The value of urban green space in Britain: A methodological framework for spatially referenced benefit transfer

Abstract

A meta-analysis of studies valuing urban greenspace in the UK is undertaken to yield spatially sensitive marginal value functions. A geographical information system (GIS) is used to apply these functions to spatial data detailing the location of such greenspace resources in five British cities and monetary values are computed. This procedure is repeated for the six future scenarios used in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and changes in values calculated for the period 2010-60. These findings are then extrapolated to all major British cities to obtain per household and aggregate valuation estimates for each scenario both with and without distributional weights. While subject to a number of shortcomings in both data availability and methodology, this represents the first systematic and comprehensive attempt to value marginal changes in urban greenspace while accounting for spatial heterogeneity.