Brent Sohngen and Robert Mendelsohn (1998), ‘Valuing the Impact of Large-Scale Ecological Change in a Market: The Effect of Climate Change on U.S. Timber’, American Economic Review, 88, pp. 686-710.

Many large-scale ecosystem changes result from land management practices or pollution em issions of expanding populations and growing economies. Large-scale ecosystem changes are defined as those occurring over broad areas and potentially long time periods. They may include catastrophic forest fires, shifting from older to younger forests, soil erosion, or altered water quality and aquatic habitat. Combined, these changes are putting increased pressure on the renewable resources needed for market and nonmarket purposes. Society must weigh the costs of preventing or at least mitigating these changes against the damages these changes cause. Unfortunately, many large-scale phenomena, such as those predicted during climate change (Vegetation/ Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project [VEMAP] Members, 1995), occur over such a large area and an extended period of time, it is difficult to value the stream of impacts.