Ocean and Coastal Management 189 (2020) 105130 Available online 25 February 2020 0964-5691/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Carrying capacity as tool for beach economic value assessment (case studies of Italian beaches) Ilaria Rodella a, * , Fabio Madau b , Massimiliano Mazzanti c , Corinne Corbau d , Donatella Carboni e , Umberto Simeoni d , Luigi Parente f a Padua University, Via Martiri Della Libert� a 8, 35137, Padua, Italy b Department of Agraria, Sassari University, Via Enrico de Nicola 1, 07100, Sassari, Italy c Department of Economics and Management, Ferrara University, Via Voltapaletto 11, 44121, Ferrara, Italy d Department of Physics and Earth Science, Ferrara University, Via Saragat 1, 44122 Ferrara, Italy e Department of Human and Social Sciences, Sassari University, Via Roma151, 07100, Sassari, Italy f School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, Loughborough University, Epinal Way, LE11 3TU, Loughborough, UK A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Carrying capacity Users’ perception Willingness to pay Beach management Economic value ABSTRACT This study developed a new integrated assessment method for sandy beaches, using three recreational Italian beaches as case study, with the purpose of obtaining their economic value. The method was based on a geomorphological assessment of the beaches and a carrying capacity evaluation; an economic analysis through the elicitation of the willingness to pay (WTP); a social assessment of beachgoers’ attitude and opinion. For the selected beaches, which differed for typology, location, shape, level of urbanization and tourism, we identifed the available surfaces for recreational uses trough the observation of satellite images. WTP results indicate that respondents would be willing to pay a contribution from 9 to 15€ per season. WTP is principally positive correlated with some variables like beach frequentation, residence in the localities, available services on the beach. The value of the selected beaches was calculated multiplying the sustainable carrying capacity of each site with their related maximum WTP. It was found that the values of the beaches varied from more than 50M€/ season at a popular urban beach to 1M€/season at a remote natural beach. The comparison of beach valuation and investments made by managers of the beaches show a gap. Therefore, the huge non-market value of these beaches might need decision-makers to guarantee continuous beach restoration measures. 1. Introduction Beaches are important resources for tourism and their values are diffcult to assess since only some ecosystem services are established by the market thus their estimation requires the use of non-market valua- tion techniques. Therefore, quantifying and valuing environmental goods and ecosystem services by an economic point of view is often problematic (Pearce et al., 2006) and requires an inter-disciplinary perspective from economics to other complement disciplines (Hanley and Spash, 1994). Non-market valuation methods consist in the elici- tation of the economic value according to consumer/citizen preferences, which can be revealed (e.g. Hedonic pricing, travel costs methods) by observing market or behavioral ‘tracks’, or stated (Carson et al., 1996) when choices are not observed or observable as in most valuation ex-ante scenarios, by society in terms of (maximum) Willingness to Pay (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA, e.g. compensating for a loss of welfare). Maximum WTP is the most used monetary measure, in essence, compensation to obtain higher utility or welfare, from an individual perspective, out of increased consumption of private and/or public goods. In other words, WTP is a given quantity of money for supporting social costs aimed to preserve and/or enhance the ‘good’ a given project aims at increasing. Specifcally, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) has been the most applied approach to assess the economic value of a beach (Logar and van den Bergh, 2012; Pearce et al., 2006; Peng and Oleson, 2017). CVM relies on a direct questionnaire approach, asking a random sample of the population to state their hypothetical maximum WTP for preserving a good (Carson et al., 2000; Mitchell and Carson, 1989). It is the only way (together with the multi-attribute choice modeling method (Hanley et al., 2001; Mazzanti, 2002); to get knowl- edge on economic values when ‘prices’ are not available or observable * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ilaria.rodella@unipd.it, rdllri@unife.it (I. Rodella). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ocean and Coastal Management journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2020.105130 Received 20 September 2019; Received in revised form 22 January 2020; Accepted 5 February 2020