How to choose? A bioeconomic model for optimizing river barrier mitigation actions

Steven King, Jesse R. O'Hanley and Iain Fraser

Ecological Economics, 2021, vol. 181, issue C

Abstract: River infrastructure can cause adverse impacts on fish populations, which, in turn, compromises the ability of river ecosystems to provide a range of ecosystem services. In this paper, we present a methodological approach to assess the potential economics costs and benefits of river connectivity enhancement achieved through removal and mitigation of fish dispersal barriers. Our approach combines the results of a stated preference study for nonuse values of rivers and statistical models of fish population responses to barrier mitigation actions within an integrated bioeconomic optimization framework. We demonstrate the utility of our methodology using a case study of the River Wey catchment in southeast England, which contains over 650 artificial barriers. Our results reveal the presence of benefit-cost trade-offs which can form the basis for river barrier mitigation policy development. In particular, we find that benefits exceed costs in the River Wey for all levels of investment in barrier mitigation considered (£2.5 to 53.4 M). Furthermore, from an economic efficiency standpoint, a total budget of approximately £22.5M allocated to barrier mitigation would maximize net societal benefits derived from anticipated increases fish species richness and abundance.

Keywords: Fish passage barriers; River connectivity; Discrete choice experiments; Bioeconomic modeling; Optimization; Cost benefit analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800920315007
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:181:y:2021:i:c:s0921800920315007

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106892

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().