Globally, human development has proceeded at a rapid pace for the past several decades for both terrestrial and aquatic/marine environments. Project developers, government decision-makers and the public have had little data regarding the relative values of natural resources, or losses thereof, to facilitate project – and corresponding natural resource takings/ecosystem degradation – decision-making, resulting in intrinsic, but poorly quantified, environmental degradation. Accordingly, we have found that an effective strategy for communicating the value of ecosystems and related natural resources to facilitate smart resource management is to monetize the replacement value of resource losses from development. A number of tools have been developed for monetizing resource value, including quantitative mitigation analysis to address compensating for ecosystem and related natural resource losses due to human development. Quantitative Mitigation Analysis is a methodology developed to assist project developers and regulatory agencies alike with developing or evaluating cost-effective, defensible, quantitatively based compensatory mitigation strategies for developments that result in the taking of, or diminution in quality to, habitats and related natural resources. Quantitative Mitigation Analysis quantifies loss of ecological function from proposed developments and determines the amount of mitigation required as compensation. This paper introduces and describes Quantitative Mitigation Analysis and presents a case example that demonstrates how Quantitative Mitigation Analysis may be applied to construction projects resulting in substantive habitat destruction for the benefit of project developers and the regulatory community alike.

中文翻译：

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量化缓解分析：促进规划、恢复和缓解的生态系统估值工具

在全球范围内，过去几十年，陆地和水生/海洋环境的人类发展都在快速进行。项目开发商、政府决策者和公众几乎没有关于自然资源的相对价值或其损失的数据，以促进项目——以及相应的自然资源获取/生态系统退化——决策，导致内在的，但量化不足， 环境恶化。因此，我们发现传播生态系统和相关自然资源价值以促进智能资源管理的有效策略是将开发中资源损失的重置价值货币化。已经开发了许多工具来将资源价值货币化，包括定量缓解分析，以解决人类发展造成的生态系统和相关自然资源损失的补偿问题。定量缓解分析是一种开发方法，旨在帮助项目开发商和监管机构等制定或评估具有成本效益、可辩护、基于数量的补偿缓解策略，以用于导致栖息地和相关自然资源占用或质量下降的开发项目. 量化缓解分析量化了拟议开发项目的生态功能损失，并确定了作为补偿所需的缓解量。