Abstract
This study used a contingent choice method to determine the economic value of improving various ecosystem services (ESs) of the Blue Network of Greater Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Three real projects were used and the evaluation focused on six ESs that are related to freshwater aquatic ecosystems: biodiversity, water quality, carbon sequestration, recreational activities, landscape aesthetics and education services. We also estimated the value associated with the superficies of restored sites. We calculated the monetary value that a household would be willing to pay for each additional qualitative or quantitative unit of different ESs, and these marginal values range from $0.11 to $15.39 per household per unit. Thus, under certain assumptions, we determined the monetary values that all Quebec households would allocate to improve each ES in Greater Montreal by one unit. The most valued ES was water quality ($13.5 million), followed by education services ($10.7 million), recreational activities ($8.9 million), landscape aesthetics ($4.1 million), biodiversity ($1.2 million), and carbon sequestration ($0.1 million). Our results ascribe monetary values to improved (or degraded) aquatic ecosystems in the Blue Network of Greater Montreal, but can also enhance economic analyses of various aquatic ecosystem restoration and management projects.
Highlights
Ecosystems provide multiple benefits to human communities, from wetlands that act as buffer zones to help reduce flooding to woodlands that naturally filter the air by capturing dust
Many methods have been developed to provide an economic value to ecosystem services (ESs) that generally fall into five broad categories: methods based on market prices, methods based on costs, methods based on the revealed and stated preferences of economic agents, and methods based on benefit transfers [7]
A Thorough analysis of their characteristics whith those of the respondents included in the final analysis revealed no difference, except for the proportion of respondents living in the area of one of the three projects considered (i.e. 48% in the final sample versus 57%)
Summary
This study aims to highlight the links between Greater Montreal’s freshwater aquatic ecosystems and human well-being by determining the economic value of the non-market ESs provided by these ecosystems
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