Hi Maurizio,

One possible way would be to find any economic activity depending on that ecosystem service and, find a practical estimator-proxy to calculate the value of impact and you are almost done

Thank Tomasz

but the director of hydropower plant said me that 1 cube meter/sec of water per 1 meter of fall produces 10 Kilowatt and more water they release less profit they have, so I need an objective method to calculate the loss of ecological functionality to exhibit  to manager and director of plant.

thank for the colaboration

maurizio

Good question.

Several parallel points:

1)  Development is usually done by converting community wealth (often unquantified and unquantifiable) into individual wealth (often quantified only as cash).  We trust good planning to ensure the loss of community wealth is minimized, and we trust greed to ensure that the gain in individual wealth is maximized.  But there is currently no calculus that ensures the loss in community wealth is significantly less than the gain in community wealth.  Not all development is good development.  Were we actually doing Sustainable Development, there would be no net loss of wealth in the long term.

2) Ecological Economics attempts to quantify the value of ecological services.  However, many ecological services can not be replaced with alternatives, so they can not receive a replacement value.  If I can not control access to an ecological service, or I can't replace the benefit that the service provides, then the concept of value breaks down.  How does one price Gravity?  Or Photosynthesis?  There must be an economic concept of 'Sacred' vs 'Mundane', and using the precautionary approach, all ecological services must be considered Sacred until they have been proven that they can be controlled and replaced, and thus Mundane.

3) Normally, the buyer will purchase a service if the value of the service to the buyer is greater than the price, and the seller will sell a service if the value of the time to the seller is less than the price.  But with ecological services, the seller doesn't speak up - nature doesn't make you pay up front for the services, but rather you pay after the fact by the absence of the service.  So 'authorities' will try to set a price (like setting a price on pollution with Carbon Taxes) in the absence of Nature being at the negotiating table.  But since these authorities are not omniscient, omnipotent, or infinitely wise, they will always get it wrong.  Again, the precautionary principal implies that it must be assumed that the Authority will always underestimate the value of natural services.

In your case,  I would consider the Triple Bottom Line approach, using different scenarios of flow diversion, and from that determine what fraction of flow the developer can extract that ensures an acceptable balance is maintained.

Alternatively, if there is sufficient data available, you could consider the time/resource curve for your community, and determine under what conditions the Actualize Quality of Life would be increased.  Harder to do, normally.

Thank for your articulate answer.

I thougth to prepare a procedure considering:

1 - the calculation of E.S. provided by riparian zone as  buffer strip (1 hectar of riparian zone 30 meter wide, is able to pull down diffuse nutrients as an biological waste water depuration plant of 10,000 inhabitants/equivalent)

2 - that the biological  flux of energy in a stretch of stream is about 6000 kcal/m/year or the suggestion of the Academy for Applied Environmental Study ( New York) that evaluate a Gross Primary Production of a natural river as 20810 Kcal/m/year   and transform it in kilowatt 

3. the use other indirect value like the suggestions of theTotal Economic Value

What do you think about that?

thank a lot

maurizio

If I were approaching this from a Triple Bottom Line stance, I would look at 4 different levels of diversion (none, trivial, substantial, complete), for 5 different flow conditions (average year, driest year on record, wettest year on record, 25%ile year, and 75%ile year), and estimate changes in 3 to 5 indicators per category (yes, lots of work, but conclusive)

  profits and costs to developer, community, downstream water users - change in flood damages, loss in agricultural productivity, increase in economic activity because of the electricity, etc.

  changes to the ecology and resiliency of the system as a whole - change in vegetative communities, drought and wet condition resistance, habitat of terrestrial and aquatic animal life, etc.

  changes in the behaviors of the community forced by the change in flow condition - effects of extra electricity availability, effects of loss of water supply, effects of change in groundwater supply, etc.

This approach will provide a qualitative assessment of the effect of changing the flow on something more than just money.  It can be used as a tool by the community to press for specific changes.  If, for example, it won't allow the local population to have a higher level of consumption but will diminish their perceived quality of life, this approach would provide the community with the political pressure required to prevent it.  Likewise, it could show that the powerplant is the best possible use of the water - hard to predict in advance (though the second is unlikely if you've looked at everything correctly).

LOTS of resources exist on how to do TBL.

Hi Maurizio,

Well, one of the methods is called "Willingness to Pay".. You make surveys and ask people who live around it or benefit from it, "How much are you willing to pay to save this resource?" Of course most people won't be willing to pay a penny.. but tell them this is "imaginary" and is just for scientific research. A good way to ask is to put a big amount and ask "Are you willing to pay this to save this amount in order to save this resource from disappearing?". If he/she say no, then keep lowering the amount until he/she says "yes" or "maybe". Then after asking a presentable homogeneous sample, get the average amount and multiply it by the number of residents that benefit from that resource. This way you'll get an approximate figure of how the value of this resource is to the concerned people.

We used to use this way to get a monetary value of "clean air", "nice sea view" and stuff like that.

I hope that helped. 

Hi Maurizio,

Well, one of the methods is called "Willingness to Pay".. You make surveys and ask people who live around it or benefit from it, "How much are you willing to pay to save this resource?" Of course most people won't be willing to pay a penny.. but tell them this is "imaginary" and is just for scientific research. A good way to ask is to put a big amount and ask "Are you willing to pay this to save this amount in order to save this resource from disappearing?". If he/she say no, then keep lowering the amount until he/she says "yes" or "maybe". Then after asking a presentable homogeneous sample, get the average amount and multiply it by the number of residents that benefit from that resource. This way you'll get an approximate figure of how the value of this resource is to the concerned people.

We used to use this way to get a monetary value of "clean air", "nice sea view" and stuff like that.

I hope that helped. 

Definition of ecosystems needed to be clarified