Risk management of chemicals and contaminated land – from planning to verification - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 286

substances and materials. Reducing the amount will reduce costs and increase
benefits, but the type of the substances and materials may modify the balance
significantly due to their different environmental and health hazards and the
subsequent costs;

- Valuation of ecosystem services is a less developed area of cost-benefit assessment

in spite of extensive research and development from 1990 onwards (e.g., Pearce
& Turner, 1990; Costanza et al., 1997; Jae-Young Ko, 2007). Some products
(provisioning services) and marketed services can be easily valued and monetized
because they are commercial products with a distinct price and known demand
such as groundwater, cultivars, timber, wild meat, tourism. Non-marketed ecosys-
tem services can be estimated based on the price/value of the property rights known
and registered all over the world in land tenure and other property registries,
but we must bear it in mind that the WTP for non-marketed ecosystem services
is not proportional to the services provided by the ecosystem. Generally, more
services should be aggregated, which further complicates the calculation. Some
services cannot be valued at all, e.g., genetic diversity, utilizing the genome or
just having it as “nature.'' TEV is a term for total economic value of ecosys-
tem change, which would be suitable to objectively measure the value of the
ecosystem. The problem is that nobody wants to pay for the very important
basic services such as clean oceans, clean atmosphere, special habitats (wetlands),
non-visible species (microorganisms). Marketed organisms have their commercial
value: some protected organisms are valuated extremely high on grounds of emo-
tional and cultural, maybe religious reasons. One can rely on such quantitative
values too. Another concept applies the calculation of the costs needed to compen-
sate negative changes and maintain or restore the quantity and quality of ecosystem
services. However, the future ecosystem values are unknown and they may change
rapidly;

- Precaution is the only way to handle uncertainties resulting from the extremely

high heterogeneity, irreversibility and nonlinearity of ecosystem characteristics.
Our knowledge on ecosystem functions and interactions is poor, the calculations
bear extreme uncertainties, the results may include considerable errors and the
management options may have opposite outcomes than planned. This situation
can only be managed by precaution!

- The value of health and life is measured using the value of statistical life (VOSL)

indicator. This indicator value has been established by insurance companies for
the evaluation of the short-term impact of accidents. In connection with the envi-
ronment, short- and long-term risks occur together, so they cannot be correctly
handled by VOSL only;

- Age may have significant influence on long-term risks and impacts because those

negative health impact factors (mutagenic chemicals, endocrine and immune dis-
ruptors, ionizing radiation, deteriorated natural environment) and social impacts
(unemployment, insecurity, deteriorated social environment) are of cumulative
nature;

- Age and gender groups are differently impacted due to their sensitivity and lifestyle;

- Equity should be exercised based on weighting and distributional adjustment

according to different social groups. Low social groups are generally weighted
excessively in the assessment procedure;