Analysis of the uncertainty in the monetary valuation of ecosystem services - a case study at the river basin scale

Ecosystem services provide multiple benefits to human wellbeing and are increasingly considered by 18 policy-makers in environmental management. However, the uncertainty related with the monetary 19 valuation of these benefits is not yet adequately defined or integrated by policy-makers. Given this 20 background, our aim was to quantify different sources of uncertainty when performing monetary 21 valuation of ecosystem services, in order to provide a series of guidelines to reduce them. With an 22 example of 4 ecosystem services (i.e., water provisioning, waste treatment, erosion protection, and 23 habitat for species) provided at the river basin scale, we quantified the uncertainty associated with 24 the following sources: (1) the number of services considered, (2) the number of benefits considered 25 for each service, (3) the valuation metrics (i.e. valuation methods) used to value benefits, and (4) the 26 uncertainty of the parameters included in the valuation metrics. Results indicate that the highest 27 uncertainty was caused by the number of services considered, as well as by the number of benefits 28 considered for each service, whereas the parametric uncertainty was similar to the one related to the 29 selection of valuation metric, thus suggesting that the parametric uncertainty, which is the only 30 uncertainty type commonly considered, was less critical than the structural uncertainty, which is in 31 turn mainly dependent on the decision-making context. Given the uncertainty associated to the 32 valuation structure, special attention should be given to the selection of services, benefits and 33 metrics according to a given context.