't know' responses from choice experiments. European Review of Agricultural Economics 2011;38(2):171-91.
70. Kumar P. Capacity constraints in operationalisation of payment for ecosystem services (PES) in India: evidence from land degradation. Land Degradation and Development 2011;22(4):432-43.
71. Chaudhry P, Singh B, Tewari VP. Non-market economic valuation in developing countries: role of participant observation method in CVM analysis. Journal of Forest Economics 2007;13(4):259-75.
72. Vouligny É, Domon G, Ruiz J. An assessment of ordinary landscapes by an expert and by its residents: landscape values in areas of intensive agricultural use. Land Use Policy 2009;26(4):890-900.
73. Mangham LJ, Hanson K, McPake B. How to do (or not to do) ⋯ Designing a discrete choice experiment for application in a low-income country. Health Policy and Planning 2009;24(2):151-8.
74. Mekonnen A, Yesuf M, Carlsson F, Köhlin G. Farmers' choice between public goods and agricultural extension packages in Ethiopia: a stated preference analysis. In: Bennett J, Birol E, editors. Choice Experiments in Developing Countries: Implementation, Challenges and Policy Implications. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK; 2010. p. 189-204.
75. Bennett J, Birol E, editors. Choice Experiments in Developing Countries: Implementation, Challenges and Policy Implications. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK; 2010.