TY - JOUR

T1 - Valuing the commons

T2 - An international study on the recreational benefits of the Baltic Sea

AU - Czajkowski, Mikołaj

AU - Ahtiainen, Heini

AU - Artell, Janne

AU - Budziński, Wiktor

AU - Hasler, Berit

AU - Hasselström, Linus

AU - Meyerhoff, Jürgen

AU - Nõmmann, Tea

AU - Semeniene, Daiva

AU - Söderqvist, Tore

AU - Tuhkanen, Heidi

AU - Lankia, Tuija

AU - Vanags, Alf

AU - Zandersen, Marianne

AU - Zylicz, Tomasz

AU - Hanley, Nick

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.

PY - 2015/6/1

Y1 - 2015/6/1

N2 - The Baltic Sea provides benefits to all of the nine nations along its coastline, with some 85 million people living within the catchment area. Achieving improvements in water quality requires international cooperation. The likelihood of effective cooperation is known to depend on the distribution across countries of the benefits and costs of actions needed to improve water quality. In this paper, we estimate the benefits associated with recreational use of the Baltic Sea in current environmental conditions using a travel cost approach, based on data from a large, standardized survey of households in each of the 9 Baltic Sea states. Both the probability of engaging in recreation (participation) and the number of visits people make are modeled. A large variation in the number of trips and the extent of participation is found, along with large differences in current annual economic benefits from Baltic Sea recreation. The total annual recreation benefits are close to 15 billion EUR. Under a water quality improvement scenario, the proportional increases in benefits range from 7 to 18% of the current annual benefits across countries. Depending on how the costs of actions are distributed, this could imply difficulties in achieving more international cooperation to achieve such improvements.

AB - The Baltic Sea provides benefits to all of the nine nations along its coastline, with some 85 million people living within the catchment area. Achieving improvements in water quality requires international cooperation. The likelihood of effective cooperation is known to depend on the distribution across countries of the benefits and costs of actions needed to improve water quality. In this paper, we estimate the benefits associated with recreational use of the Baltic Sea in current environmental conditions using a travel cost approach, based on data from a large, standardized survey of households in each of the 9 Baltic Sea states. Both the probability of engaging in recreation (participation) and the number of visits people make are modeled. A large variation in the number of trips and the extent of participation is found, along with large differences in current annual economic benefits from Baltic Sea recreation. The total annual recreation benefits are close to 15 billion EUR. Under a water quality improvement scenario, the proportional increases in benefits range from 7 to 18% of the current annual benefits across countries. Depending on how the costs of actions are distributed, this could imply difficulties in achieving more international cooperation to achieve such improvements.

KW - International public good

KW - Recreational value

KW - The Baltic Sea

KW - Travel cost method

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84926178297&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.03.038

DO - 10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.03.038

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 25846001

AN - SCOPUS:84926178297

VL - 156

SP - 209

EP - 217

JO - Journal of Environmental Management

JF - Journal of Environmental Management

SN - 0301-4797

ER -