Spatial dimensions of biodiversity values: analyses of preference heterogeneity and conservation priorities across national landscapes

Badura, Tomas (2017) Spatial dimensions of biodiversity values: analyses of preference heterogeneity and conservation priorities across national landscapes. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis contributes to our understanding of the spatial dimension of biodiversity related values in the context of changing environment. It starts with making a case for the use economic valuation for improving decision making related to environmental change and with an overview of the main concepts and approaches for doing so (Chapter 1). The thesis highlights the need to better incorporate the spatial considerations in ecosystem assessments and the importance of robust natural science that underpins any such assessments. The thesis then provides three empirical analyses, two that employ discrete choice modelling to examine how spatial information influences preferences for environmental change, and one that focuses on modelling the biodiversity impacts of land use change. The contributions of the thesis are as follows. 1) development of a novel methodology for choice experiments that incorporates space in the survey design, experimental design and presentation of choice situations on individualised maps (Chapter 3); 2) application of this methodology to test how addition of individualised maps alongside commonly used Tabular format impacts on preferences and welfare values for environmental change (Chapter 3); 3) provision of evidence that state and country borders have an impact on preferences for the portrayed changes (Chapter 2 and 3); and 4) development of prediction models that allow evaluating land use change impacts on farmland bird species; this includes assessment of model performance and variables importance for future integration of the models with economic analyses (Chapter 4). The thesis closes with research implications and personal research plans.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Users 9280 not found.
Date Deposited:	10 Jan 2019 13:16
Last Modified:	10 Jan 2019 13:16
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/69537
DOI:

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