Research of the working group focuses on methods for an environmental economic valuation of ecosystem services. The concept of ecosystem services is the fundamental link between the natural sphere of ecosystems and the human sphere. Ecosystem services comprise all the benefits that humans obtain from nature. Generally, these are classified into provisioning services (food, natural resources etc.), regulating services (water purification, climate regulation, pollination etc.), habitat/supporting services (habitat for organisms, reservoir of genetic diversity) and cultural services (recreation, spirituality etc.). Since often ecosystem services are public or common pool goods, their value cannot easily be inferred by market prices. Therefore, if policy makers are interested in how much people value, i.e. like or benefit from, these services, special techniques for the valuation of non-market goods must be employed.

In this context, the Environmental Economics group employs and analyzes so-called Stated Preference methods like the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) or Choice Experiments (CE). We are particularly interested in the question to what extent these methods can unveil and validly measure the different types of ecosystem services so that they can be used for practical policy making.

The working group has experience with CVM analyses in Germany as well as in various countries of SO-Asia (China, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam). Please see the projects listed below for detailed information.

Apart from research on the valuation of ecosystem services, the working group is actively engaged in the fields of environmental management, sustainability management and reporting, sustainability benchmarking and economic analyses regarding renewable energies.

A list of PhD theses completed and currently being conducted in the working group can be found here.

Completed:

• Multi-criteria methods for environmental economic valuation for social-ecological transformation of water use in the Draa valley, Morocco (Imane Mahjoubi)
• Economic valuation and social acceptance of river rehabilitation (Sören Weiß)
• Avoiding food waste as a non-technical strategy for implementing the bioeconomy  (Dr. Carmen Priefer)
• Biogas plants and EEG support: an analysis from the perspective of principal-agent theory (Dr. Ado Ampofo)
• Development of a strategic marketing concept for the medium-sized timber house industry in Germany (Dr. Volker Schaepe)
• Development of a multi-criteria sustainability-oriented evaluation and decision support system for commercial laundries (Dr. Christian Mechel)
• Requirements for sustainability reporting in the wine industry - development of a practical guide based on existing national and international initiatives (Dr. Desirée Palmes)
• Assessing the ecological and economic potentials for renewable energy sources (RES) in peripheral regions of Russia - adaptation of a German planning approach using GIS (Dr. Alisa Melnikowa)
   

Ongoing:

• Participatory modeling to investigate the decision-making process of small farmers in relation to land use in the southwestern Amazon region (Elisabeth Lagneaux)
• Impact of Climate-Smart Agriculture Practices on Farm Household’s Food Production and Security in Northern Togo - case of Kozah (Jane Ebako)
• External effects of agriculture and its underregulation in Europe and Latin America (Lukas Feldmeier)
• The economic assessment of benefits from mine water reuse in Halong, Vietnam (Hong Hao Do)
• Environmental economic valuation of climate change adaptation strategies in the Upper Rhine Region (Paul Averbeck)