Economic evaluation of environmental impact of mining: Ecosystem approach

Abstract

The article considers the most important aspects of ecosystem approach implementation in mining. It requires the integrated economic assessment of the environmental consequences and the entire list of ecosystem services supplied by forest ecosystems most subjected anthropogenic impact of mineral mining. The authors identify the main ecosystem services supplied by forests and indirectly providing economic benefits to their consumers: maintenance of air composition in the atmosphere (carbon sequestration and oxygen production); air purification and water protection associated with an increase in precipitation and soil protection from erosion. The scientific novelty consists in the improvement of guidelines for economic assessment of ecosystem services generated by natural capital of the territories under consideration. The guidelines are developed for assessing the ecosystem service on air composition maintenance at various degree of detalization. The introduction of the decrease in precipitation due to rainfall retention by forest canopy in the economic assessment of water protection service is substantiated. The article systematizes approaches to economic assessment approaches of soil protection ecoservice, which allows selecting the most appropriate method for the specific conditions. The experience of using the discounting procedure in economic valuation of ecosystem services is summarized and analyzed.