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| Title | The Economic Value of Wetlands: Wetlands' Role in Flood Protection in Western Washington | |
| Month-Year Published | October 1997 | |
| Online Availability |
263 kilobytes, requires version 4.0 or later of Adobe Acrobat Reader Software get Acrobat Reader
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| Short Description |
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. (Also see abstract below) | |
| Publication Number | 97-100 | |
| Author(s) | Thomas M. Leschine, Katharine F. Wellman, Thomas H. Green | |
| Contact | Erik Stockdale, (425) 649-7061 | |
| Print Availability | Not available as a printed document | |
| Number of pages | 61 | |
| Keywords | flood, flood protection, floodplain management, wetland, wetlands | |
| Related Web Content | Wetlands Home Page | |
| Abstract | Long Description |
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. |
This page last updated October 1, 2009
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