Experience in Approbation of Societal Land Value as a Basis for Ecological and Economic Assessment of Damage from Land Degradation

Abstract

As a development of the ideas of ecological and economic assessment of land degradation, the notion of societal land value is suggested as a characteristic that simplifies the consideration of the environmental factor, including, in particular, ecosystem services in the final valuation indicators. An integral part of the societal value of agricultural land is the value of the basic properties of soil associated with agricultural production. To convert soil indicators into monetary values, the cost of an analogous artificial product available on the market and related to the given soil property (e.g., vermicompost as an analogue of soil humus) is taken into account. The assessment of societal land value for Belgorod oblast attests to a high contribution (up to 62%) of soil component to it. It is proposed that the category of societal land value can be used as the basis for calculation of indicators of the ecological and economic damage from land degradation.