Valuing the recreational benefits of wetland biodiversity

Abstract

Loss in biodiversity of wetlands is a worldwide problem in maintaining the ecosystem of the earth. Thus, environmental valuation studies have performed benefit calculations to show the value of biodiversity. Here, few studies use the revealed preference methods due to the lack of data on wetland biodiversity. To solve this issue, this paper presented an approach to create data using expert judgment. Data on total numbers of representative species (TNRS) which were selected by experts was employed as indicators of the biodiversity of wetlands, and data on wetland area (AREA) were also employed for analysis. Data on travel behaviors to eleven Ramsar wetlands in Hokkaido, Japan were applied in the repeated discrete choice model. The results indicate that the approach of this paper would be applicable for estimating the relationship between individual behaviors and the biodiversity of wetlands. Next, benefit calculations were performed under the hypothesis that the values of AREA and TNRS improves by 10, 50, and 90%. The benefits of increasing wetland areas ranged from JPY 1 (USD 0.01) per year to JPY 14,901 (USD 182.19) per year. Those of improving wetland biodiversity ranged from JPY 44 (USD 0.54) per year to JPY 3,190 (USD 39.00) per year. Two types of wetlands were revealed by calculations. The first type includes wetlands in which the benefits of AREA are larger than those of TNRS. The second type includes wetlands in which the benefits of TNRS are larger than those of AREA, and the feature of the second type is that the wetland area is smaller than the first type. It means that large wetlands should be protected, and the small one with high biodiversity. Consequently, the research on wetlands species is required. The result indicates that benefits are connected to recreational services of wetland ecosystems.

Insights from long-term shorebird monitoring for tracking change in ecological character of Australasian Ramsar sites

“…worldwide as a consequence (Piersma et al 2016). Managing multiple uses of the natural environment is critical to maintain wetland fauna (Baker et al 2004) and the provision of ecosystem services (McInnes 2013;Okuyama 2015). The importance of wetlands and the need for their special protection and wise use led to the establishment of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 1971 (Finlayson et al 2019) to provide protection to wetlands and a framework for managing and monitoring them (Mauerhofer et al 2015).…”