Discounted cash flow analysis is one of the standard methods used to value urban forests and trees. It involves calculating today’s value for all benefits and costs attributed to an investment;that is discounting all...Discounted cash flow analysis is one of the standard methods used to value urban forests and trees. It involves calculating today’s value for all benefits and costs attributed to an investment;that is discounting all cash flows to today’s value using an appropriate interest rate. This requires each benefit and cost be stated in terms of its cash flow. Urban tree benefits are complex. Little notice is given to the components of these benefits. Total urban tree benefits are a summation of partial benefits, including property value increase, storm water reduction, air quality improvement, carbon sequestration, natural gas savings, and electricity savings. We discuss the nature of these partial benefits, especially the geographical, temporal, diameter size, and rate of growth differences. These differences are even reflected in nursery stock valuation. Net present value analysis is used to illustrate the impact of these differences on financial return. An understanding of these components will prove valuable to those attempting to estimate urban forest and tree benefits.展开更多
The regular occurrence and the high costs of flooding to both road agencies and communities is a strong impetus to investigate the methodologies applied to evaluating flood immunity road projects. Very little literatu...The regular occurrence and the high costs of flooding to both road agencies and communities is a strong impetus to investigate the methodologies applied to evaluating flood immunity road projects. Very little literature exists on methods of evaluating the benefits of improving flood immunity through better road infrastructure. This paper attempts to address some of the numerous issues hindering the accurate evaluation of flood immunity road projects. The methodologies presented in this paper are designed to evaluate benefits that are not normally included or not fully considered in evaluations; such benefits include reduced flood related road accidents, costs of not travelling during the closure period and additional costs from unanticipated flood events. A key focus of the paper is the consideration of the evaluation of improved flood immunity from a network perspective rather than the typical approach of evaluating flood immunity projects in isolation to each other. The application of the proposed methodologies is demonstrated with a hypothetical example of a typical rural network subjected to regular flooding. The results of the analysis, conducted using the proposed methodologies, reveals that the currently applied methodologies account for less than half the likely value of benefits of a package of projects that will prevent the complete isolation of communities during serious flood events.展开更多
文摘Discounted cash flow analysis is one of the standard methods used to value urban forests and trees. It involves calculating today’s value for all benefits and costs attributed to an investment;that is discounting all cash flows to today’s value using an appropriate interest rate. This requires each benefit and cost be stated in terms of its cash flow. Urban tree benefits are complex. Little notice is given to the components of these benefits. Total urban tree benefits are a summation of partial benefits, including property value increase, storm water reduction, air quality improvement, carbon sequestration, natural gas savings, and electricity savings. We discuss the nature of these partial benefits, especially the geographical, temporal, diameter size, and rate of growth differences. These differences are even reflected in nursery stock valuation. Net present value analysis is used to illustrate the impact of these differences on financial return. An understanding of these components will prove valuable to those attempting to estimate urban forest and tree benefits.
文摘The regular occurrence and the high costs of flooding to both road agencies and communities is a strong impetus to investigate the methodologies applied to evaluating flood immunity road projects. Very little literature exists on methods of evaluating the benefits of improving flood immunity through better road infrastructure. This paper attempts to address some of the numerous issues hindering the accurate evaluation of flood immunity road projects. The methodologies presented in this paper are designed to evaluate benefits that are not normally included or not fully considered in evaluations; such benefits include reduced flood related road accidents, costs of not travelling during the closure period and additional costs from unanticipated flood events. A key focus of the paper is the consideration of the evaluation of improved flood immunity from a network perspective rather than the typical approach of evaluating flood immunity projects in isolation to each other. The application of the proposed methodologies is demonstrated with a hypothetical example of a typical rural network subjected to regular flooding. The results of the analysis, conducted using the proposed methodologies, reveals that the currently applied methodologies account for less than half the likely value of benefits of a package of projects that will prevent the complete isolation of communities during serious flood events.
