Welcome


Chapter1	Chapter2	Chapter3	Chapter4	Chapter5	Chapter6	Ana Sayfa

			Chapter 1 The role of economics
			Chapter 2 Market value approaches
			Chapter 3 Surrogate market approaches
			Chapter 4 Simulated market approaches
			Chapter 5 Selecting a technique
			Chapter 6 Conclusions

Welcome to Techniques to Value Environmental Resources lecture Web Page. Environmental issues are of increasing concern to the community and are often presented to Commonwealth, state and local governments for attention and action. This increased awareness requires improved decision-making by all levels of government and by the general community. A number of major government initiatives have recognised the need for improved decision-making including the Inter-Governmental Agreement on the Environment, the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development and Agenda 21. These initiatives explicitly acknowledge the importance of environmental benefits and costs, the need to value them and the need to integrate them into the policy making process.

Extensive literature exists on environmental values and valuation but few books make this material generally accessible. Valuation of Environmental Impacts, a technical report from the Environment Protection Authority of New South Wales introduced some of the theory and noted some of the techniques. Values for the Environment-A Guide to Economic Appraisal, a publication of the United Kingdom Overseas Development Institute, discusses the techniques of valuation and their application to project appraisal and policy formulation. Various research papers of the Resource Assessment Commission reviewed individual techniques and decision-making procedures. A reading list is at the end of this handbook.

The guide is not intended as a detailed handbook because this more complex role is well covered elsewhere in the literature. Its specific objectives are to:

indicate the importance of environmental values to the community
indicate the importance of values to managing the environment
introduce the economic concept of value and, in particular, environmental value
introduce techniques to estimate environmental values
indicate how to integrate environmental values into policy development and appraisal.

Part One outlines the contributions that economics can make to environmental management (Chapter 1) and to the measurement of environmental impacts (Chapter 2). Part Two (Chapters 3 to 5) introduces the range of techniques to estimate values. Part Three draws all the material together to indicate where techniques might be applied (Chapter 6) and offers a concluding overview.

Each part of the guide stands alone and can be read separately. For those unfamiliar with economic principles related to environmental management, Part One is essential reading. Part Two discusses the techniques as well as giving examples of their use and can be read for one technique or as a whole. Part Three is recommended for all readers as it summarises the issues that each technique can help to resolve. It is here that the reader can assess which technique may be applied to particular issues

The inclusion of Australian examples in the description of the techniques will assist readers to relate their particular issue to those previously tackled and to give a more practical context for the theoretical discussion of the valuation methods.