THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF NATURE

Based on a research on the economic valuation of the Leuser National Park on Sumatra, Indonesia, this visualization shows the economic value of the Leuser Ecosystem for 3 scenarios: selective-use (logging, but replanting trees), deforestation (which is the current trend) and conservation (no logging at all). The results are broken down into 3 groups: regions, industrial sectors and stakeholders.

SCENARIOS

The visualization shows 3 different scenarios, where the current trend (deforestation) is placed in the middle for each of the 3 scenarios. This way it becomes easy to compare the selective use and conservation scenario with the current trend.

For each of the values of each group (region, industrial and stakeholder), the bubble for each scenario other than the current trend is blue if it is better than the current trend, and red if it is worse than the current trend. The current trend is colored gray.

INTERACTION

The user has 3 main ways to interact with the visualization:

• switch view: what is currently position becomes size in the switched view and what is currently size becomes position in the switched view
• drag handle: this will stretch the y-axis so that overlap between the bubbles decreases
• hover: hovering over one of the bubbles wil reveal detailed information, as well as highlighting its related scenarios.

CONCLUSION

One can easily draw a conclusion from this visualization by simply looking at the color of the bubbles: based on this study it appears that for all 3 groups both alternative scenarios are economically better then the current trend (with a few exceptions).