Valuing shoreline habitats for recreational fishing

Recreational fishing is an important ecosystem service supported by coastal habitats. Information on habitat utilization and preferences by anglers is largely unavailable, however. In this study, data was collected on habitat use and associated preferences from similar to 1500 licensed saltwater anglers in the Middle Peninsula region of Virginia, a rural area heavily reliant on coastal natural resources. A mixed logit model was used to estimate habitat preferences from responses to a discrete choice experiment where individuals were asked to choose preferred fishing trips to different shoreline habitat types. Coastal marshes and living shorelines (nature-based coastal protection) were found to generate considerable benefits to recreational anglers due to frequent use, low visitation costs, and high willingness-to-pay. Combining habitat-specific effort and valuation estimates suggests marshes and living shorelines in this region produce US $6.42M in annual benefits associated with recreational fishing, a value which is more than three times greater than that produced by hardened shorelines. Ecosystem service values estimated in this research can be used to increase efficiency of habitat restoration and shoreline management decisions and advance accounting of coastal natural capital assets.