Land Allocation Module
9.6 Summary and conclusions
The present study, though still to some extent fragmented in the approaches, shows the complexity of the analysis of recreation as ecosystem service.
The main effort that has been carried out is to base as much as possible the analysis on visitor surveys, so to approximate as best as possible people’s behaviour and choices when they recreate. Findings that could be drawn from surveys that approximate people’s behaviour in general terms have been applied to the EU-wide methodology, while detailed analyses have been applied to national/regional study cases. The development of the overall approach was made according to the following steps: the estimate of visitors number and patterns of recreation trips; the mapping of the recreation potential as potential provision of the service to the citizens; the valuation of the service. Each of these steps is characterised by its own research needs since no common methodology has been developed to provide a consistent frame to address this ecosystem service. Furthermore, data availability poses constraints and need for adaptation of conceptual frames.
The EU-wide exercise is based on findings reported in Maes et al., 2011, with some improvements. What is most interesting, though, is the confirmation of some methodological steps that can be derived from surveys. One concerns the types of environments where people like to recreate, linked to nature quality and presence of water. In particular the Danish approach concludes that in general, forests receiving more than 500 000 visits are categorised with predominantly high recreation provision, i.e. forests close to Copenhagen or large attractive forests far from Copenhagen, while forests categorised as medium recreation provision correspond predominantly to forests with less than 500 000 visitors. Another important confirmation is coming from the analysis of travelled distance. A main assumption that was taken in the EU-wide exercise was in fact that all ecosystem types had to be analysed as potential sources for recreation, and not only the most valuable ones in terms of nature quality and biodiversity. In fact, if someone wants to recreate in nature shortly after work, or bring the children for a stroll, he does not have an unlimited selection of ecosystems available and can choose where to go in a limited surrounding from his home. It is therefore important to understand what the characteristics of current provision are, and then eventually plan how to improve it. Results show that in the 23 analysed EU Countries, on the average 35% of the population can easily reach sites with a high potential for recreation. This means that the remaining 65% is not in this situation. In order to understand what this means, a trade-off analysis has to be carried out with other ecosystem service, though preliminary analysis (see Maes at al, 2011 EUR report) show that areas characterised by a higher degree of naturalness (i.e. forests) have a multiple provision of ecosystem services, some of which directly impact human health (i.e. air quality regulation). Though the issue is not yet addressed in literature under the umbrella of ecosystem services, the restorative and stress reduction capacity of ecosystems would be a major theme for research. It is in fact reported that wilderness and the natural environment in general do have restorative capacities on humans. Accessibility to these areas is therefore important also from this point of view. The analysis made at country level provides some ideas on how accessibility can be granted: some countries have an inherent high provision of recreation potential because i.e. in Sweden/Finland the boreal environment is characterised by a high degree of naturalness. In Countries where this provision is lower because intensive agriculture covers large areas (i.e. Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy), the network of protected areas is a major element in ensuring potential recreation provision. In fact intensive agriculture takes place mostly in lowlands, where some major European cities are located, and where millions of people live. The case of Italy is a good example of this situation: a high recreation potential is mostly provided by areas in the hills and mountains, which are further away from millions of citizens than the
average distance of close-to-home trips. On the contrary, countries like Germany shows a more evenly distributed network of protected areas on the national territory.
The fact that in the case of recreation the surrounding environment is extremely important is demonstrated by the data of the Finnish survey, which show the outstanding importance of the everyman’s right, or the right to have public access to the land, about 80% (even more in some regions) of close-to-home trips are in fact made to this type of environment. The total number of close-to-home trips accounts for over 500 million trips/year. The Danish survey also provides high estimates for trips to forests, estimated in over 26 million/year in the Copenhagen and Frederiksborg regions only.
The fact that the surroundings are important in recreation analysis highlights the role of urban green areas. As shown by chapter 9.3.3 also in this case spatial distribution matters, and has the double effect of providing a higher number of residents with recreation potential, and of diminishing visitors pressure on each area. Statistics on Dutch provinces show that availability of green urban areas to people living in a 500 m surrounding range from 14 to 56 m2 , with an average around 30 m2. Further research should compare the share of population that has easy access to such areas to the share that does not have easy access, in order to draw conclusions valuable also for town planning processes.
The valuation exercise provides interesting results. For example, in the case of Finland, the analysis of consumer surplus estimates per trip show that leisure homes and northern Finland stand out from the others. Furthermore, per trip value of a trip to State land in northern Finland is almost twice as big as value of a trip to state land in other parts of the country. Trips to everyman’s right area in northern Finland provide a consumer surplus that is about 45 percent higher than trips to the same type of site elsewhere in Finland. This shows that people are willing to travel further away and recreation visits have a higher value in areas characterised by outstanding nature with a high potential for recreation. On the other hand, close-to-home trips to areas used by everyman’s right reach the value of 107000 to 436000 euros/km2 in the capital region where most of the Finnish population is living. The total value of the recreation service is estimated in several hundreds of M€ for the capital city.
The Danish study on forests in the Copenhagen and Frederiksborg regions concludes that the willingness to pay for car access ranges from 1 to 12 M€ per site. The analysed forests are 52 so the total value is exceeding 50 M€ for just one type of ecosystem.
The scenario analysis is a pioneer study linking land use modelling, a population growth scenario and recreation provision. The scenario applied on Finland is a Business as Usual scenario, so no major changes were expected in recreation provision in 2030. In fact results show that under current conditions changes are very small. The procedure applied in order to reach the result, though, is complex and can be applied under many different conditions without any the need to be changed.
The procedure applied on the Danish study case is different and focuses on the increase in the urban population and the effect that this could have on the demand for forest recreation services. Results indicate that with an increase of 240 000 of the population living in the municipality of Copenhagen over a 20-year period, forests closest to Copenhagen would receive between 106 000 and 1 million additional trips (equivalent of 10-32% increase). Changes in the value of car access show in some locations a reduction of €134 000 per year while in other locations recreation services would yield as much as €2.8 million more if compared to the baseline.
It is premature to draw EU-wide conclusions from this study on the value of recreation as ecosystem service. Nevertheless the magnitude of estimates provided by the case study areas proves that such value may easily be in a range of billions of euros, and may increase if the avoided cost for health care due to recreation restorative and stress reduction capacity is included.