Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THEORETICAL ISSUES
- PART II HOW TO VALUE THINGS
- PART III CASE STUDIES
- 12 Regulation and deregulation: Enhancing the performance of the deregulated air transportation system
- 13 Pricing: Pricing and congestion: economic principles relevant to pricing roads
- 14 Public transport: The allocation of urban public transport subsidy
- 15 Health care: QALYs and the equity–efficiency tradeoff
- 16 Infrastructure: Water vending activities in developing countries
- 17 The environment: Assessing the social rate of return from investment in temperate zone forestry
- Index
17 - The environment: Assessing the social rate of return from investment in temperate zone forestry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THEORETICAL ISSUES
- PART II HOW TO VALUE THINGS
- PART III CASE STUDIES
- 12 Regulation and deregulation: Enhancing the performance of the deregulated air transportation system
- 13 Pricing: Pricing and congestion: economic principles relevant to pricing roads
- 14 Public transport: The allocation of urban public transport subsidy
- 15 Health care: QALYs and the equity–efficiency tradeoff
- 16 Infrastructure: Water vending activities in developing countries
- 17 The environment: Assessing the social rate of return from investment in temperate zone forestry
- Index
Summary
THE NATURE OF BENEFITS FROM FORESTRY INVESTMENTS
Forestry is a multiple output activity. The planting of forests produces a number of joint outputs and services. Outputs can be positive, taking the form of benefits, or negative, i.e., forests may actually reduce the provision of a service compared to the displaced land use, creating a cost. Much depends on exactly where afforestation takes place. Thus:
an afforested area supplies trees as timber and as a source of recreational value;, depending on the ‘mix’ of trees and the treatments applied to them, in-place biological diversity may be increased compared to the number of species and/or total species biomass in the displaced land use;
landscape values may be increased or decreased according to the preferences of those looking at the landscape;
some watershed may be protected by afforestation through the prevention of soil erosion. Others may suffer from soil erosion from ploughing and road building activity;
water run-off may be reduced by interception to the point where surrounding areas suffer a diminution of water supply, but flood peaks may be reduced once the forest is established;
microclimates may be affected by afforestation, but considerable uncertainty surrounds these impacts;
afforestation may increase the deposition of airborne sulphur oxides and nitrogen dioxide in the forested area, but, in so doing, will reduce the transport of these pollutants to other areas.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Cost-Benefit Analysis , pp. 464 - 490Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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