Strengths
¥ Universally Accepted Measure of Economic Benefits
¥ Easy to Interpret and to use for purposes of comparison
¥ Suitable for use in conventional Cost-Benefit Analysis
¥ Only measure of economic benefits acceptable to some
people
Weaknesses
¥ Non-market $$ Valuation Methods are not fully developed
¥ Non-market $$ Valuation Methods are expensive to apply
¥ Results of Non-market $$ Methods are controversial
¥ Results are almost always site-specific
¥ Results of good studies almost always apply to individual
services
¥ Results not generally accepted in courtrooms and hearing
rooms
¥ Difficult to address linkages between benefits and
decisions
¥ Difficult to use to compare environmental assets being
traded
¥ Difficult to use to prioritize environmental assets