A Review of the Marine Economic Valuation Literature 1975 – 2011: Classifying Existing Studies by Service Type, Value Type, and Valuation Methodology

There is a long history of the application of economic valuation methods to marine environments, changes to marine environments, and changes to marine management. Increasingly, however, there is an interest in analyzing the economic consequences of changes in marine ecosystem service provision resulting from changes in marine management and marine ecosystem state. In turn, this requires either that researchers conduct new, primary valuation studies focused on particular marine ecosystem services, or that researchers use existing studies and transfer values from one research and policy context to another (also known as benefits transfer). This study presents the result of a review of the marine economic valuation literature that was conducted as a part of an EU-FP7 project with the goals of understanding 1) the state of the marine economic valuation literature in certain countries, 2) the potential for this literature to support benefits transfer-based analyses, and 3) gaps in the existing literature. The review was also intended to support the undertaking of new, gap-filling primary non-market valuation studies. The results indicate that there are many gaps in the existing marine valuation literature with respect to the individual ecosystem services valued, the valuation methodologies that have been utilized, and the types of economic value captured.