Valuing Coastal Protection to Prioritize Restoration: Caribbean Mangroves & Coral Reefs

Resource type: 
Project
EU project stamp: 
No
Main entity: 
The Nature Conservancy
Key themes: 
Coral reefs
Disaster risk reduction
Mangroves
Societal challenges: 
Natural and Climate Hazards
Scope: 
Global
Description: 

Though coral reef and mangrove restoration can be costly, these costs are often outweighed by the economic benefits of ecosystem services such as coastal protection, blue carbon, or tourism value. The models below attempt to prioritize restoration interventions by quantifying the economic benefit to cost ratio (B:C) of coastal protection benefits against coral reef and mangrove restoration costs across the Caribbean. Values are the Net Present Value (NPV) of restored habitat assuming a 30-year project with a 4% discount rate. Benefit values are based on Beck et al. 2018 and updated with economic exposure data from GAR 2015 downscaled to 100m. The structural restoration cost data are from Ferrario et al. 2014 and Reguero et al. 2020 and set at $1.3M/kilometer. The values are expressed in study units which cover ~ 20km of coastline.

Date: 
2021
Language: 
EN