The Cost of Environmental
Degradation : Case Studies from the Middle East and North Africa

Environmental degradation is costly, to
individuals, to societies, and to the environment. This
book, edited by Lelia Croitoru and Maria Sarraf, makes these
costs clear by examining a number of studies carried out
over the past few years by the World Bank's Middle East
and North Africa region. Even more important than estimating
the monetary cost of environmental degradation (COED),
however, are the clear guidance and policy implications
derived from these findings. This volume presents a new
approach to estimating the impacts of environmental
degradation. In the past, when government officials asked
researchers the simple question how large are the impacts of
environmental degradation? The response was often an
emphatic 'large!' a rather imprecise number. The
strength of this work is that it actually quantifies in
economic terms how large is 'large' and thereby
gains the attention of decision makers and offers specific
insights for improved policy making. Finally, this book
demonstrates the benefits of doing a coordinated, regional
COED analysis that builds on the country-level studies. This
two-tiered approach produces important synergies, in terms
of both the methodologies used and the lessons learned.