What is the value of ecosystem services provided by recent restoration efforts on the northern Gulf Coast?

Objectives

1. To construct a database of living shoreline and subtidal reef restoration projects in Alabama and Mississippi during 2015-2020 that includes, but is not limited to, the following variables: key project dates (e.g., construction initiation, completion), project location, project cost, communities and water bodies impacted, project acreage and/or length, main project objectives/priorities, ecosystem services impacted, ecosystem service metrics (both ex ante estimated and ex post observed via monitoring).
2. To construct a database of existing ecosystem service valuation estimates from peer-reviewed valuation literature on which to base use of benefit transfer methods to assign ecosystem service values to all projects.
3. To calculate the value of ecosystem services provided by all identified living shoreline and subtidal reef restoration projects.
4. To calculate additional metrics of interest, including but not limited to, net benefits (benefits minus project costs).
5. To the extent feasible, use findings to forecast expected value of ecosystem services of ongoing and planned restoration projects.

Methodology

We identified four key ecosystem services for living shorelines and subtidal oyster reefs: nutrient removal (primarily nitrogen), shoreline protection (reduced or avoided erosion), habitat for other fish species (primarily blue crab and red drum), enhanced oyster harvest (for harvestable subtidal reefs), and as a source of oyster larvae for other nearby harvestable reefs. Monetization using existing datasets and existing literature implies the use of benefit transfer. Benefit transfer is the taking of existing benefit values from one or more existing studies (called the "study site") and applying them to a new one (called the "policy site"). There are three types of benefit transfer: value transfer, function transfer, and meta-analysis. Value transfer is the simplest method, where a point estimate of willingness-to-pay (WTP) from a study site is applied directly to the policy site. Function transfer uses the estimated function from which the study site’s estimated WTP value was generated, which allows the transferred WTP estimate to control for factors that are known to differ between the study and policy sites. Meta-analysis combines and synthesizes the results from multiple valuation studies to estimate a new transfer function.

Regarding ecosystem service quantities, we anticipate that project monitoring reports will contain data on changes in ecosystem services attributable to the projects. Several parameters are monitored on these projects, some consistent across projects, but many not consistent across projects. These would include lbs of N reduced per unit-time, enhanced blue crab and red drum abundance (number of crab and red drum per unit-time), and reduced erosion (feet of shoreline erosion reduced). In the event that project documentation does not contain the necessary data, we will use an alternative method that relies on available data on one or more of the parameters and/or likely ranges of services available for similar projects or in the literature.

Rationale

This project is a direct response to the research priority "Using existing datasets, calculate the value of ecosystem services provided by coastal restoration projects that have been implemented in Alabama and Mississippi within the last five years." Coastal restoration in Alabama and Mississippi are implemented in response to chronic, long-standing problems like persistent flooding to acute events like the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Such efforts are intended to improve ecosystem performance and enhance the quality of life of the people living around them. Those benefits provided by nature that enhance our quality of life, and are themselves enhanced by restoration efforts, are called ecosystem services.

Numerous coastal restoration projects have been implemented in Alabama and Mississippi, but very little effort has gone into estimating the value of the goods and services provided. We are aware of only two such instances in Alabama or Mississippi were estimated. We propose to estimate the value of ecosystem services provided by key coastal restoration projects implemented in Alabama and Mississippi during the past five years. We will focus on living shorelines and subtidal oyster reef projects that are relatively large-scale, have a high investment, and have the potential to provide community and/or infrastructure resilience. Equally important, we expect that these projects are likely to have data available for analysis.

Ecosystem service valuation (ESV) is the process of assigning a monetary value to a unit change in the provision of an ecosystem service for some particular purpose. ESV converts all benefits into dollar terms, and when combined with benefit-cost analysis methods, benefits can then be compared directly to each other and to costs. Such estimates can also be used to compare that same project to alternative restoration projects or to completely different uses of resources, so long as all costs and benefits have been monetized.