Trust Land Performance Assessment
June 2020
This study presents an estimate of the total annual non-market economic value generated by the trust lands in Washington State. Non-market values describe benefits that are realized by communities, but which are not bought and sold in markets. These benefits do not have observable market prices and are often measured by revealed or stated preference methods. This differs from capital values presented elsewhere in this report that are defined by market prices for goods such as timber and food crops.
In order to describe these non-market values in dollar terms, this study focuses on economic values that are estimated using an ecosystem services framework. The following details the steps involved in this valuation:
Ecosystem service valuation by defining ecosystem services, outlining the history of the ecosystem service valuation discipline, providing recent evidence of ecosystem service valuation results that influence state and federal policies, and explaining how ecosystem service valuation estimates fit in with other values provided by the Trust Land Performance Assessment. The roles spatial data and the benefit transfer method play in connecting observed land cover to ecosystem services and monetary estimates are also highlighted.
Methods and results specific to the estimation of all ecosystem services except recreation and carbon storage, which have their own source data and methods. Estimating these ecosystem service valuations is based on the transfer of select non-market data from other study sites to the subject state trust lands. Robust explanations of land cover classes, the groups of ecosystems within those classes, and the spatial attributes that differentiate them are central to this section.
Estimating the economic benefit of recreation and carbon storage, when applied as an ecosystem service, requires different methods than the other ecosystem services, and so each is presented separately in the report.
Prepared for Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP, as part of the Trust Land Performance Assessment (TLPA).
Suggested Citation: K. Cousins, Mojica, J., Madsen, T., Armistead, C., Fletcher, A. 2020. Non-Market Environmental Benefits and Values. Earth Economics. Tacoma, WA.