Ecosystem service benefits and costs of deep-sea ecosystem restoration

Stephen Hynes,Rob Tinch,Eamon O'Connor,Roberto Danovaro,Wenting Chen,Philip Wallhead,Chris Smith,Rolf Groeneveld,Nadia Papadopoulou,Cristina Gambi

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114127

Abstract

Deep-sea ecosystems are facing degradation which could have severe consequences for biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal populations. Ecosystem restoration as a natural based solution has been regarded as a useful means to recover ecosystems. The study provides a social cost-benefit analysis for a proposed project to restore the Dohrn Canyon cold water corals and the deep-sea ecosystem in the Bay of Naples, Italy. By incorporating ecosystem service benefits and uncertainties related to a complex natural-technological-social system surrounding restoration activities, the study demonstrated how to evaluate large-scale ecosystem restoration activities. The results indicate that an ecosystem restoration project can be economic (in terms of welfare improvement) even if the restoration costs are high. Our study shows the uncertainty associated with restoration success rate significantly affects the probability distribution of the expected net present values. Identifying and controlling the underlying factors to improve the restoration successful rate is thus crucial.

Highlights

Deep-sea ecosystems are among the most extensive habitats in the world and provide important ecosystem goods and services (Thurber et al, 2014) but face pressures from both climate change and other anthropogenic factors such as trawling, mining, oil and gas exploitation, and marine litter that are seriously threatening their integrity (e.g. Dailianis et al, 2018; Da Ros et al, 2019; Taviani et al, 2019; Ger ovasileiou et al, 2019; Smale et al, 2019; Bekkby et al, 2020, Danovaro et al, 2020)
Following a simplified procedure for social cost benefit analysis (SCBA) suggested by the European Commission (2015) this study first defines two relevant scenarios: a baseline assuming business as usual without any active or passive restoration, and scenario 1 assuming the creation of the marine protected area (MPA) of 2 ha and the deployment of 50 landers hosting 150 Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS)
The results indicate that an ecosystem restoration project can be economic even if the restoration costs are high

Summary

Introduction

Deep-sea ecosystems are among the most extensive habitats in the world and provide important ecosystem goods and services (Thurber et al, 2014) but face pressures from both climate change and other anthropogenic factors such as trawling, mining, oil and gas exploitation, and marine litter that are seriously threatening their integrity (e.g. Dailianis et al, 2018; Da Ros et al, 2019; Taviani et al, 2019; Ger ovasileiou et al, 2019; Smale et al, 2019; Bekkby et al, 2020, Danovaro et al, 2020). Marine ecosystem degradation could have severe conse quences on biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal populations. Reversing this trend requires the identification of the ecological vari ables critical for conservation and restoration in order to develop achievable marine planning objectives (Danovaro et al, 2020). Restoration can improve marine ecosystems (or natural capital assets) (Gordon et al, 2020), their associated ecosystem services and their values (De Groot et al, 2013; Pendleton et al, 2010; Aronson et al, 2020) but can involve a high cost especially for deep-sea habitats where expensive technologies are often required to achieve the restoration goals (e.g. Da Ros et al, 2019; Bayraktarov et al, 2019, 2016)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion