Social and economic valuation of functioning wetlands

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Social and economic valuation of functioning
wetlands
Tamar Catchment Meeting Cotehele, 25 March

• Diane Burgess and Sarah Cornell

This work is part of the interdisciplinary
research programme of the ESRC Centre for Social
and Economic Research on the Global Environment
(CSERGE).
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Incorporating Stakeholder and Economic Analysis
into the WEDSS

• Science
• FAPs biophysical characteristics of the
  catchment

Multi-criteria decision support systems

• Social Perspective
• Drivers of socio-economic change
• Human impacts

• Economics
• Environmental/economic valuation data
• Socio-economic growth

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Scoping the Catchment
Socio-Economic Drivers
Environmental Pressures
Environmental State Changes
Impacts on Human Welfare
Policy Response Options
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Drivers for social change in the Tamar Catchment

• Upper Tamar Agriculture, tourism
• Lower Tamar Transport, trade, industry
• Rivers and coast Fisheries, recreation
• Throughout area Development

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Pressures

• Development
• Increased demand for land
• Increased demand for water abstraction
• Point and diffuse sources of pollution
• Industry, waste disposal, agricultural wastes

• Land use changes
• Increased demand for access to rivers for
  recreation
• Climate-related challenges
• Low flow, floods, sea-level rise

These images are from the CLA and CPRE websites
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The State of the Tamar

• degradation of water chemical quality and
  eutrophication

Most catchment waters comply with EAs River
Quality Objectives. A few stretches and the
Tamar lakes have BOD and pH problems.

• loss of habitats, and a decline in biodiversity

• Wetland habitats have declined by gt7 over the
  last decade, plus fragmentation.
• Fisheries decline because of silting of breeding
  sites and contamination (also climatic changes
  and non-native species).
• Shellfish populations are sensitive to
  pollutants (e.g. tributyl tin levels).

• physical and geomorphological changes

damage to river channels caused by recreational
access to the watercourses silting and erosion
associated with agriculture and coastal erosion.

• groundwater changes

• Changes in supply and chemical quality are linked
  to over-abstraction, low flow and other climatic
  pressures, and agrochemicals pollution.

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Impacts on Human Welfare

• Water provision and demand management
• Health and welfare issues arise from the
  conflicting demands for the watercourses, and
  affect leisure and recreation
• Sewage and wastewater treatment, waste disposal
• Disposal of sewage sludge on land not sea, driven
  by EU legislation
• Exhaustion of landfill sites
• Surface water run-off
• Conservation concerns about local ecosystems
• Productivity changes arising from development
  constraints and fisheries restrictions ? land
  values increasing further

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Responses

• Agri-environment schemes (ERDP)
• Community initiatives for participation,
  sustainability and conservation (like the
• Devon 21 network)
• Diversifying income
• streams

Policy level
Individual level
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Wetland Evaluation Decision Support System
(WEDSS) assists the decision making process
rather than replacing the judgements of the
decision makers

• Decision-making Process
• Identification of problem
• Development of possible solutions
• Selection of solution to be adopted
• Analysis and evaluation of the alternative
  solutions, based on the scientific, social and
  economic implications of the possible solutions.

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Determining social values
The issues that have been identified in the
scoping exercise are part of a multi-level policy
context
They are worked out within a policy network
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In the Tamar
Several established consultation mechanisms and
inter-organisational links exist.

• Conflicts or opportunities for cooperation!
• Agriculture tourism
• Conservation tourism agriculture
• Development pressure on all other uses!

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• Core elements social indicators for inclusion
  in the WEDSS
• Human input and sharing of benefits
• Participation conflict resolution

• In practice, the criteria need to
• Be relevant to sustainable wetlands management
• Be sufficiently flexible
• Have comparable minimum standards
• Coherently cover essential social aspects
• Be simple

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Determining economic values

• Functional Value Approach
• Identification of the function (FAPs)
• Determination of how a change in a wetland
  function will change human welfare
• Valuation of the function
• Selection of appropriate evaluation method to
  quantify this change in welfare

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Example of valuing a function

• Nutrient Export
• The removal of excess nutrients (nitrogen,
  phosphorus) from a wetland via biological,
  biochemical, physical and land management
  processes

What effect does this function have on human
welfare?
Improvement in Water Quality
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Benefits of reducing water pollution

• Recreation
• e.g. fishing, boating
• Commercial Fisheries
• productivity affected by levels of pollutants
• Diversionary
• e.g. effects on health, treatment of both
  municipal water supplies and water for industrial
  use
• Non-use
• from knowing the water quality and
  ecosystem health are maintained for the sake
  of others

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Valuation of these effects

• 1) Recreation
• Expenditure on recreational activities
• e.g. expenditures by anglers has been estimated
  at 1,735.90 per fish (1999 figures)
• (Radford et al, 1991)
• Costs/time spent travelling to visit an area can
  be used as a proxy
• 2) Commercial Fisheries
• Assessment of a change in marketed output

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• 3) Diversionary
• Labour productivity forgone through ill health.
• Expenditures to avoid drinking poor quality
  water.
• Costs of improving water for human and industrial
  use in the absence of the wetland
• 4) Non-use
• Setting up a hypothetical market (contingent
  valuation)
• How much would you be willing to pay for.

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Selection of the favoured management option
Multi-Criteria Assessment

• Includes
• All effects of a change in the wetland area
  (Scientific, social and economic)
• All these effects are weighted in terms of
  importance (by stakeholders)
• For each of the management options, these effects
  are scored either by
• quantitative e.g. monetary, weight, nutrient
  levels, global warming potential
• qualitative good to bad

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Results of the Multi-Criteria Assessment

• Each management option is ranked between 0 and 1
• Ranks are compared to determine the best option
• For example

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The effect of the weights applied to the each of
the effects can be assessed
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In Summary

• An overview of the socio-economic assessment of
  the Tamar.
• How social values are determined Stakeholder
  analysis.
• How economic values are estimated.
• How management options are assessed.