Homero Castanier Muñoz, Empresa de Agua Potable y Saneamiento de Quito, Gestión Ambiental, hcastanier@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
The ecosystems integrate the environmental systems under which the socioeconomic system, with public and private goods, takes natural resources and particularly water as a source for its functioning. The values of ecosystems’ services and functions can be estimated based on applications of a series of methods of environmental economics, being especially important the contingent valuation method, since it estimates the use and non use values, which correspond to the total economic value. The interrelations between the environmental and socioeconomic systems can be analyzed under different approaches of economics, depending on the results of the analysis of the total benefits and costs involved in conservation and development processes. The economic valuation of water ecosystems’ functions and services has special relevance in relation to the conservation of water sources, its quantity and quality, determination of economic liabilities for environmental damages or natural resources damages or degradation, and compensation for restrictions on land use regulation for environmental services protection.
KEYWORDS Water, valuation, sustainability