Study Shows Public Willingness to Invest in Restoration
New York City households willing to pay 3.3 times more for nature-based approaches.
Community leaders need information about how people value ecosystem services and coastal management. Two coastal restoration projects, receiving $290,000 in NOAA funding, set out to answer this question for New York City.
The study found that these households are willing to pay, conservatively, 3.3 times more for nature-based shoreline protection. The New Jersey research found that people are willing to pay slightly less than ten dollars [$9.95] per household per year for protecting 5,000 homes from flooding through salt marsh restoration.
Study components included the value of salt marsh restoration; the relative values of shoreline armoring verses living shorelines; the value of the carbon sequestration associated with marsh restoration projects; and how to transfer ecosystem service values (such as the ones mentioned here) from one project site to another. (2017)