Essays on Methods to Support Ecosystem Accounting

Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) aims to report on the role of the environment in the economy and society using the same accounting principles as the System of National Accounts. Among the frameworks developed over time for this purpose, the System of Environmental Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) was adopted by the United Nations as an international statistical standard in 2021, becoming the primary framework for NCA. By adopting a concept of value, i.e., the exchange value, aligned with SNA principles, this framework aims to provide metrics comparable to widely recognised indicators. This thesis sets within this evolving context, aiming to addressing key issues within Ecosystem Accounting (EA) by proposing novel methodological approaches. The first two chapters focus on pricing and valuation for Ecosystem Services (ES), a subject of ongoing debate in the literature. They focus specifically on recreation-related ecosystem services (RES) and examine the use of revealed preference techniques to estimate their exchange value, further supporting the use of nonmarket valuation techniques in EA. The third chapter focuses on another critical challenge in EA: the lack of consistent, accessible, and scalable biophysical data, which represents a significant barrier to the appropriate and effective development of ecosystem accounts. It focuses on marine ecosystems, with particular emphasis on the habitat of Posidonia oceanica, and proposes the adoption of probabilistic sampling strategies for the estimation, mapping and monitoring of its ecological attributes.