The long-term goal of the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database is to contribute to stopping the structural undervaluation of nature in economic assessments (leading to continued biodiversity loss and landscape degradation) by providing better data on the ‘true value’*, or welfare effect, of nature conservation, ecosystem restoration and sustainable land management.
As a contribution to the TEEB study we were asked in 2008 to collect evidence on the monetary value of ecosystem services, and the true costs of ecosystem loss. To this end we developed a database which was published in 2010 and described in de Groot et al (2012) “Global estimates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary terms”. Ecosystem Services, 1: 50-61. This database is still being used widely but by now very incomplete and outdated.
In the spring of 2019 we received funding from DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK) to update and upgrade the database, renamed ESVD, and it now contains more than 4000 data points (values), 3x as much as the original TEEB database, distributed over all biomes and all ecosystem services. On the Download-page you can find more information about the content of ESVD and a downloadable version of the database and related reports and publications.
If you are interested in getting involved, as data-provider, reviewer or both, you can find more information here.
Developing and maintaining ESVD requires a lot of ‘people-power’, financial or other contributions are therefore very welcome.
See this page for further information how you can support this initiative.
*of course we know nature has many different values (including intrinsic, existence, relational and other non-utilitarian values) but the focus of this database is to gather information on economic welfare values measured in monetary units. The purpose is to provide information to decision making that can be used to internalise the true welfare effects of ecosystem services, particularly non-marketed services that are now largely ignored.