Emergy as a Tool to Evaluate Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The objective of this paper is to present a review of current research on the valuation of ecosystem services, using emergy evaluation methodology (EME). A bibliometric analysis and a systematic review were carried out between 2000 and 2020, using all of Web of Science database subfields that collected 187 papers, selected through the keywords emergy and ecosystem services. In the second part of the research, we carried out a new search on Web of Science of the 187 initial articles produced, with the words valuation and economic, in order to analyze those directly related to the evaluation of ecosystem services. The results showed that the EME method is an effective tool to evaluate ecosystem services, since it relates economic and ecological aspects in the evaluations. The research also indicated that the use of isolated methods does not appear to be the most appropriate solution, and that emergy used in combination with other methodologies can be used to obtain more accurate and comprehensive results to evaluate natural resources.

Automated summary

This paper reviews current research on the valuation of ecosystem services using emergy evaluation methodology (EME) and highlights the effectiveness of EME in relating economic and ecological aspects in evaluations. It also suggests that combining emergy with other methodologies can lead to more accurate and comprehensive results in evaluating natural resources.