| While mine site pollution is well regulated in developed countries, regulatory agencies have started to value its environmental impact to gain a better understanding of the trade-offs between mineral development and environmental quality. Ecosystem service valuation incorporates the value of ecosystem services into decisions regarding abandoned mine lands, legacy sites, operating mines, proposed mine development, and mine closure. Benefit transfer provides an attractive ecosystem service valuation method that applies valuation results, from the environmental valuation literature, to sites in need of valuation estimates. This dissertation constructs a benefit transfer model to value mine site pollution and applies it to mine sites around the world. The results illuminate the benefits of a Superfund remediation and the impacts of artisanal and small-scale mining. |
