Results

Total Economic Losses


After this analysis it is concluded that the total economic value (VET) of forests in Portugal amounts to 7.301 € / ha. For this reason, and taking into account the burnings in Alto Minho, economic losses amounting to 83.312.559 can be transferred.


Results and transfer of benefits

For previous steps, search meta-analysis

The results obtained after estimating the MCO and EA models are shown in the table beside. In general, both provide similar results and a good fit is obtained, so R2 is approximately 61%, that is, this model would be explaining 61% of the dependent variable, in this case, the economic value per hectare and year (€ 2017). As for the characteristics of the place to be valued, it highlights how non-tropical stubs have associated a positive and statistically significant coefficient with respect to ignored variables (tropical forests or various types of forest). This can be how much of the observations in this database are related to the valuation of this type of forest. On the other hand, it is also observed that, the larger size of the forest to value lesser value, this is what is expected, as shown by the diminishing marginal utility with respect to the size of the forest. In this sense, the % of forest rents over GDP also has a negative effect.

As for the valuation of ecosystem services, it can be seen that the three types of services included in the regregion are associated with positive and statistically significant coefficients with respect to the ignored variable, regulation and maintenance services. Therefore, provision services, cultural, are valued more, or when several aggregated services are valued in front of regulation and maintenance services.

It is worth noting that the only differences obtained after estimating both models refer to variables related to the characteristics of the study. In concrete, with the MCO model the results show that the muestral size is important and, in concrete, that the larger muestral size the value obtained is smaller. On the contrary, this variable is not statistically significant in the EA model but if it is the variable referring to the valuation methods. In particular, it is found that the revealed preferences (PR) method provides lower estimates than the ignored method, stated preferences

Finally, the transfer of benefits is carried out. In this case, or relevant objective is to estimate or average value that we obtain two services, two ecosystems, two forests and, specifically, focus on the Alto Minho case. With the meta-to-regress performed previously, we can predict the benefits under specific values of two regressors using the benefit transfer method. In particular, in this case, we focus on two services, two ecosystems for the whole or bank of data, and later on having the characteristics of Alto Minho. For this, a transfer function of two estimated coefficients is undertaken as an EA model, introducing the mean values of explanatory variances and specifying a value of 1 year of ecosystem service to be valued, 0 year of rest of ecosystem services. This table shows the average predictions obtained with respect to confidence intervals.

In particular, in this study it is of interest to focus on valuing individual services, that is, provision services, cultural services and regulation and maintenance services. In the case of aggregate services, given that they contain the total economic value or the valuation of various services, they report a value of less interest because they are not able to identify an individual value.

In view of the table above and focusing on the case of Alto Minho, cultural services are the most valued with a total of 4042 € / ha, followed by the provision service with a value of 3114 € / ha. Regulation and maintenance services would be the least valued, increasing their value to 144 € / ha.

If the results obtained after the prediction adjusted to the characteristics of Alto Minho are compared, it is observed how the valuation is much higher than in the case of the predictions obtained for the total of the sample. This data shows the importance of these goods and services for this country and, with that, the great loss that would be derived from forest fires in case of production. It is therefore important to highlight these data when making economic valuations of the economic losses caused by forest fires.

After this analysis it is concluded that the total economic value (VET) of forests in Portugal amounts to € 7.301 / ha. For this reason, and taking into account the burnings in Alto Minho, economic losses amounting to € 83,312,559 can be transferred.