Dr. Luke Brander

Luke recently published an update of the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD) in collaboration with the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) and Scotlands Rural College (SRUC). This update was funded by the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The ESVD now contains 4,042 records on the economic value of ecosystem services. This data is drawn from 693 studies. The report provides an overview of the economic value of 23 ecosystem services from 15 biomes standardised in International dollars per hectare per year.

The ESVD report and database can be accessed here

Luke recently published an article in the journal Marine Policy on the global costs and benefits of expanding marine protected areas. Marine ecosystems and the services they provide contribute greatly to human well-being but are becoming degraded in many areas around the world. The expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been advanced as a potential solution to this problem but their economic feasibility has hardly been studied. We conduct an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of six scenarios for the global expansion of MPAs. The analysis is conducted at a high spatial resolution, allowing the estimated costs and benefits to reflect the ecological and economic characteristics and context of each MPA and marine ecosystem. The results show that the global benefits of expanding MPAs exceed their costs by a factor 1.4–2.7 depending on the location and extent of MPA expansion. Targeting protection towards pristine areas with high biodiversity yields higher net returns than focusing on areas with low biodiversity or areas that have experienced high human impact.

The paper can be downloaded here

As part of the current revision process of the UN Statistics System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), Luke authored a background paper for the Expert Meeting on Ecosystem Valuation in the context of Natural Capital Accounting organised by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) in Bonn. The paper provides an overview of the environmental economics literature on the value of ecosystem services. During the past 30+ years, the discipline of environmental economics has attempted to produce information on the economic value of ecosystem services, i.e. their contribution to human wellbeing. This body of knowledge now comprises thousands of studies covering all regions of the world and all ecosystem services. This information may potentially be used as input into ecosystem service accounts and represents an important resource for the implementation of SEEA.

The proceedings of the meeting are available here: https://www.bfn.de/fileadmin/BfN/service/Dokumente/skripten/Skript525.pdf

Luke authored a toolkit on environmental economic methods for marine ecosystem management for the GEF Large Marine Ecosystems Learning Exchange and Resource Network (GEF LME:LEARN) project. GEF LME:LEARN is a GEF-UNDP-IOC/UNESCO project designed to improve global ecosystem-based governance of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) and their coasts by generating knowledge, building capacity, harnessing public and private partners and supporting south-to-south learning and north-to-south learning.

The purpose of this toolkit is to show how environmental economic methods can be used to produce information to support decision-making in the context of LME, Marine Protected Areas (MPA), Integrated Coastal Management (ICM), Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and climate change adaptation. Specifically, it is designed to help a broad audience of practitioners, managers, government officials, private sector managers, NGOs, and statisticians to understand the available environmental economic tools and how the information generated can be used to inform the decisions that they make.

The toolkit can be accessed here: https://iwlearn.net/manuals/environmental-economics-for-marine-ecosystem-management-toolkit

Luke published an article in the journal Ecosystem Services on the economic value of forests in regulating landslide risk. The role of forests in regulating landslide risks is well established but estimates of the economic value of this ecosystem service are limited. In order to incorporate the role of forests for landslide risk mitigation in spatial planning and other decision-making contexts, there is a need for spatially explicit information regarding the value of this service. The paper develops a methodological framework to combine bio-physical modelling of natural hazard risk and socio-economic exposure in a predictive model to estimate and map of the economic value of forest regulation of landslides. This method is applied in a case study of Adjara Autonomous Republic of Georgia to examine alternative scenarios for forest management and associated land cover change. The approach produces credible spatially explicit results to inform policy decisions regarding investment in forest management; and has the potential for replication in other data scarce regions.

The article can be accessed here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1XHgC7szSIq-00

Luke co-authored a report for WWF on the current state-of-the-art in ecosystem service-economy modelling and research. The report also identifies what new modelling and analyses are needed to fill key knowledge gaps and deliver evidence on the potential global socio-economic impacts of future changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The report can be accessed here: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/2918bc_6a1412d06bb04a4f9d2b982d3bf5bdd5.pdf

Luke co-authored a guidance manual on economic valuation of marine and coastal ecosystem services. The purpose of this guidance manual is to show how the value of marine and coastal ecosystem services can be estimated and used to support decisions about the use and management of marine ecosystems. It is designed to help a broad audience of conservation managers, government officials, private sector managers, NGOs, and statisticians to understand and apply the available economic methods for valuing marine and coastal ecosystem services to inform the decisions that they make. To this end, the manual provides: 1. A simple but technical introduction to the economic valuation methods that are applicable to marine and coastal ecosystem services; 2. An explanation of the limitations of each method and potential uncertainties; and 3. Examples of the use in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs).

The guidance manual can be accessed here: http://macbio-pacific.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MACBIO_MESV_Guidance-Manual_Web.pdf

Luke co-authored five studies on the economic value of coastal and marine resources in the South Pacific as part of the Marine and Coastal Biodiversity Management in Pacific Island Countries (MACBIO) project. The studies are for Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu; and assess the economic value of subsistence fishing, commercial fisheries, mineral and aggregate mining, tourism, coastal protection, carbon sequestration, and research and education.

The final and summary reports can be accessed here: http://macbio-pacific.info/macbio-resources/

and here: http://www.teebweb.org/areas-of-work/teeb-country-studies-2/teeb-south-pacific//

Luke recently completed a study on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for the forestry sector of Adjara Autonomous Republic, Georgia. The study was commissioned by the WWF-Caucasus Programme Office. It assesses the economic value of forest ecosystem services under alternative scenarios for future forest management, focusing on ecosystem services that are of high importance and potentially threatened, and prepares relevant policy recommendations. Adjara is located in southwestern Georgia on the coast of the Black Sea. It is predominantly mountainous and has the highest density of forest cover of any region in Georgia, covering 66 percent of the territory. Adjaran forests provide a range of ecosystem services including timber, fuel wood, non-timber forest products (NTFPs), tourism and recreation, hunting and fishing, regulation of natural hazards such as flooding and landslides, and global climate regulation through storage of carbon. Following stakeholder discussions, the study focused on the valuation of fuel wood, NTFPs, carbon storage and landslide regulation.

The final report can be accessed here:http://img.teebweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/TEEB-Adjara-Final-Report.pdf

Luke co-authored a paper published in Nature Climate Change on the vulnerability of US shellfisheries to ocean acidification. The paper assesses multiple economic and social risk factors associated with ocean acidification, focusing on the reliance of US coastal regions on shelled mollusc harvests and the capacity of these communities to adapt to reductions in harvests. The results show that 16 out of 23 regions in the US are exposed to rapid acidification, with marine ecosystems around the Pacific Northwest and Southern Alaska expected to be affected soonest. Adaptive capacity (indicated by status of government policies on OA, employment alternatives and availability of science, for example) is combined with economic dependency on shelled molluscs, to identify the most vulnerable communities, which are found to be located along the East Coast of the US and Gulf of Mexico. This analysis demonstrates varied causes of vulnerability along the US coastline, as well as highlighting important gaps in knowledge and information that should be addressed to facilitate adaptation.

The article can be accessed here: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2508.html