Challenges in using valuation in ecosystem-based management in a marine context: the case of UK Marine Protected Area designation - Ocean Sustainability in the 21st Century - page 239

wage rates. However, there are insufficient travel cost method studies to allow such results
to be extrapolated UK-wide, as would be required for the MCZ study.
What general take-home messages can be drawn from this methodological stage of
the MCZ case study? First, the UK is a reasonably data-rich environment, but in spite of
this estimates were only available for seven of the eleven services, and even amongst these
some use weak proxies. Valuation data gaps are likely to be more significant (relative to the
UK) in other policy appraisals. Second, for many services environmental valuation entails
at least as much biophysical assessment as economics per se. Valuation is not a substitute
for biophysical assessment but indeed relies on it. Third, if we defer to the economic valu-
ation approach, then it is important that we do not lose sight of those services which cannot
be monetized (given available literature, data, and resources). I return to this issue in Sec-
tion 7.4 .
7.3.2.2 Biophysical framework
Marine ecosystems around the UK can be characterized and classified based on a number
of geophysical attributes, including bathymetry, seabed sediments, bedforms, maximum
near-bed stress, and other data. The classification system used in Hussain et al . ( 2010 )
was based on the UKSeaMap classification, i.e. 26 predominant habitat types and nine
threatened and declining habitats (TDHs) at the time the study was being carried out. If we
have an aggregate value for the provisioning of a particular ecosystem service under BAU
for the UK as a whole, then this total has to be split between these landscapes and habitats.
The first question to ask is whether the extent of marine ecological scientific know-
ledge can support an assessment using the ecosystem approach. This subjective appraisal
(adapted from Moran et al ., 2007 ) is set out in Table 7.3 , with the list of 26 habitats in
respective rows. For ease of exposition only those seven ecosystem services for which (ag-
gregate) economic values were available are presented in Table 7.3 . It is clear that there is
significant variability in the extent of certainty that can be applied in biophysical estimates
across different marine landscapes, with a distinct area of poor knowledge in the oceanic