Monday, January 25, 2016

Valuing the benefits of improved marine environmental quality under multiple stressors

Abstract: 
Many marine and coastal ecosystems are under increasing pressure from multiple stressors. In the Baltic Sea, these stressors include oil and chemical spills from shipping, nutrient run-off from land and invasive species. All of these pressures have been rising over the recent past. Increasing pressures lead to reductions in environmental quality, which produce negative effects on human well-being. In this paper, the choice experiment method is used to estimate the benefits to people in Estonia resulting from reductions in pressure from multiple stressors in the Baltic.
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BONUS Science For a Better Future For the Baltic Sea
An average Estonian household would be Willing to Pay (WTP) close to 65 EUR for reaching Good Environmental Status (GES) in the Estonian marine waters. The  result  is  highly significantly  different  from  zero  (95%  confidence  interval  of  48 - 77  EUR)  and can be used for a comparison of the economic benefits of meeting GES with the anticipated per person cost of the actions which are expected to bring these changes about.
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The relationship between WTP and Frequency of Large Scale Spills (FLS) levels  does  appear  highly  non-linear and  strictly  convex. While  there  are  relatively  low  gains  in decreasing the frequency from the baseline level of 1 event every 2 years on average, the function quickly  becomes  much  steeper  and  WTP  for  reductions  to  1  event  every  300  years  on  average becomes close to 20 EUR. 

 
by Heidi Tuhkanen 1, Evelin Urbel-Piirsalu 1, Tea Nõmmann 1 Mikołaj Czajkowski 2 and Nick Hanley 3
1. Stockholm Environmental Institute
2. Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw
3. University of St Andrews, Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, ndh3@st-andrews.ac.uk
The full paper is currently available free of charge at http://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/files/8714/5077/5691/WNE_WP189.pdf
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Location: Tallinn, Estonia

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