For people throughout the Great Lakes region, our quality of life is directly and indirectly affected by healthy water quality. But calculating the tangible and intangible values of the ecosystem is highly complex.
The Great Lakes are a source of drinking water and recreational opportunities. They support agriculture, water filtration, power generation and commercial shipping activities.
But these are just a few of the benefits, or ecosystem services, the Great Lakes provide to visitors and residents.
The Great Lakes regional economy is valued at about US$6 trillion (CDN$7.5 trillion), but that number does not include the total value of all ecosystem services.
To better understand, measure and communicate the total value of the Great Lakes, the Great Lakes Science Advisory Board Science Priority Committee commenced the Great Lakes Ecosystem Services Valuation project.
By attempting to quantify, usually in monetary units, how ecosystems directly and indirectly benefit human well-being, ecosystem services valuation aims to bring together economics and ecology to support better and more transparent policy and decision-making.
In April, the board published its Great Lakes Ecosystem Services Valuation Phase 1 project scoping report, which investigates and makes recommendations for performing an ecosystem services valuation. Previous studies by other researchers applied nonmarket valuation methods—techniques used to value goods and services that are not bought and sold on a market—to the Great Lakes. However, many of these studies leverage valuation data from outside the Great Lakes, which limits their relevance.
“Some ecosystem services, such as commercial fishing, are easy to quantify using their market value—counting the dollars of fish bought and sold, for example,” explained John Livernois, board member leading the project. “Other services, such as bird watching, add value to the region but lack a commercial market, making them more difficult to quantify.
“We can use the price of fish bought and sold on the market to help value commercial fishing, but no such market exists for seeing a piping plover. This data is useful for policy and decision-making purposes to understand the value of ecosystem services to the Great Lakes region,” added Livernois, also professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
John Livernois, Great Lakes Ecosystem Services Valuation project lead, presents Phase 1 report findings at the 2024 International Association of Great Lakes Research annual conference. Credit: IJC
Valuation data can strengthen management decisions on Great Lakes water quality issues. When equipped with better data on Great Lakes ecosystem services, policy and decision-makers can better understand the tradeoffs and impacts of a decision on human well-being and the environment.
The board’s Phase 1 report recognizes that a valuation study on the entire Great Lakes basin’s ecosystem is a vast undertaking and recommends that a manageable next step is to conduct a valuation study on Great Lakes coastal wetlands.
Coastal wetlands provide a variety of benefits to human quality of life, from helping to maintain water quality by filtering pollutants and supporting biological diversity to buffering communities from flooding.
However, human development has reduced the area of Great Lakes coastal wetlands by half. While it is easy to quantify the economic benefits of development activities, it is harder to quantify the benefits of conserving and restoring wetlands. Information from such a valuation study would provide evidence of the benefits of the restoration and conversation of wetlands.
To better refine the scope of a future coastal wetlands valuation study, the board’s report recommends focusing on one of three highlighted ecosystem services provided by coastal wetlands. These include nutrient sequestration, coastal resilience and flood protection, and bird composition and abundance.
The direct and indirect benefits provided by the Great Lakes enhance human well-being. A refined understanding of the lakes’ total value can help support efforts to restore, protect and enhance the Great Lakes.
Rachel Wyatt is the communications officer at the IJC’s Great Lakes Regional Office.
Subscribe to our Newsletter!
