Any (ideally somehow published) data on the costs of conversion of agricultural (or other) land to wetlands such as peatlands, alluvial or swamp forests, wet grassland or marshes would be helpful. I am especially interested in European examples. Thanks a lot!
Great quest!
I've done some work in Greece and Cyprus; re-forestation of riparian zones (in two trials; I mean in a Life-Nature project 1999 and then again in an interreg 2003); a floodplain wetland reflooding project; water buffalo re-introduction; bird habitat restoration in lagoons; and riparian plantings and hydromorphology of intermittent streams on Cyprus. Costs range from a miniumu of c. 20 000 Euros to over 350 000 Euros (plus studies). Its a lot of money, but if its done in an "adaptive management framework" and is well reported it could be beneficial. Its beneficial in learning-and restoration ecology. We had some sucess in wetlands (less in terrestrial woodland work). I will try to post some of these reports and conference presentations - find them first.... Its so sad this kind of conservation science is rarely published.
Stam
Dear Colleague,
you can find some information on a new publication released by FAO: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4029e.pdf
Best Regards,
Francesco
Some cost data have been collated in the UK for peatland restoration, mainly upland blanket bog. There are some problems with inconsistent definitions, and with accounting for on-going costs as well as upfront capital costs. On-going costs include maintenance and monitoring but also opportunity costs (income foregone) from displacing current land uses. Section 2 of Moran et al provides some commentary and useful references, see:
http://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Final-report-SRUC-ASC_-4-July_ASC-FINAL-9-July-2013_clean.pdf
and also
Moxey & Moran (2014) UK peatland restoration: Some economic arithmetic. Science of the Total Environment 484 (2014) 114–120
Andrew
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