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3291894 
Journal Article 
The use of habitat equivalency analysis in natural resource damage assessments 
Dunford, RW; Ginn, TC; Desvousges, WH 
2004 
Yes 
Ecological Economics
ISSN: 0921-8009 
ELSEVIER 
AMSTERDAM 
48 
1 
49-70 
WOS:000188548300007 
Federal and state government agencies and Indian tribes,
acting on behalf of the public as trustees, can recover damages to natural resources from
companies responsible for oil spills or hazardous-substance releases. Habitat equivalency
analysis (HEA) is a method for estimating the appropriate amount of compensation for interim
losses resulting from such spills or releases. HEA has several restrictive assumptions that are
not met in many situations and its input parameters often are not known with certainty, which can
lead to substantial differences between HEA results and the ""true"" amount of compensation for
losses resulting from oil spills or hazardous-substance releases. Critical assumptions of HEA
include a preference for compensation with the same services as were injured, a fixed proportion
of habitat services to habitat value, and a constant real value of services over time. HEA also
requires that complex ecological services are expressed as a single metric and that the
incremental effect of spills/releases are estimated reliably over time. Notwithstanding these
important assumptions and limitations, HEA is frequently used to settle natural resource damage
(NRD) claims and two HEA applications to NRD claims have been upheld by the courts. When properly
structured and applied, HEA can produce relatively reliable results for most oil spills and
simple cases involving hazardous-substance releases. Even when unmet assumptions and/or
differences in professional judgment with respect to input parameters produce differences in HEA
results, the method can be useful in achieving an NRD settlement in a variety of situations.
However, HEA should only be viewed as a framework to provide a general approximation of any
required restoration, and not as a substitute for a formal NRD assessment in cases involving
complex hazardous-substance releases. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 
NRDA; natural resources; damages; habitat; restoration