Loss-Gain calculations in German Impact Mitigation Regulation
By MARIANNE DARBI - CHRISTIAN TAUSCH View PublicationAs a result of more than 30 years practice German IMR is a compensation approach which is outstanding due to its comprehensive character and the broad scientific base and discussion. One of the core issues of this discussion has – since the beginning – been the debate on appropriate balancing and evaluation methods to put into relation impact and offset.
After briefly introducing the surrogate of loss-gain calculations in chapter 2 and an overview on steps in loss-gain calculations (chapter 3) this paper will shed some light on the most common types of simplified balancing and evaluation methods in chapter 4, namely Biotope valuation procedures (chapter 4.1), Compensation area coefficients (chapter 4.2) and Cost-of-restoration approaches (chapter 4.3). In the end a summary of the advantages and disadvantages and a brief outlook on the current practice is given (chapter 5).