Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services Provided by Oyster Reefs

Valuation of ecosystem services can provide evidence of the importance of sustaining and enhancing those resources and the ecosystems that provide them. Long appreciated only as a commercial source of oysters, oyster reefs are now acknowledged for the other services they provide, such as enhancing water quality and stabilizing shorelines. We develop a framework to assess the value of these services. We conservatively estimate that the economic value of oyster reef services, excluding oyster harvesting, is between $5500 and $99,000 per hectare per year and that reefs recover their median restoration costs in 2-14 years. In contrast, when oyster reefs are subjected to destructive oyster harvesting, they do not…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UE
  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• OO
  Office of Research and Development
• NC
  Nature Conservancy
• NO
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration