How Much is a Healthy River Worth? The Value of Recreation-based Tourism in the Connecticut River Watershed

Abstract

Data about flow rate, fishing intensity, and expenditures made by anglers can be used to capture some of the recreational value of waterways in economic terms in a way that avoids a number of the weaknesses of the most commonly used tools such as the contingent valuation method. Furthermore, recreational fishing may spur more economic activity than competing uses of riverine flows such as agriculture. This suggests that potential opportunity cost in regards to recreation ought to be a factor considered in management decisions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ We assumed a uniform distribution of outdoor recreational activities across the four watershed states. We believe this to be a safe assumption given that the CRW is the largest hydrological system and runs through the most densely populated areas in the states that it crosses. As such, it is most likely that the CRW may in fact see more activity than our estimates—given our assumption of uniformity—would suggest.

² “Blue water” refers to fresh surface and ground water in rivers, lakes, ponds, and aquifers. “Green water,” on the other hand, is precipitation that is stored in the soil or captured in plants that does not make it into any body of water.

³ Open space spatial data were obtained from the four watershed states' GIS databases, which are freely available at http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?a = 2698&q = 322898&depNav_GID = 1707 (accessed July 26, 2012) for Connecticut, http://www.mass.gov/mgis/osp.htm (accessed July 26, 2012) for Massachusetts http://www.mass.gov/mgis/osp.htm (accessed July 26, 2012) for New Hampshire, and http://www.vcgi.org/ (accessed July 26, 2012) for Vermont.

⁴ The reader may have noted that simply contrasting flow with angling activity does not demonstrate a causal relationship between flow and angling activity. However, our contrasting of these two factors is not intended to demonstrate such a causal relation. Rather we are relying upon arguments made by others (Adamowitz, Louviere, & Williams, 1994; Bergstrom, Boyle, & Yabe, 2004; Duffield et al., 1992) to establish the importance of the relationship between river flow, fish populations, and angling activity. Our comparison is intended merely to identify the size of the effect on angling activity associated with changes in flow.

⁵ While in the case of the CRW data regarding the relationship between flow and angler activity are available, in other instances gathering of such data might be necessary for the use of our modified HP.

⁶ Specifically, we divided the total angling expenditures (calculated as described above) with the total angling hours [as found in Davis (2011)] to determine angling expenditures per angling hour. With this figure, and the relationship between flow and angling hours, we able to determine the likely decrease in angling expenditures that could be expected as the result of any given decrease in flow.

⁷ There might be some concern that a substantial chunk of angling expenditures are for durable goods rather than costs that would be affected by intensity of angling. However, while there are some expenditures that we included—such as the cost of rods, reels, and boats—the majority of the expenditures we considered are ones that are affected by angling hours such as guide fees, bait, line, food, and lodging. Also, in the USFWS data the cost of reels, rods, and boats include maintenance costs, which in the long run may exceed initial purchase cost and are affected by intensity of use. Finally, given that our measure of angling activity is an aggregate of all hours spent by all anglers on the CRW and increase in activity would suggest an increase in the numbers of anglers, which would also result in an increase in spending on durable goods related to fishing as well. As such, we believe that, while it may be a simplification, we are warranted in treating the overall expenditures attributable to fishing as being dependent on fishing intensity in a linear fashion.

⁸ Such an assumption seems warranted given that the majority of the yearly expenditures of the average angler are spent on consumables and equipment maintenance, both of which are affected by fishing intensity. One would expect then that fishing expenditures would increase with more time spent fishing (Figure 1).