Activity 1.4

Activity 1.4 - Development of approaches for threat-benefit valuation

This activity aims to bring together global expertise as a basis for developing common approaches between regions so as to make regional assessments as far as possible comparable. This necessarily raises challenges in valuation studies that particularly apply when comparing different economies, that impose also on ethical questions such as economically driven differences in the apparent value of human life and environment according to location.The activity will develop the thinking for nitrogen in this area, while ensuring that the work is well linked to other global and regional initiatives in environmental economics (e.g. ECLAIRE and TEEB).

  • Task 1.4.1 is to review existing approaches to valuing threats and benefits. While the focus is on nitrogen, this is necessarily drawing on work in linked research areas so that they can be applied for the nitrogen case.

  • Task 1.4.2 is examining how to address the benefits and threats of nitrogen across contrasting economic conditions. For this purpose, it is comparing examples from Europe, China and the US in the first instance. However, where data has become available it is possible to extend this through involvement of other INMS regional demonstrations (Component 3).

  • Task 1.4.3 focuses on bringing together different types of nitrogen threats and benefits. It is considering how different valuation approaches can be applied and the strengths and limitations of different concepts, especially when comparing different impact types

  • Task 1.4.4 represents an application of the developed methodololgy to future conditions.  It is being conducted in coordination with Activity 2.4 which is developing future nitrogen scenarios for Towards INMS. 

Activity 1.4 is being delivered under Component 1. The diagram below shows the tasks and task outputs deliviered for this activity.