Research Call

DAFM Reference

Lead(Collaborating)Institution

DAFM Award

Project Title:

Project Coordinator:

Project Abstract

Decisions regarding future environmental land use and forest policy need to be based on robust scientific evidence that can be translated into meaningful management decisions, as per the goal agreed at the Oslo Ministerial conference to value the benefits of ecosystem services provided by forests. The aim of this project is to employ benefit transfer and other non-market evaluation methodologies to model the value of these benefits in an Irish context. To meet this goal it will be necessary to first identify and quantify these services in a scientific manner. To achieve this, the project will review previous Irish and international studies to identify the primary ecosystem services provided by forests. Although the review will provide a comprehensive overview of forest ecosystem services, it will focus primarily on those related to climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, forest recreation and human health, and water quality and quantity. Second, the economic consequences of these services will be valued. This will be the primary objective of the study and will be achieved by adapting previous Irish and international valuation studies through appropriate methodologies such as meta-analysis and benefit transfer and by identifying new values where measures of physical processes are available for Ireland. As a desk study, the project is somewhat reliant on the existence of relevant Irish and international studies. Nonetheless, it is envisaged that the project will investigate services in relation to existing forest cover, in addition to afforestation.

Final Report:

Final Report (pdf 474Kb)