ABSTRACT
Concepts of utility, while very helpful in applied systems analysis, leave us shorthanded when people confront value-heavy problems of choice. Choices must be made, evert so, in the cruel context of rival claims for finite resources. The data should furnish reference terms against which to estimate ecosystem benefits and costs and to identify targets for mitigation strategies. Gaps and time lags in assembling the data base can make a travesty of analytic routines, however gaudy, which purport to evaluate environmental impacts. The policy process is in gear and grinding out decisions through imperfect and improvised arrangements, with high uncertainty as to nonquantifiable benefits and costs. The opportunity is at hand for designating one pilot region or a whole state as an experimental area for converting baseline information to a first-stage cut at ecosystem accounting as an aid to environmental management, land-use planning, or coastal-zone regulation.
