Cost-Effective Marine Protection - A Pragmatic Approach

Abstract

This paper puts forward a framework for probabilistic and holistic cost-effectiveness analysis to provide support in selecting the least-cost set of measures to reach a multidimensional environmental objective. Following the principles of ecosystem-based management, the framework includes a flexible methodology for deriving and populating criteria for effectiveness and costs and analyzing complex ecological-economic trade-offs under uncertainty. The framework is applied in the development of the Finnish Programme of Measures (PoM) for reaching the targets of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The numerical results demonstrate that substantial cost savings can be realized from careful consideration of the costs and multiple effects of management measures. If adopted, the proposed PoM would yield improvements in the state of the Baltic Sea, but the overall objective of the MSFD would not be reached by the target year of 2020; for various environmental and administrative reasons, it would take longer for most measures to take full effect.

The cost of degradation of the Dutch North Sea environment : a study into the costs of avoiding degradation and the applicability of the Ecosystem Services approach

“…Oinonen et al (2016) defined a pragmatic approach as an economically sound analysis carried out under very strict constraints with respect to data, knowledge, skills and time for completing the analysis. The cost and effect data were acquired via groups interviews following a set out procedure.…”

A Review of the Tools Used for Marine Monitoring in the UK: Combining Historic and Contemporary Methods with Modeling and Socioeconomics to Fulfill Legislative Needs and Scientific Ambitions

“…Several recent studies have assessed frameworks for quantifying the costs and benefits of Programmes of Measures within the MSFD (Börger et al, 2016;Nygård et al, 2016;Oinonen et al, 2016). As well as the above "willingness to pay" assessment there is also the option of manually identifying and measuring the actual monetary benefit of monitoring.…”

Bridging the Gap between Policy and Science in Assessing the Health Status of Marine Ecosystems

“…In Finland, a quantitative cost-effectiveness analysis of implementing different management measures, based on opinion of interdisciplinary experts, identified the costs, and most cost-effective measures. Researchers estimated economic benefits of the management measures based on existing valuation studies (i.e., willingness to pay) on the benefits of improving the state of the Baltic Sea; these analyses connected the benefit estimates directly to the change in the status of the GES descriptors (Oinonen et al, 2016b). Extending from this analysis into a full cost-benefit analysis, the net value of achieving GES for indicators of biodiversity, food webs, and eutrophication alone in 2020 is placed at ∼2 bn e (although the planned management measures will not achieve GES of these Descriptors by 2020).…”