Understanding that the environment is more than the resource base of human economic activities was a watershed in the awareness of the real value of the environment and the need for an assessment of its quality. The complex of benefits from ecosystems that people obtain in the literature became...

Discounting future costs and benefits is a crucial yet contentious practice in the appraisal of long-term public projects with environmental consequences. The standard approach typically neglects that ecosystem services are not easily substitutable with manufactured goods and often exhibit...