How to Place a Value on Our Natural Assets

A new guidebook “A Guide For Incorporating Ecosystem Service Valuation Into Coastal Restoration Projects” is now available to the public and targets practitioners, natural resource managers and coastal restoration managers in the Mid-Atlantic. The intent of this guidebook is to provide a framework that incorporates ecosystem service valuation into coastal habitat restoration and creation projects at the beginning, rather than at the end. This guidebook presents numerous reasons why applying ecosystem service valuation to coastal restoration projects has multiple advantages, including greater stakeholder support and greater likelihood of project success. The goal of an ecosystem service valuation study is to quantify the benefits to people provided by a particular ecosystem service. Benefits can include flood risk reduction to homeowners, improvements to commercial fisheries or increased recreational opportunities. By conducting these valuation studies, managers and practitioners can improve the management and design of projects for both people and nature, and increase community support and funding for restoration projects. Read more about this a part of the focus of the Coastal Resilience approach.

Bekah Herndon takes in the view of Roanoke Sound at the end of the 1.5 mile out-and-back Roanoke Trail on the western edge of the Nags Head Woods Preserve. The trail offers a prime spot to view one of the 100 species of documented birds at the preserve as well as watch the sunset over the sound. North Carolina. Photo credit: Ben Herndon

The scope of the guidebook includes restoration, enhancement and creation of new coastal habitat. Although the emphasis of the guidebook is on salt marsh and oyster reef restoration, the process and framework provided will also apply to a wider range of coastal restoration decisions that improve the health of coastal habitats. And while we are not recommending that all coastal restoration projects have an accompanying ecosystem service valuation study, we would like to encourage studies for restoration projects where ecosystem service benefits can be valued over time. By doing so, we will develop a greater understanding of the performance of ecosystem service benefits and economic impacts from these types of restoration projects and continue to inform decision making into the future. Thus, one motivation of this guidebook is to present a process to more effectively and efficiently value ecosystem service benefits from coastal restoration projects. Consequently, in the future these values can regularly be incorporated into coastal policy-making.