Publication Summary

This report suggests that economic valuation of wetlands' flood protection services can provide a strong rationale for Western Washington communities to protect their remaining wetlands.

This report suggests that economic valuation of wetlands' flood protection services can provide a strong rationale for Western Washington communities to protect their remaining wetlands.

After describing the general economic rationale for pricing non-marketed natural resource services like flood protection and outlining the approaches economists use to establish such values, we show how the "alternative/substitute cost" method can be used to produce a proxy for the value of the flood protection services that many wetlands currently provide for "free."

We illustrate our argument by estimating the dollar-per-acre values of wetlands systems for flood protection in two Western Washington communities currently experiencing frequent flooding, Lynnwood and Renton. We do this via a variant of the "alternative/substitute cost" method. Cost estimates for engineered hydrologic enhancements to wetlands currently providing flood protection are used to establish proxies for the value of the flood protection these same wetlands currently provide.