Impacts of changes in water quality on recreation behavior and benefits in Finland J. Vesterinen a, * , E. Pouta a , A. Huhtala a , M. Neuvonen b a MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Luutnantintie 13, 00410 Helsinki, Finland b Finnish Forest Research Institute, Jokiniemenkuja 1, 01370 Vantaa, Finland article info Article history: Received 18 August 2008 Received in revised form 19 October 2009 Accepted 5 December 2009 Available online 28 December 2009 Keywords: Water framework directive Recreation benefits Travel cost Hurdle model Water clarity National recreation inventory abstract The implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires nationally generalizable estimates of the benefits of protecting inland and coastal waters. As an alternative to benefit transfers and meta-analyses, we utilize national recreation inventory data combined with water quality data to model recreation participation and estimate the benefits of water quality improvements. Using hurdle models, we analyze the association of water clarity in individuals’ home municipalities with the three most common water recreation activities – swimming, fishing and boating. The results show no effect on boating, but improved water clarity would increase the frequency of close-to-home swimming and fishing, as well as the number of fishers. Furthermore, to value the potential benefits of the WFD, we estimate the consumer surplus of a water recreation day using a travel cost approach. A water policy scenario with a 1-m improvement in water clarity for both inland and coastal waters indicates that the consumer surplus would increase 6% for swimmers and 15% for fishers. In contrast to previously esti- mated abatement costs to improve water quality, net benefits could turn out to be positive. Our study is a promising example of applying existing national recreation inventory data to estimate the benefits of water quality improvements for the purposes of the WFD. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), adopted by the European Commission (2000), aims to harmonize water protection in the EU countries. Its goal is to ensure that all aquatic ecosystems achieve ‘good ecological status’ by 2015. However, the objectives set out in the Directive are not intended to be met for every water body at any cost: the implementation should avoid costs that are disproportionate to the achievable benefits. The need to find a balance between costs and benefits has created demand for both benefit and cost studies connected with the WFD in several Euro- pean countries (Bateman et al., 2006; Hanley et al., 2006). As inexpensive approaches, meta-analysis and benefit transfer have been appealing methods to generate value estimates for planning national environmental policies (Hanley et al., 2006). However, one problem associated with the use of single-site studies in benefit transfer is the uniqueness of the valuation situations; it is often ‘‘interesting hot-spot areas’’ that are chosen for analysis (Hoehn, 2006). Lindhjem and Navrud (2008) have shown that using benefit transfer studies from another country, even a culturally similar one, increases transfer error considerably. We suggest an alternative approach that draws on national recreation inventory data to produce nationwide valuation information. Especially in countries with few transferable studies, existing recreational inventory data (Dehez et al., 2008; Cordell et al., 2005) combined with water quality data may provide an accessible and reliable basis for producing nationally consistent benefit estimates. Particularly in water-rich countries, such as the Nordic countries and the US, recreation is considered one of the most important reasons for conserving water bodies (So ¨derqvist, 1998) and is estimated to account for over 60% of the total benefits from water protection (Rodgers et al., 1990). We illustrate the usability of inventory data for the valuation of recreational benefits from water protection in Finland, the country often called ‘‘the land of a thousand lakes’’. Water quality improvements have been valued using the travel cost method on the Swedish coast, which has water conditions similar to those in Finland. 1 (Sandstro ¨ m, 1996; Soutukorva, 2005). In these studies, carried out before the implementation of the WFD, * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ358 9 56 08 63 04; fax: þ358 9 56 08 62 64. E-mail addresses: janne.vesterinen@mtt.fi (J. Vesterinen), eija.pouta@mtt.fi (E. Pouta), anni.huhtala@mtt.fi (A. Huhtala), marjo.neuvonen@metla.fi (M. Neuvonen). 1 More recent Nordic stated preference studies with WFD-relevance include Eggert and Olsson (2009) and Laitila and Paulrud (2008). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman 0301-4797/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.12.005 Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 984–994