Systematic review of wetland ecosystem services valuation in India: assessing economic approaches, knowledge gaps, and management implications

India boasts a wealth of wetland ecosystems that support diverse and unique habitats and provide numerous ecological goods and services but are under tremendous stress. To ensure the sustainability of these ecosystems and the provision of various ecosystem services (ES), a systematic understanding of wetland ecosystem services (WES) and their economic value is highly important for guiding WES research and management. This systematic review provides an in-depth assessment of existing knowledge on WES and summarize key interdisciplinary approaches for measuring and valuing them. The review deals with the economic valuation approaches adopted in India for the WES and addresses the pressing need for reliable economic valuation methods that quantify trade-offs across various spatial-temporal scales and can assess the efficiency of alternative wetland management scenarios. By meticulously examining the available scientific literature related to WES and analyzing a diverse range of research papers that explicitly quantify these services, this paper seeks to identify gaps, advancements, management approaches, and future requirements in the field of WES valuation in India. It emphasizes the need for a pluralistic approach that includes a wider range of social perspectives and valuation techniques to better understand the relationship between ecosystem functioning and human well-being. After describing the specificity of knowledge gaps, we conclude with lessons for future research on wetland valuation in India.