ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the theoretical, conceptual and methodological foundations of economic valuation. It introduces the two particularly popular and widespread conceptual frameworks: the ecosystem services (ESS) and total economic value (TEV) frameworks. Economic value is the result of human preferences under the assumption of consumer sovereignty. Economic valuation of environmental goods has been a controversial issue almost from the approach's beginnings. The ESS framework has become the dominant conceptual foundation of much research in the areas of conservation biology, ecology and economic valuation, among others. A common way of depicting the idea behind the ESS concept is the so-called cascade model. The central part of the cascade model is the ESS 'module', which can be seen as the interface between eco- and human systems. The TEV framework was first proposed by Alan Randall and John R. Stoll in the 1980s. To assess the TEV of an ecosystem, one may apply numerous different valuation methods.
