Economic approaches to valuing the environmental costs and benefits of mineral and aggregate extraction

Abstract

A number of techniques are available for estimating the environmental costs associated with the extraction, transportation and processing of minerals. This paper reviews these techniques in terms of their ability to provide reliable and robust measures of the social costs associated with minerals extraction. It also highlights a number of potential recreational and biodiversity benefits associated with site restoration. A case study is used to illustrate the use of choice experiments to estimate the social costs of minerals extraction. Following this, a number of important issues of special relevance to minerals extraction are identified, including the potential for transferring cost estimates across sites and studies. Finally, it is suggested that reliable monetary estimates of the social costs of minerals extraction could be helpful in informing decisions about planning approval and that such estimates could be incorporated into existing decision‐making tools such as environmental impact assessment.