How much do people in Scotland value characteristics of marine and coastal areas

6. Conclusion

This research aimed to assess how people perceive, interact with and value marine and coastal areas in Scotland. To do this, a choice experiment survey questionnaire was designed, tested and put to a sample of people representative of Scotland’s population across age, sex and geographical location.

An initial survey design was tested on a pilot sample of 222 respondents, which led to further refinement in the design of the final survey questionnaire. A total of 986 complete responses for the final survey questionnaire were recorded. Survey responses were then analysed and results have been summarised in this report, using a combination of descriptive statistics and econometric modelling. Any future application of these results should take into account the underlying uncertainty associated with stated-preferences valuation studies and only be done by expert practitioners.

Key findings include:

• Overall, results from the choice experiment suggest that people in Scotland are supportive of management policies in marine and coastal areas over doing nothing.
• People in Scotland hold significant values for management policies that result in larger areas changed, larger increases in wildlife and habitats, ‘low’ and ‘moderate’ levels of restrictions, and additional educational content.
• People who have visited a marine and coastal area in the last 12 months, do regular recreational activities, are younger or have a marine industrial connection tend to have stronger preferences for alternative management options over the status quo.
• Households in Scotland are estimated to be WTP a total of between £90m-£132m per year (£35-£52 per household) for management policies that result in a ‘large increase’ in wildlife and habitats, decreasing to £40m-£80m per year (£16-£32 per household) for a ‘medium’ increase.
• For management policies that introduce ‘low’ and ‘moderate’ restrictions on damaging human activities, households in Scotland are estimated to be WTP £28m-£76m (£11-£30 per household) and £40m-£86m (£16-£34 per household) per year respectively.
• Households in Scotland are estimated to be WTP around £20m-£49m per year (£8-£19 per household) to update existing and install additional education boards about wildlife and habitats around marine and coastal areas in Scotland.
• For every additional 1% of total sea area changed by management policies, households are estimated to be WTP an additional £2m-£8m per year (£1-£3 per household)^[18].

Expert support and advice to design and carry out this choice experiment has been received by CSERGE at the University of East Anglia. Further guidance has been provided through extensive discussions and feedback from the Project Steering Group. This has helped to produce robust results about how much people in Scotland value characteristics of marine and coastal areas.