Valuation of ecosystems enhances the ability of decision-makers to evaluate trade-offs between alternative ecosystem management regimes and courses of social action that alter the use of ecosystems and the multiple services they provide (MEA 2003, Ramachandra et al., 2007). Valuation reveal the relative importance of different ecosystem services, especially those not traded in conventional markets (TEEB, 2010). Valuation of provisioning services of various ecosystems in the submergence area of Kumaradhara river basin was done considering the quantity of good produced by the respective ecosystem and market value.

• Forests: Forests provide various services classified as supporting services, provisioning services, regulating  services and cultural services Most of these services are underestimated or not estimated and are thus undervalued in policy decisions. The quantification was done of various provisioning services from forests such as timber, fuel wood, fodder, green leaf manure, medicinal plants and NTFP. The area under different types of forest is derived from remote sensing data. Quantification of forest goods has been done based on the data compiled from the division offices of the Forest Department and micro level studies (productivity, etc.). Market prices were used for valuing the goods. The valuation of forest provisioning services is about Rs. 2,05,388 per hectare per year
• Rubber: With 495 trees per hectare and yield of 600grams per day per tree for 200 days a year, around 59.4 quintals of rubber is produced per year per hectare, value of rubber is Rs 17000 per quintal
• Arecanut: With 1112 trees per hectare and yield of 2 kilograms per tree in a year, around 22.24 quintals of arecanut is produced per year per hectare, value of arecanut is Rs 14000 per quintal
• Agriculture: With double crop rice, a yield of 62 quintals of rice is produced per hectare; value of rice is Rs 1600 per quintal

Table 4 lists ecosystem values per year and Table 5 lists likely revenue due to electricity generation. Values the nature provides is about 470 million Rs. per year. Submergence of these ecosystems for electricity generation, gives only 245 million Rs. This means the nature provides at least 1.92 times higher revenue than MHS.

Table 4: Provisioning Services provided by various ecosystems

Table 5: Electricity Revenue per year

Provisioning services to electricity generated ratio =     = 1.92