Abstract
The economic valuation of environmental resources is of great interest to society in general and to public managers in particular. It can promote more sustainable environmental policies, as it clearly shows the high economic value of natural resources. Thus, these valuation tools can provide useful evidence to support such policies by quantifying the economic value associated with the protection of such resources. However, there is an inherent difficulty in the implementation of methods to assess the economic valuation of environmental resources, mainly as a result of the absence of a market and hence a price that explains its social demand. However, both the travel cost method and the contingent valuation method used in this paper offer an approach to the economic values of the recreational services for wetlands. The aim is to analyze whether these values have been influenced by the economic crisis, so two time periods are compared separated for a decade. Results do not show an unequivocal influence between values in both periods, with different behaviors among natural areas, although with a certain tendency to increase in the decade being analyzed.
Highlights
Natural resources and the environment in general, have various functions that are highly valued by society [1]
The number of visitors for each zone and period is obtained from the survey, while the population census of the National Statistical Institute was used to obtain population data from the municipalities located in each area [42]
As can be seen (Table 14), and discarded the legitimate zero bids [51,52], two per cent in the worst-case scenario, we see that protest bids are significantly reduced between periods for all wetlands; especially for Mata and Torrevieja Lagoons Natural Park (MTNP) and Santa Pola Natural Park (SPNP)
Summary
Natural resources and the environment in general, have various functions that are highly valued by society [1]. They are part of the production function of a large amount of economic goods, in addition to providing natural goods whose services are demanded by society. The environmental system provides life support services for people [2]. The model of the Circular Economy emerges, as an alternative to these traditional models, promotes a more rational use of resources to achieve sustainable development where economic, social, environmental or technological aspects are integrated and interacted simultaneously. Knowledge of ecosystem services and its application in the economy offers a number of benefits (environmental and economic), and as [9]
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