Environmental Valuation: A Brief Overview of Options

This paper provides a brief overview of the options available for environmental valuation and is organised as follows. After an introduction, section 2 discusses the concept of total economic value that provides a framework for describing, in economic terms, the ways in which environmental changes might affect peoples’ well-being. Sections 3 and 4 then review the main techniques that have been used to estimate total economic value (or its components). Some of these techniques estimate original values while others make use of (or ‘transfer’ to use the jargon) the findings of existing studies and apply to a new policy or project context. Finally, some concluding comments are offered.