Water quality and well-being: Valuing the impacts of changing water quality on multiple ecosystem services

Background/Question/Methods

Despite broad recognition of the value of the goods and services provided by nature, existing tools for assessing and valuing ecosystem services often fall short of the needs and expectations of decision-makers.  Water quality is one of the most frequently discussed and highly-valued ecosystem services and yet there is currently no comprehensive or generalizable framework for linking decisions that impact water quality to changes in the value of water quality-related services.  Previous attempts at valuing water quality as an ecosystem service are inadequate because they either capture a small proportion of the total impacts associated with changes in water quality, or the valuation results are not directly associated with changes in land use or management actions.  This limits the extent to which analysis of water quality services can inform decision-making. Here we address this critical gap in the current ecosystem services toolbox by introducing a comprehensive approach for the assessment and valuation of water quality services. 

Results/Conclusions

Our framework for valuation links actions with impacts on water quality, and impacts on water quality with human well-being.  Water quality affects multiple ecosystem services, from recreational value to human health, and therefore requires a valuation approach that is sensitive to different drivers of water quality change, the aquatic endpoints where the impacts of changing water quality are realized, and the unique groups of beneficiaries impacted by those changes.  We illustrate the biophysical relationships that govern changes in water quality services and link these relationships with multiple ecosystem services and appropriate valuation tools.  Finally we provide a template for water quality valuation based on integrated biophysical and economic models that is both comprehensive and avoids double counting.  In this talk I will present our valuation template for water quality-related ecosystem services, discuss key challenges and modeling assumptions, and demonstrate the utility of the framework in a case study on the assessment and valuation of ecosystem service changes due to bioenergy development in an agricultural watershed.