Tomas Badura

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | VU · The Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)

Understanding how the value of environmental goods and services is influenced by their location relative to where people live can help identify the economically optimal spatial distribution of conservation interventions across landscapes. However, capturing these spatial relationships within the confines of a stated preference study has proved chal...

Introduction: Recent debates surrounding the application of natural capital accounting (NCA) have produced several approaches to further develop this system, as well as highlighted a number of conceptual and methodological issues that need to be resolved before mainstreaming NCA into policy and decision making. We argue that prolonged debate over t...

Climate change is an urgent challenge in urban planning. Weather extremes and resulting impacts such as heat waves and flash floods are already influencing the quality of life in cities and impact on infrastructure, human health and city life. In this study, we investigated perception of and economic preferences for adaptation to climate change in...

Biodiversity is an intangible asset essential for ecosystem function and human wellbeing. The European Union is at the forefront of biodiversity management and policy implementation and has set ambitious strategies to better protect biodiversity and lead achievement of global biodiversity goals. However, biodiversity management entails balancing a...

Ecosystem accounting is a statistical framework that aims to track the state of ecosystems and ecosystem services, with periodic updates. This framework follows the statistical standard of the System of Environmental Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). SEEA EA is composed of physical ecosystem extent, condition and ecosystem service...

Developing internationally comparable and coherent data systems that monitor the state of natural capital and the benefits that humanity derives from it , i.e., developing natural capital accounting (NCA) – is expected to facilitate better informed decision making and support sustainable development transitions. NCA approaches, such as System of En...

Adaptation and mitigation are both essential components of strategies that aim to decrease risks associated with climate change. A number of existing studies, however, suggest that the two might be negatively affecting each other – climate adaptation might decrease mitigation efforts and vice versa. We have examined these effects in five experiment...

Cooling is one of the most important benefits of street trees, yet city planners lack estimates of the value of this benefit. Estimation of the value of the cooling effect could help to strengthen the case for investment in a tree cover as a part of the urban infrastructure for climate change adaptation. This article aims to address this research g...

In November 2017 European Union commission presented a communication report summarizing the reform proposal of the post 2020 Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). The reform aims to address the environmental degradation associated with agricultural production as well as change in the structure of CAP payments. To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture in...

Construction of ecosystem accounts requires conversion of biophysical measurements of ecosystem services supply and use into monetary terms. A range of valuation methods are compatible with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) methodological framework for this purpose. Benefit transfer (BT) method is not seen as an eligible method...

Adaptation and mitigation are both essential components of strategies that aim to decrease risks associated with climate change. A number of existing studies, however, suggest that the two might be negatively affecting each other – climate adaptation might decrease mitigation efforts and vice versa. We have examined these effects in five experiment...

This report aims to set out a framework for the consideration of different valuation approaches within the context of Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) but also for broader decision support purposes. It builds on the report “Valuation for Natural Capital Accounting” (Badura et al. 2017) written in the first year of the project which discussed issu...

This thesis contributes to our understanding of the spatial dimension of biodiversity related values in the context of changing environment. It starts with making a case for the use economic valuation for improving decision making related to environmental change and with an overview of the main concepts and approaches for doing so (Chapter 1). The...

Following an extended summary, this report starts with a brief background on national and wealth accounting and sets out three possible generic approaches for future progress in development of Natural Capital Accounting (NCA). It also indicates how NCA can contribute to wider strategy and policy analysis. It then discusses more specific issues rela...

Incorporating the myriad ways in which the natural world contributes to human wellbeing is an essential step towards better (environmental) decision making. Recent advances in environmental economics enable us to value the contribution of various ecosystem services to welfare-bearing goods. Monetary valuation in particular facilitates the incorpora...

Significance Protected public lands are insufficient to halt the loss of global biodiversity. However, most commercial landowners need incentives to engage in conservation. Through an interdisciplinary study examining palm-oil plantations in Sumatra, we demonstrate that ( i ) joint consideration of both biodiversity and economic relationships permi...

Greater awareness now exists of the fundamental importance of nature for human prosperity and well-being, and of the importance of accounting for nature’s value in policy decision-making. This WWF report explores recent trends and developments in natural capital accounting (which in this report is used as synonym for environment and ecosystem accou...

According to this study, the benefi ts that fl ow from Natura 2000 are of the order of €200 to 300 billion/year. It is estimated that there are between 1.2 to 2.2 billion visitor days to Natura 2000 sites each year, generating recreational benefi ts worth between €5 and €9 billion per annum. Therefore, investing in Natura 2000 makes sense and is di...

This TEEB for Water and Wetlands report underlines the fundamental importance of wetlands in the water cycle and in addressing water objectives reflected in the Rio+20 agreement, the Millennium Development Goals and forthcoming post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. The report presents insights on both critical water-related ecosystem services an...

There is growing recognition among policy-makers and private sector decision-makers that the current model of economic growth is socially, environmentally, and economically unsustainable. This has sparked a renewed focus on the need for the international community to make a committed transition towards a “green” economy in order to ensure a sustain...

Nature provides a range of benefits (ecosystem services) that underpin human and socio-economic well-being. Many of these benefits – and the associated economic values – are not acknowledged in decision-making. As a result, nature remains almost invisible in the political and individual choices made. This report presents a synthesis of the socio-ec...