Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Service Benefits and Welfare Impacts of Offshore Marine Protected Areas: A Study from the Baltic Sea

Knowledge of ecosystem services (ES) and the benefits provided by offshore marine areas, including the welfare impacts from the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) is still limited. In the present study we evaluated benefits from ES, citizens’ willingness-to-pay for potential changes in the provision of ES, and welfare losses to citizens due to restrictions on economic activities from establishing new offshore MPAs in Latvian waters. The scenarios for the economic valuation were based on analysing the supply of ES from the protected marine habitats, showing changes in the ES supply in policy relevant scenarios of the MPA size. Our study evaluates a wide array of ES delivered by offshore protected habitats and reveals that citizens’ willingness-to-pay for preserving habitats and ES supply exceeds their welfare losses from restrictions in economic activities. Our approach supports the prioritisation of habitat types according to their contribution to ES supply and benefits for citizens. The analysis can be complemented with spatial data regarding distribution of habitats, providing an opportunity to identify areas with the highest ES benefits to support marine protection and spatial planning.202

BONUS BASMATI Specification of requirements on data and modelling needs. Deliverable 6.1.

Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) requires a spatially explicit framework for decision-making and on that background the overall objective of BONUS BASMATI is to develop integrated and innovative solutions for MSP from the local to the Baltic Sea Region scale. Based on the results of former MSP projects, the BONUS BASMATI project sets out to analyse governance systems and their information needs regarding MSP in the Baltic Sea region in order to develop an operational, transnational model for MSP, while maintaining compliance with existing governance systems. It also develops methods and tools for the assessments of different plan proposals, while including spatially explicit pressures and effects on marine ecosystem services in order to create a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for the Baltic Sea region to facilitate broad access to information. During the project running until 2020, new data will be produced and tested in assessments corresponding to policy goals. The data will support analysis regarding ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. A central aim of the project is to facilitate cross-border collaboration and the project is carried out in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders in the Baltic Sea Region. The impact of the project will be facilitated and assessed in transnational case studies, where integrated solutions are required. The local scale will consist of case study areas in the South-West Baltic, the Latvian territorial and EEZ waters including open part of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga, and across the region, a pan-Baltic case study will be performed.</p

Welfare effect of substitute sites for coastal recreation – evidence from the Baltic Sea

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