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. Changes in monetary values are computed for the six future scenarios used in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment for the period 2010–2060. Different degrees of substitutability between urban greenspaces are considered. 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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The full array of ecosystem services provided by urban greenspace in the UK can be found in Davies et al. (2011).
A discussion of different greenspace definitions and classifications and the problems created by the absence of consistent and comprehensive data on UK urban greenspace can be found in Davies et al. (2011).
As defined in the UK Forestry Commission Woods For People dataset.
As defined in the urban elements of the Natural England CROW access database.
The actual size of City-Edge Greenspace is generally not well specified. The 10 ha used corresponds to the average size of a Formal Recreation Site in the sample.
Specifically the Ordnance Survey Mastermap Topographic area layer (scale 1:1,250).
This includes the parts coded ‘natural’ of the two other types of greenspace. This avoids over-stating the marginal value of the ‘natural’ land cover not part of Formal Recreation Sites or City-Edge Greenspace as they clearly depend on the total amount present in an area. Double counting is only a minor issue as there is only a partial overlap of the ecosystem services provided (directly distance related services versus those related to land use shares) and as the subsequent analysis shows, the contribution of Informal Greenspace is almost negligible compared to the other two categories.
Obtained from the Experian Mosaic data set.
Since the size of City-Edge Greenspace is standardised to 10 ha (roughly the average size of Formal Recreation Sites in the studied sample), the distance added corresponds to the radius of a circle containing an area of 10 ha, i.e. 178.5 m.
Cheshire and Sheppard (1995) provide two estimates of mean marginal values: one for Reading (18 % of greenspace land coverage with a marginal value of \({\pounds }\)120); and one for Darlington (8 %, \({\pounds }\)192) where the marginal values have been converted to 2009 prices. Additionally assumptions that the marginal value is zero at 100 % and non-negative for smaller percentages of ‘natural’ land cover have been used to fit a quadratic function through those points.
For a detailed description of the NEA scenarios see Haines-Young et al. (2011).
Specifically we multiply the distances from the geographical centre of each postcodes to the centre of each Formal Recreation Site or City-Edge Greenspace by a factor equal to the square root of 1 plus the proportional change in the urban area (this being 0.98 for Nature@Work, National Security and Local Stewardship, 1.015 for Go with the Flow and 1.338 for World Market; no change in extent is posited for the remaining scenarios).The square root is taken to translate a change in city area (see Table 3) into one in distance. The appropriateness of using a constant factor for all distances follows from the intercept theorem. This procedure effectively inflates or deflates a city preserving the set of postcodes included but adjusting their relative position.
This presents a lower bound estimate for any given increase in Formal Recreation Site size. Adding a new park at a different location would generally generate higher benefits than adding the same area to an existing park. Note that the location of houses, are not changed over and above the inflation factor. The bias introduced by the artefact that some houses would be located within the new boundaries of a park is limited by the adjustment of the marginal value function described previously and illustrated in Fig. 1.
The Informal Greenspace cover is divided by (1 + the change in urban area) to allow for alteration in the size of the city.
This procedure assumes that for each individual value change computed (and as the next section describes there are millions of them included in this study) the marginal value function is constant and equal to the average marginal value. This procedure hence underestimates losses and overestimates gains because the real marginal value functions are downward sloping and changes occurring closer to the present are valued higher under any discounting regime.
Note that the underlying values changes are the same. The two approaches are merely different but equivalent ways of presenting them.
A 3 km maximum distance was imposed for this and the City-Edge Greenspace calculations, reflecting an empirically based cut-off distance beyond which greenspace influence was assumed to be zero.
Full postcodes were used. A postcode area comprises on average about 20 households (excluding postcodes without residential addresses).
For Formal Recreation Sites and City-Edge Greenspace the marginal value functions are integrated over the distance variable. The total value in the status quo and under each scenario is computed by taking the difference between the total value at 3 km and the respective distance. For each scenario the parameters for city population, distance and size are adjusted according to Table 6. The undiscounted benefit change per household for each postcode and scenario is then given by the difference between the scenario and the status quo total values.
Our national extrapolation analysis is restricted to Great Britain as comparable data for Northern Ireland is not available. However, urban areas in Northern Ireland represent only about three percent of total urban area in the UK (Davies et al. 2011). Moreover, we have only included cities with a population of 50,000 or more as the methodology used is less suitable for smaller settlements.
The areas of LSOA for Wales are not available and have been replaced by predicted values based on a regression using city population, LSOA/datazone median income and LSOA/datazone population of LSOAs/datazones in England and Scotland as predictors (t-values are between 10 and 29 but \(\text{ R }^{2}\) is only about 0.05).
The cities for England and Wales are selected using 2001 census data (DCLG 2008) and for Scotland using mid-2008 population estimates (GROS 2008). LSOAs and datazones are then selected based on look-up tables by EDINA UKBORDERS that match city codes to output areas. Median household income is extracted from the 2008, Experian Mosaic data set. Note that the most extreme 0.5 % of LSOAs were truncated to the value at that truncation point to avoid extreme values distorting mean results.
References
Andrews B (2009) An investigation into the effects of distance and environmental attitudes on preferences for new parks in Norwich, unpublished MRes dissertation, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Bateman IJ, Day BH, Georgiou S, Lake I (2006) The aggregation of environmental benefit values: welfare measures, distance decay and total WTP. Ecol Econ 60(2):450–460. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.04.003
Bateman IJ, Harwood A, Abson DJ, Andrews B, Crowe A, Dugdale S, Fezzi C, Foden J, Haines-Young R, Hulme M, Munday P, Pascual U, Paterson J, Perino G, Sen A, Siriwardena G, Termansen M (2013a) Economic analysis for the UK national ecosystem assessment: synthesis and scenario valuation of changes in ecosystem services. Environ Resour Econ. doi:10.1007/s10640-013-9662-y
Bateman IJ, Harwood AR, Mace GM, Watson RT, Abson DJ, Andrews B, Binner A, Crowe A, Day BH, Dugdale S, Fezzi C, Foden J, Hadley D, Haines-Young R, Hulme M, Kontoleon A, Lovett AA, Munday P, Pascual U, Paterson J, Perino G, Sen A, Siriwardena G, van Soest D, Termansen M (2013b) Bringing ecosystem services into economic decision making: Land use in the UK. Science (forthcoming)
Bateman IJ, Jones AP, Lovett AA, Lake I, Day BH (2002) Applying geographical information systems (GIS) to environmental and resource economics. Environ Resour Econ 22(1–2):219–269. doi:10.1023/A:1015575214292
Bergstrom John C, Taylor Laura O (2006) Using meta-analysis for benefit transfer: theory and practice. Ecol Econ 60:351–360
Brander LM, Koetse MJ (2011) The value of urban open space: meta-analyses of contingent valuation and hedonic pricing results. J Environ Manag 92:2763–2773
CabeSpace (2005) Does money grow on trees? CABE. London, 87 pages
Cheshire Paul, Sheppard Stephen (1995) On the price of land and the value of amenities. Economica 62:67–247
Davies L, Kwiatkowski L, Gaston KJ, Beck H, Brett H, Batty M, Scholes L, Wade R, Sheate WR, Sadler J, Perino G, Andrews B, Kontoleon A, Bateman I, Harris JA, Burgess P, Cooper N, Evans S, Lyme S, McKay HI, Metcalfe R, Roger K, Simpson L, Winn J (2011) Urban, UK National Ecosystem Assessment, Chapter 10
DCLG (2008) Urban Settlement 2001: England and Wales, Department of Communities and Local Government. http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/urbansettlement2001. Accessed 14 Nov 2010
Dehring Carolyn, Dunse Neil (2006) Housing density and the effect of proximity to public open space in Aberdeen, Scotland. Real Estate Econ 34(4):553–566
Dunse N, White M, Dehring C (2007) Urban parks, open space and residential property values. RICS Research paper series 7(8) 40 pages
Eigenbrod Felix, Armsworth Paul R, Anderson Barbara J, Heinemeyer Andreas, Gillings Simon, Roy David B, Thomas Chris D, Gaston Kevin J (2010) Error propagation associated with benefit transfer-based mapping of ecosystem services. Biol Conserv 143(11):2487–2493
Experian, Mosaic UK 2009/2008 [Shapefile geospatial data] http://www.experian.co.uk/business-strategies/mosaic-uk-2009.html. Accessed Aug 2010
Forestry Commission, Woodland Trust and the Environment and Heritage Service (Northern Ireland) Woods For People—Version 4, Coverage: GB, Updated November 2007. From Forestry Commission CGIS, Victoria Terrace, Aberystwyth
General Register Office for Scotland, 2001 Census: Digitised Boundary Data (Scotland) [computer file]. ESRC/JISC Census Programme, Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS), EDINA (University of Edinburgh)
GROS (2008) Table 2: Mid-2008 Population Estimates - Localities in order of size, General Register Office for Scotland. http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files2/stats/population-estimates/08mye-localities-table2.pdf. Accessed 14 Nov 2010
Haines-Young R, Paterson J, Potschin M, Wilson A, Kass G (2011) The UK NEA scenarios: development of storylines and analysis of outcomes. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment, chapter 25
Hanley Nick, Knight Jacqui (1992) Valuing the environment: recent UK experience and an application to Green Belt Land. J Environ Plan Manag 35(2):145–160
HM Treasury (2003) The green book: appraisal and evaluation in central government, London
Kirchhoff Stefanie, Colby Bonnie G, LaFrance Jeffrey T (1997) Evaluating the performance of benefit transfer: an empirical inquiry. J Environ Econ Manag 33:75–93
Natural England, CRoW Act 2000—Access Layer [ESRI Shape file]. http://www.gis.naturalengland.org.uk/pubs/gis/GIS_register.asp. Accessed Aug 2010
Natural England, CRoW Act 2000–S16 Dedicated Land [ESRI Shape file]. http://www.gis.naturalengland.org.uk/pubs/gis/GIS_register.asp. Accessed Aug 2010
Natural England, CRoW Act 2000–S15 Land [ESRI Shape file]. http://www.gis.naturalengland.org.uk/pubs/gis/GIS_register.asp Accessed Aug 2010
Office for National Statistics, National Statistics Postcode Directory (NSPD) 2010 February Version [computer file]. ESRC Census Programme, Census Dissemination Unit, Mimas (University of Manchester)/Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS), EDINA (University of Edinburgh)
Office for National Statistics, 2001 Census: Digitised Boundary Data (England and Wales) [computer file]. ESRC/JISC Census Programme, Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS)
OS MasterMap Topography Layer [GML geospatial data], Coverage: Aberdeen, Bristol, Norwich, Glasgow and Sheffield, Updated June 2010, Ordnance Survey, GB. Using: EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap, Downloaded Aug 2010
OS Meridian 2 (DLUA) [Shapefile geospatial data], Scale 1:50,000, Coverage: UK, Updated April 2010, Ordnance Survey, GB. Using EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap, Downloaded Aug 2010
OS Code Point with Polygons [Shapefile geospatial data], Coverage: Aberdeen, Bristol, Norwich, Glasgow and Sheffield, Updated March 2010, Ordnance Survey, GB. Using: EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap, Downloaded Aug 2010
Perino G, Andrews B, Kontoleon A, Bateman I (2011) Urban Greenspace Amenity, Economic Assessment of Ecosystem Services provided by UK Urban Habitats, Report to the Economics Team of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, University of East Anglia, http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=80gPu556Qhw%3d&tabid=82. Accessed 9 Dec 2011
Troy Austin, Wilson Matthew A (2006) Mapping ecosystem services: practical challenges and opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer. Ecol Econ 60:435–449
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Antara Sen, Carlo Fezzi, members of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment User and Client Groups and participants of the 2011 EAERE annual conference for valuable comments. We thank Olena Talavera for excellent research assistance. The work reported was funded in part by the Social and Environmental Economic Research (SEER) into Multi-Objective Land Use Decision Making project (in turn funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); Funder Ref: RES-060-25-0063). This work is based on data provided through EDINA UKBORDERS with the support of the ESRC and JISC and uses boundary material which is copyright of the Crown and the Post Office.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
Description of variables used in meta-analysis
Variable | Description |
|---|---|
Marginal value of proximity to FRS (\({\pounds }\) in 2009 prices per meter) | Marginal value of proximity elicited for the greenspace, i.e. the additional value of moving one meter closer to the Formal Recreation Site. For hedonic pricing method those are implicit prices, for the expert method it is the experts’ estimate of the implicit price and for the contingent valuation studies it is either willingness-to-pay for the creation of a new park or willingness-to-pay to preserve an existing one |
Size of greenspace (in ha) | Size of the greenspace valued in original study |
Distance (in m) | Distance between the greenspace valued and the place of residence of the person/household carrying this value |
Income (GBP) | Income of the study area based on averages over median annual household incomes at the Lower Super Output Areas of the 2001 census (using the 2009, Experian Mosaic data set) |
Population | Population of the city where the original study was undertaken (using 2009 ONS estimates) |
CVM | Dummy variable: 1 if original study uses the contingent valuation method, 0 otherwise |
Expert Method | Dummy variable: 1 if original study uses the expert method, 0 otherwise |
Hedonic | Dummy variable: 1 if original study uses the hedonic pricing method, 0 otherwise. Not reported as each original study used only one of the three methods |
Peer Reviewed | Dummy variable: 1 if original study was published in a peer-reviewed journal, 0 otherwise |
Year of Data Collection | Year the data of the original study was collected |
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Perino, G., Andrews, B., Kontoleon, A. et al. The Value of Urban Green Space in Britain: A Methodological Framework for Spatially Referenced Benefit Transfer. Environ Resource Econ 57, 251–272 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-013-9665-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-013-9665-8