ABSTRACT
The process of valuing ecosystem services requires a truly inter-disciplinary perspective, which integrates both ecology and economics with a range of other natural and social science disciplines. Valuation studies have to be based on a broad understanding of the biophysical mechanisms that underpin ecosystem services, in order to make a better analysis of the marginal changes in value that can occur in ecosystems subject to different pressures and interventions. Valuing urban ecosystem services has become an important task for urban ecology. It is a key means of developing a dialogue with decision-makers and of contributing to exchanges between the civitas and the polis about the future of key urban bluespaces and greenspaces. Accounting for environmental services generally is important to public policy because those services contribute significantly to human welfare and are not captured in existing welfare balance sheets. Pricing approaches offer an alternative, but overlapping, classification to Total Economic Value (TEV).
