Economic Valuation and Sustainable Natural Resources Management: Review Paper

Abstract

Environmental and natural resources have a wide range of benefits (broadly use and non-use benefits). Most of these benefits are non-marketable[1].  The decision as to what use to follow for a given environmental and natural resource, and eventually whether current rates of resource loss are extreme can only be made if the values ( gain and loss) are properly valuated. This requires that all the values that are gained and lost under each resource use option are carefully considered and valued. As a result, economic valuation of environmental resources is very critical before making any decision for determining (identify) the uses of environmental and natural resources. Otherwise, there is a real danger that if no economic measure of the value of environmental resources is available, then it could be perceived that they have little or no value to society and can therefore be exploited. Thus, this paper tries to review literatures on valuation methods that aimed at quantifying natural resource values in monetary terms, the role of economic valuation in decision making on natural resource use and management.

Keywords: Economic valuation, valuation Approaches, Natural Resource Management

[1] Non-marketable: goods for which prices and monetary values are difficult to obtain