ABSTRACT
The history of damage and benefit estimates in the Netherlands dates back to the 1970s. Early Dutch economic damage studies did not lead to very optimistic conclusions regarding the possibilities of finding monetary equivalents of welfare changes. This chapter provides a broad-brush analysis of Dutch benefit studies, looking at the relevance of the studies from a policy point of view. Opportunities for a wider use of benefit assessments in the Netherlands primarily lie in the fact that they can be used to further the acceptance of environmental policy. Environmental changes (or changes in environmental quality) have been categorized as: changed levels of pollution; changed resource potentials; and improved or decreased ecosystem/landscape integrity. These main categories can be subdivided into various sub categories such as air pollution, mineral reserves, or even lower levels of aggregation, e.g. sulphur dioxide concentrations, nickel reserves.
