title: Estimating cultural benefits from surface water status improvements in freshwater wetland ecosystems.
abstract: Freshwater wetlands provide crucial ecosystem services, though are subject to anthropogenic/natural stressors that provoke negative impacts on these ecosystems, services and values. The European Union Water Framework Directive aims to achieve good status of surface waters by 2015, through implementation of Catchment Management Plans. Implementation of Catchment Management Plans is costly, though associated benefits from improvements in surface water status are less well known. This paper establishes a functional relationship between surface water status and cultural ecosystem service values of freshwater systems. Hence, we develop a bio-economic valuation approach in which we relate ecological status and chemical status of surface waters (based on local physio-chemical and benthic macro-invertebrates survey data) to willingness-to-pay (using benefit-function transfer). Results for the Pateira de Fermentelos freshwater wetland (Portugal) show that the current status of surface waters is good from a chemical though only moderate from an ecological perspective. The current cultural ecosystem service value of the wetland is estimated at 1.54 m€/yr- increasing to 2.02 m€/yr in case good status of surface waters is obtained. Taking into account ecosystem services and values in decision making is essential to avoid costs from externalities and capture benefits from spill-overs--leading to more equitable, effective and efficient water resources management.
authors.affiliation: CESAM, Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Electronic address: peter.roebeling@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Roebeling
authors.affiliation: CESAM, Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Electronic address: njabrantes@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Nelson
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abrantes
authors.affiliation: Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Electronic address: sofia.helena@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.affiliation: Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Electronic address: pedrof.almeida@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Almeida
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003469:Culture; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D058735:Environmental Policy / Q000639:trends; D005618:Fresh Water; D011174:Portugal; D014876:Water Pollution; D062066:Water Resources; D014881:Water Supply / Q000592:standards*; D053833:Wetlands
keywords: Benefit-function transfer; Chemical status; Cultural ecosystem services; Ecological status; Willingness-to-pay