Lecture series in Ecology and Environmental Research SS 2014

Gains and Losses in Ecosystem Services: Tradeoff Perspective versus Efficiency Perspective

Work at the interface of ecology and economics has inspired a major transformation in the way people think about the environment. Increasingly, ecosystems are seen as capital assets, with the potential to generate ecosystem services (ES). This gives rise of a new paradigm in environmental economics which perceives the environment as a source of services that improve human wellbeing. However, ecosystems provide not only a single ES but a bundle of different ES which are not independent of each other, and the relationship between them may be highly nonlinear. This requires a careful consideration when making land use decisions since tradeoffs and synergies between and among ES may exist. This talk is supposed to differentiate between (traditionally) ecological approach of ES tradeoff analyses with (newly) economic efficiency approach. It also summarizes various research efforts with these approaches in Germany, South Korea, and Vietnam to provide useful policy and management implications.

- Midterm Habilitation Talk -

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