ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the economic value of biodiversity. It presents the current approaches, theories and concepts on which economic valuation of environmental goods is based. The book also introduces the ecological concept of biodiversity. It also presents the state of the art in the area of economic valuation. The book then offers a systematic critical review of biodiversity valuation studies. It includes a classification of biodiversity proxies found in the applied literature and a critical assessment of their use. The book then analyses theoretical and conceptual literature on biodiversity's economic value. It focuses on three issues: the so-called Noah's Ark problem, the various sources of biodiversity's economic value suggested in the literature, and the relationship between uncertainty and biodiversity value. The book discusses the framework's implications for the total economic value (TEV) and ecosystem services (ESS) frameworks.
