Approaches for Ecosystem Services Valuation for the Gulf of Mexico After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Interim Report (2012) / Chapter Skim
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2 Approaches to Damage Assessment and Valuation of Ecosystem Services
2 Approaches to Damage Assessment and Valuation of Ecosystem Services
Pages 55-74
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From page 55... ...
We discuss the NRDA process so that we can build upon it and offer suggestions for how it could incorporate an ecosystem services approach, which we believe to be a useful complement to the existing NRDA process. AN APPROACH TO EVALUATING IMPACTS ON THE VALUE OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Measuring the impact of the DWH oil spill on the value of ecosystem services requires assessing how the accident led to change in ecosystems, and how these changes led to changes in the provision and value of ecosystem services.
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From page 56... ...
. Ecological production functions can be used to predict how the provision of various ecosystem services changes with
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From page 57... ...
Ecological production functions Ecosystem services (3) Valuation Benefits and costs FIGURE 2.1 The three important links from human actions to human well-being: environmental impacts, ecological production functions and valuation.
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From page 58... ...
Given this brief introduction to the ecosystem services approach for assessing the impact of an event like the DWH on the ecosystems of the GoM, we now briefly review the NRDA process -- the approach being used to evaluate damages associated with the DWH spill. In Chapter 4 we expand on our discussion of the ecosystem services approach and offer suggestions for how it could complement the NRDA process.
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From page 59... ...
, is responsible for the NRDA process in response to oil spills in marine ecosystems. The OPA defines natural resources as land, fish, wildlife, biota, air, water, ground water, drinking water supplies, and other such resources belonging to, managed by, held in trust by, appertaining to, or otherwise controlled by the United States (including the resources of the exclusive economic zone)
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From page 60... ...
. The spill occurred during a severe winter storm in January 1996, when the barge North Cape released 828,000 gallons of home heating and diesel fuel in the Block Island Sound of Rhode Island causing the closure of a 650 km2 area of the Sound.
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From page 61... ...
As per the OPA, it was necessary to restore the loons that perished from the North Cape oil spill. But in this case, it was determined that restoring the summer breeding populations was best achieved via the protection of nearly 1.5 million acres of Maine forests and lakes that provide nesting habitat for at least 125 loon pairsb that were expected to overwinter in Rhode Island.
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From page 62... ...
o Develop Restoration Plan RESTORATION IMPLEMENTATION PHASE • Fund/Implement Restoration Plan FIGURE 2.2 Overview of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA)
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From page 63... ...
As a consequence, the DWH spill presents a challenge for the ongoing NRDA efforts. Injury Assessment Under the OPA regulations, injury is defined as an observable or measurable adverse change in a natural resource or impairment of an ecosystem service.
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From page 64... ...
. We provide Table 2.1 to indicate how an ecosystem services approach could be incorporated into the NRDA process for the DWH spill.
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From page 65... ...
However, there may be future injuries and service losses identified through monitoring, and in that case suitable restoration projects may be more limited in number or type, in which case having an ecosystem services approach may again prove beneficial. We also considered that in the current situation, and in reference to ecosystem services, that some potential impacts from the spill may not be known for some time, particularly where those impacts are detected far afield of the spill.
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From page 66... ...
To proceed with restoration planning, trustees also quantify the degree and spatial and temporal extent of injuries. Injuries are quantified by comparing the condition of the injured natural resources or services to baseline data, as necessary (Injury Assessment: Guidance Docu ment for Natural Resource Damage Assessment Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Damage Assessment and Restoration Program, NOAA, August 1996, at p.
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From page 67... ...
We will refer to these actions collectively as "restoration options." Thus, the trustee must assess damages from the responsible party or parties while attempting to keep in mind the potential feasible restoration options. Put differently, because restoration options represent the currency in which the responsible party or parties must pay for damages, the trustee should have a comprehensive understanding of the menu of restoration options throughout the damage assessment process.
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From page 68... ...
focuses mainly on assessing injury to specific organisms rather than on the amount of habitat and is frequently applied to oil spills (Zafonte and Hampton, 2007)
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From page 69... ...
Thus in evaluating the potential for an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment, we seek methods that may complement and expand on HEA and REA. In general, there is a tension between equivalency approaches such as HEA and REA, which are based on equivalency of habitat or organisms, and the ecosystem services approach based on equivalency of value of services.
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From page 70... ...
The reason is that the ecosystem services approach takes into account the value of the resource to humans, whereas HEA and REA tend to place less (or no) emphasis on this aspect and focus more on the value of the habitat or the organism in an ecologi cal sense.
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From page 71... ...
Finding 2.5: A more comprehensive assessment of the overall value of the resources could be obtained by expanding the definition of the Service Acre Year to include services that flow from a habitat or ecological resource to human benefits. While the example of expanding the SAY is one potential avenue that trustees might pursue to incorporate an ecosystem services approach into the current NRDA process, we recognize it is not a panacea.
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From page 72... ...
We provide more discussion on this point in Chapter 4. Despite the challenges noted thus far, the valuation of ecosystem ser vices could be included as a more central component of the NRDA process by interpreting ‘that which makes the public whole' as the provision of ecosystem services of equivalent value.
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From page 73... ...
In practice, trustees, the public, and the responsible party often struggle to identify and develop a mutually acceptable project prior to the time of settlement, creating a "bottleneck." Finding 2.6: An ecosystem services approach has the potential to ex pand the array of possible projects for restoration through alternatives that restore an ecosystem service independently of identification of an equivalent habitat or resource, albeit with the caveat that these proj ects must in aggregate make the environment and the public whole. Evaluation of the impacts on ecosystem services as part of the damage assessment process would expand the range of mitigation options.
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From page 74... ...
The underlying question that the NRDA practitioners would like to address is "how did the quantity and value of ecosystem services change due to the DWH oil spill? " The ecosystem services approach can be useful in answering this question.
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