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What is the Value of a Beach?
Marisa Mazzotta, Ph.D.
Environmental & Natural Resource Economist
U.S. EPA, Atlantic Ecology Division
Presented at RI Beach Kickoff Meeting
May 4, 2012
Photo: © Marisa Mazzotta
Photo: © John Repoza
Recreation
Storm Protection
Photo: © Onne van der Wal
Photo: Bryan Oakley
Photo: RI Dept. of Environmental Management
Beaches provide many things of value
Habitat
Aesthetics
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Photo: Velora
Photo: Juan-Carlos Cruz
Photo: Juan-Carlos Cruz
Some less tangible than others…
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We know beaches are valuable
But,
• Why would we want to quantify values?
• How can we quantify those values?
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We know beaches are valuable
• Why would we want to quantify values?
• How can we quantify those values?
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Why quantify the value of a beach?
What is the return on these investments?
Photo: AMB Group, Warwick RI
We need to invest money in our beaches
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Are investments in water quality
worthwhile?
Photo: © 2011 The O'Connell Companies
Photo: Sassafras River Assoc.
Photo: Save the Bay
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What do we lose when beaches are
closed?
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We know beaches are valuable
• Why would we want to quantify values?
• How can we quantify those values?
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Two types of value
Financial values ‐
economic impacts
Non‐market values –
quality of life, ecosystem services
Photo: © 2011-2013 RI Travel Handbook
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Economic impacts
• Money flowing to local & regional economies
JOBS & WAGES
Photo: © John Ehlke | The Bay City Times
SALES REVENUES
TOURIST $
Photo: © Marsella Development Corp.
USER FEES & TAXES
Photo: © Bruce Wheeler
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Non-market benefits
Values for things that are not bought and sold
Photo: © John Repoza
Photo: © John Repoza
Photo: © Marisa Mazzotta
Photo: © Marisa Mazzotta
Photo: © George Gentry Finley
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Measuring economic impacts
How much is spent in RI because of our beaches?
• Direct revenues
and wages
Photo: © David Klepper/Assoc. Press
• Related expenditures
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Measuring economic impacts in RI
1. How many people go to the beach?
2. How much do they spend?
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How many people?
There are • over 20 million beach visits in Rhode Island per year
• over 13 million salt water swimming days per year
• How many per beach, by season, by residents and tourists?
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How much do they spend?
$49: the average amount spent in 2007 by visitors whose primary activity was a day trip to the beach 57% of beach admissions at DEM sites are paid by state residents 51% of non‐resident revenues are from Misquamicut Beach
Where is the money spent, on what, by whom…?
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Example: Narragansett Beach
• On a crowded day, there are around 1,000 day visitors.
• If they spend $49 each in the local area, the total spending for parking, food, and other expenses is around $49,000.
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Measuring non-market benefits
The value to a person, over and above any actual $ costs
• What is the value of beach visits, beyond what people actually pay?
Photo: © David Klepper/Assoc. Press
• How much will this increase if we improve water quality?
Photo: © SC Dept. of Natural Resources
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Example Application –
Peconic Estuary Recreation Study
Jim Opaluch, Thomas Grigalunas, Marisa Mazzotta, Jerry Diamantides, Rob Johnston (and others), University of Rhode Island, Economic Analysis , Inc., and Applied Science Associates
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Peconic Bays User Survey
We want to know about your recreational activities at
the East End of Long Island
Block
Island
Sound
Long Island
Sound
Southold
Riverhead
Montauk
Point
East Hampton
Southampton
Legend:
Atlantic Ocean
Study Area
Town
Boundary
Your input is very important and all answers are confidential
Survey developed by Economic Analysis, Inc.
Sponsored by the Peconic Estuary Program
and the US Environmental Protection Agency
Values for:
•Swimming
•Beach use
•Boating
•Fishing & shellfishing
•Wildlife and bird watching
•Hunting
•Over 1300 residents, 2nd homeowners, and visitors surveyed
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• Using this information, we estimated the value per day, for different recreational activities.
• Travel cost method –
uses distance travelled to infer values:
1.
2.
3.
Site visited
Distance travelled
Time spent
• Statistically estimate the value of an outing
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Results – swimming values
Total value per year for Total swimming Value per person days/year
per day (2011$) swimming in PES
~ 1.4 million
$12.60
~$17.8 million
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• People’s subjective ratings of water quality were statistically related to actual measures taken by the County
• Using the model we could estimate the value of a change in water quality
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Annual swimming benefits from improving
water quality by 10%
Swimming benefits from 10% improvement in water quality indicators (2011$)
Total Kjeldahl PES Water Body
Nitrogen
Total Coliform
Brown Tide Cell Counts
Secchi Disk Depth
Water Body Total
Flanders Bay
Great Peconic Bay
Little Peconic Bay
$95,774
$104,624
$21,163
$184,502
$406,065
$36,387
$5,167
$70,564
$185,396
$297,513
$30,200
$1,673
$103,006
$205,301
$340,180
Shelter Is. Sound
$33,155
$6,680
$161,082
$256,893
$457,808
Gardiners Bay
$20,743
$189
$112,772
$271,848
$405,552
PES Total
$216,261
$118,332
$468,585
$1,103,939
$1,906,634
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Example: Narragansett Beach
• On a crowded day, there are around 7,400 total visitors.
• If they value a beach day at $12.60, the total non‐market value is around $93,000.
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Applying values to other beaches
• Upper Bay beaches are likely to have lower economic impacts and non‐market values.
• But, they’re accessible to many more people.
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Economic Stories – non-technical, but
quantitative, economic info.
• Don’t stop with “we decreased beach closures by 100 days”
• Add
…at sites easily accessible to 1,000 households
…where 35% have children
…where 70% have no other easy access to clean beaches
… in a community with few recreational options
…etc.
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Recreation
Storm Protection
Photo: © Onne van der Wal
Photo: Bryan Oakley
Photo: RI Dept. of Environmental Management
Beaches provide many things of value
Habitat
Aesthetics
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Summary
• Both economic impacts and non‐market “quality of life”
benefits are important
Photo: ©Newport Discovery Guide
• Both are challenging to quantify
– Need good, consistent data
• Value information can help justify investments
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Questions?
Photo: © Marisa Mazzotta
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More information:
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•
•
•
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My collaborators on RI beach data acquisition and compilation are James Latimer, US EPA Narragansett and Mikalai Zhukavets, URI student intern.
Total participation estimates (slide 15) are from RIDEM Outdoor Recreation Demand Citizen Survey, Conducted by Leisure Vision, Aug‐Oct., 2002 and National Survey of Recreation and Environment 2000 (From: http://coastalsocioeconomics.noaa.gov/core/nsre/nsre2000.html#marine, preliminary estimates from versions 1‐6: coastal recreation participation, and 2001 participation in marine rec nsre_2)
Spending related to beaches (slide 16) is from a survey conducted by Ninigret Partners survey in July‐
August, 2007, commissioned by the RI Economic Monitoring Collaborative (reported in their FY08 Monitoring Report), available at http://www.dem.ri.gov/bayteam/documents/FY%202008%20Econ%20Monitoring%20Collab%20Prop.pdf
For more information on beach values in Rhode Island, see WatershedCounts.org/economic.html
The information and data about Rhode Island beaches are based on data obtained from beach managers and from surveys. While the information is believed to be reliable, we are unable to verify the accuracy.
Although the information presented has been funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency and no official endorsement should be inferred.
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