Challenges in using valuation in ecosystem-based management in a marine context: the case of UK Marine Protected Area designation - Ocean Sustainability in the 21st Century - page 238

these natural events? This requires a biophysical assessment ofthe frequency and impact of
such events, coupled with the economic assessment of the financial losses occurring (dam-
age to property etc.). An associated method for valuing this service is to estimate the cost
of building and maintaining engineered flood defences; these costs might be reduced were
marine ecosystems to provide more defence 'naturally', and vice versa.
In terms of cultural services, the estimate follows Beaumont et al . ( 2006 ), which is
itself derived from Pugh and Skinner ( 2002 ) , based on the value added by research and de-
velopment in the marine sector in the UK in addition to education and training. For this
service, it might be argued that only research pertaining to UK marine and coastal waters
ought to be included, i.e. not all marine research carried out in UK research institutions,
but it is difficult to partition research in this manner. Indeed, a fundamental premise of eco-
system based marine management is that an appropriate spatial scale is considered, which
in many (indeed most) cases will be transboundary, e.g. 'the North-East Atlantic' for UK
marine waters.
The ecosystem service of 'leisure and recreation' includes sea angling, recreational
diving, and whale-watching. These activities depend on the marine environment and are
carried out in the marine (as opposed to coastal ) environment. But drawing the boundaries
as to what to include and what to exclude is difficult for this service. Hussain et al . ( 2010 )
provide two estimates. The first is restricted to this narrower range of leisure activities, and
is based on Pugh and Skinner ( 2002 ) and reported in Beaumont et al . ( 2006 ) . The high-
er estimate is based on a wider definition of the service, including visits to the coast and
associated expenditure. If the latter, wider definition is accepted then the estimate of £3.4
billion in 2007 is an underestimate, as the total value of the tourism activity exceeds direct
spend in local coastal communities. If people travel to come to the coastline for recreation,
butdonotincuranycostslocallytheyhavestill signalled a preference forthisactivity.One
approach is to value leisure time in the context of what is termed the 'travel cost approach'
(Edwards-Jones et al ., 2000 ), wherein actual expenditure on travel (fuel, vehicle depreci-
ation, train tickets etc.) and spend on any entrance fee to the ecological site are added to
some estimate of the value of leisure time per hour, typically some percentage of hourly