Author(s): Jennifer Garbe; Lindsay Beevers; Ssor Gareth Pender
Linked Author(s): Lindsay Beevers
Keywords: Freshwater abstraction; Ecosystem services; Fisheries; Ecosystem approach; Valuation
Abstract: Increasing human interventions are placing a high demand upon existing water resources. Consequently in some parts of the world, unsustainable volumes of water are being abstracted from freshwater sources. An effect of this is a detrimental impact upon freshwater ecosystems. Ecosystems are vital for human wellbeing, providing the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe. Current thinking is that protecting them using the traditional command and control approaches to management will not be successful and will result in failure of natural systems to sustain the goods and services upon which we rely. Therefore an ‘ecosystems approach’ is being promoted as a new form of management, to work alongside economic growth and development rather than against it. In order for ecosystems to be protected a value must be placed upon them, as we do not protect what we do not value. The research reported in this paper fits into a wider project to create an optimization model for water trading. The aspect dealt with here is economic evaluation of ecosystem goods and services in terms of water abstraction and trading. The paper uses the river Nar (East Anglia, UK) as a case study to value the impact that over-abstraction may have on one ecosystem service; fish, in particular brown trout. Brown trout will be valued to determine the monetary loss (or gain) that water abstraction will have on this resource. Abstraction is modelled by estimating its impact on river flow and relating this to habitat suitability for fish using the software PHABSIM (Physical Habitat Simulation System). Following on from this a utilitarian valuation method is employed to determine the economic value angling brings to the river Nar and to the local economy. Conclusions are drawn upon the economic impact water abstraction is having on brown trout, alongside setting this into the UK perspective of angling valuation.
Year: 2013