Planning Scotland's Seas: 2013 - The Scottish Marine Protected Area Project – Developing the Evidence Base tor Impact Assessments and the Sustainability Appraisal Final Report

6. Benefits

6.1 Benefits of Scottish MPA Designations

This Section considers the range of benefits that could arise from the proposed designation of MPAs. These benefits are assessed based on the implementation of the potential management measures used to consider the likely costs in previous Sections. As with the costs, a range of management scenarios (lower, intermediate, upper) is used to reflect the range of likely future management approaches.

This analysis of benefits adopts an ecosystem services approach. It is important to note that it assesses the expected changes in ecosystem services as a result of designation and management - it is not an assessment of the total ecosystem services arising from the proposed sites. The change in ecosystem services is assessed relative to the baseline of the expected condition of the sites in the absence of designation and management. This is a source of considerable uncertainty, as the extent and condition of the features of the proposed sites, and their response to management measures, are not well understood.

A qualitative approach has been adopted to assess the potential benefits within each site (see methods described in Section 2.3.2.4 and individual Site Reports presented in Table 9 of Appendix E). It is important to remember that the analysis in this Table assesses the changes to ecosystem services as a result of designation and management, not the overall importance of the site for ecosystem services.

This section firstly considers the evidence on changes in ecosystem services likely to be realised from designation and management of individual MPAs. It then considers evidence on the values of these changes. In both cases, the available evidence on changes that are relevant to an impact assessment ( i.e. increases in welfare in Scotland) is limited. Therefore, much of the discussion in on general changes, with more specific observations ( e.g. identifying where sites are known to play a specific role in commercial fish species lifecycles) is presented in Table 9 of Appendix E). It then discusses the overall benefits of the proposed set of designated sites, and any synergies (or network effects) arising from their collective designation. This discussion informs the analysis of cumulative benefits in Section 7.5.

6.2 Ecosystem Services from Marine Protected Areas

A healthy marine environment provides a large number of benefits to human populations. The benefits and the beneficiaries are not uniform and cover a wide range of ecosystem functions and interdependencies. The concept of 'ecosystem services' is used to capture the benefits provided. Ecosystem services are the outcomes from ecosystems that directly lead to good(s) that are valued by people ( NCC, 2013)

The ecosystem service concept provides a framework to identify the range and type of benefits provided by an ecosystem. This Section uses the terminology from the UK Nation Ecosystem Assessment (2010, first used in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) which splits the benefits provided by UK environments into the following services:

• Provisioning Services - the tangible goods and associated benefits produced by an ecosystem.
• Regulating Services - the benefits from the regulation of ecosystem processes.
• Cultural Services - the non-tangible ecosystem benefits either from experience of the ecosystem or knowledge of its existence.
• Supporting Services - those services whose function underlie all other ecosystem service provision.

6.2.1 Ecosystem Services from Proposed Scottish MPAs

MPAs are focused on protecting particular features of interest in the marine environment. Those features can be geological, habitats or species. They are identified on conservation grounds, and therefore are subject to moral and philosophical arguments about the appropriateness and benefits of their protection. This analysis focuses on the economic arguments for their protection, which are regarded as separate, but not superior to, moral or other arguments.

The assessment of ecosystem services benefits is a gross assessment of the impacts of designating an individual site. This approach mirrors that in the costs assessment, where costs to activities ( e.g. fishing, are gross assessments of the costs of management measures). A more realistic analysis of impacts of both costs and benefits would be a net assessment of likely changes. In particular this would take into account displacement of fishing effort, which could both reduce the costs of designation in terms of reduced fishing landings, and reduce the benefits by displacing damage caused by some fishing gears to other areas, (albeit ones probably with less exemplary marine biodiversity features).

Current work for the Valuing Nature Network ( VNN - D Burdon, pers. comm.) identifies a number of ecosystem services associated with habitats and species in UK waters. The features in the proposed Scottish MPAs were linked to these habitats and species to produce an overview of the number of features in each proposed site associated with different ecosystem services (see Appendix D). It must be recognised that this information is only a guide to the levels of ecosystem services that may be provided by the proposed MPAs. It needs to be combined with understanding of the status and threats to these features, and the extent to which these may be addressed by management measures for the designated area, in order to predict possible changes in ecosystem services associated with designation. The timing of ecosystem service benefits is also uncertain. Experiences in temperate marine ecosystems indicate that recovery of seabed habitats following impacts from human pressures can occur over a range of time scales from less than one year to many years, depending on the features affected. Recovery of fish populations has also been observed over a range of time scales, depending on the scale of impact and the life cycles of the species affected.

This information set is subject to considerable uncertainty. Firstly the VNN data is known to reflect a variable and substantially incomplete literature on whether, and at what level, different marine features provide different ecosystem services. Secondly, the physical extent and baseline condition of many of the features in the proposed MPAs is poorly understood, as reflected in the site designation information. The lack of baseline information is particularly crucial as an assessment of benefits is based on expected changes from designation relative to a baseline scenario of 'no designation'. However, there is evidence (Friedrich et al. 2013) at both global and UK levels, underpinning the assumption of a deteriorating ecological baseline. It identifies evidence that human pressures have led to the depletion of marine species and populations, to the destruction of marine habitats, and has prompted changes to the composition of marine communities in UK seas. This has detrimental impacts on their ability to provide regulating, supporting and provisioning ecosystem services essential for human wellbeing. Thirdly, the speed and extent to which protection of features will result in increases in ecosystem services is poorly understood. Fourthly, the benefits analysis is mainly based on consideration of ecosystem services from protected features (due to the available information). In reality, MPAs are likely to contain marine biodiversity that are not designated features but which give higher levels of ecosystem services as a result of protection under site management measures.

As a result of these uncertainties, a key part of the ecosystem services analysis for each site is that the level of confidence in each assessment is explicitly recorded. In general, confidence is only moderate or high for ecosystem services which are not expected to change significantly at a site. For most potential positive impacts at individual sites, the analysis of ecosystem services changes has low confidence. This issue is discussed further in Section 7.5.

Some key issues in the assessment of levels of different ecosystem services in the site assessments are discussed here.

6.2.1.1 Provisioning services

The potential management measures for the proposed MPAs could increase the level of several provisioning services. Gubbay (2006) found some evidence of positive species community effects such as greater complexity of food webs and increase primary and secondary productivity in MPAs as a consequence of protection. This study considered habitats relevant to the proposed MPAs: Seagrass beds; Kelp forests; Mussel beds; Maerl beds; and Sediment communities.

The most significant provisioning service is of fish (and shellfish) for human consumption. While the status of commercial fish stocks in UK waters are variable and not fully known, the assessment is based on the fact that UK populations of several important commercial species are at suboptimal levels. It is assumed that protected areas can potentially help with stock recovery.

This can result from reduction of fishing pressures, and in particular from protection of key stages ( e.g. spawning, nursery grounds) in species life cycles. Providing spatial or species protection, has been shown to boost populations, which potentially can have a benefit on fishery yields. As expected there is more evidence for shellfish in this regard: In Lundy it has been shown that there is the potential for spillover benefits from no-take zones into the surrounding lobster population. On Skomer the scallop population has increased four to eight fold over 20 years of protected area designation according to anecdotal evidence. In the Lyme Bay statutory fishing closure the increased densities of scallops have spilled over into surrounding areas.

For mobile fish species spillover benefits are more complex, and the benefits of the proposed MPAs will depend on other factors, in particular the implementation of recent CFP reforms. However, it is noted that the proposed MPAs include sites which are known to be spawning grounds for commercial species ( e.g. Arran) and habitats that are known to provide nursery habitats for commercial species ( e.g. Maerl beds). Therefore it is reasonable to assume that such benefits will arise at least at some sites, even though they cannot be quantified.

The actual impact of protected areas on fish stocks is complex and controversial, and is known to depend on many factors including the size of the MPA, its position in an MPA network, the size of that network, the mobility of the species, the distribution of fishing effort and so on. Detailed modelling of these issues is beyond the scope of this work.

6.2.1.2 Regulating services

Three regulating services are considered in the analysis. No benefits are identified in terms of hazard protection, as the proposed network is assessed not to have any interaction with coastal defences. Carbon sequestration is more significant where there is primary productivity from benthic vegetation in a site.

Waste assimilation services are provided by protected features within some sites' ( e.g. Maerl beds) but to be a valuable service there needs to be a source of waste that is affecting water quality. Actions under the Water Framework Directive ( WFD) are assumed to be dealing with any significant impacts on coastal water quality, any so benefits of designations in improving water quality in excess of WFD requirements are assumed to be very low. However, a healthy inshore environment could enhance waste assimilation functions and so contribute to water quality in excess of WFD standards, which could have benefits ( e.g. to recreational visitors).

The regulating services assessed are not considered significant for any offshore sites. They are relevant to some inshore sites, but in general the available evidence does not enable identification of any sites where they are expected to increase significantly as a result of designation. It is not possible to quantify any of the potential benefits effects accurately, and so they are not considered further in this analysis.

6.2.1.3 Cultural services

Cultural services are the least-well understood group of final ecosystem services from the marine environment. The significance of the proposed MPAs has been assessed for research and education, recreation activities, and non-use benefits. It can be argued that the proposed sites produce a range of other cultural values. These include direct use values such as the maintenance of traditional fishing communities. The literature also describes more indirect values such as meaningful places or socially valued landscapes, symbolic benefits (aesthetic, heritage, spiritual), and philosophical, inspiration values. However, there is little conclusive evidence on these issues.

Most of the inshore sites have some recreational activities ( e.g. scuba diving, angling, recreational boating routes and anchorages), and the value of these activities may be enhanced by designation is users of sites will encounter higher levels of biodiversity and environmental quality.

The value of non-use benefits is considered further under the valuation evidence below.

6.2.1.4 Supporting services

MPAs provide a significant number of supporting services. These services are the foundation for all other ecosystem services. Perhaps most significantly is the support that these services provide for provisioning services such as the protection of features which provide habitats for larval and juvenile life stages of marine species.

A series of ecosystem services associated with MPAs are show in Table 30.

Table 30. Supporting ecosystem services provided by MPAs

Ecosystem Service	Feature that Ecosystem Services are Relevant to
Larval gamete supply	European spiny lobster, mud habitats in deep water, high energy intertidal rock, intertidal mud, sandbanks
Secondary production	Mud habitats in deep water, intertidal mud, seagrass, sandbanks
Food web dynamics	Mud habitats in deep water, high energy intertidal rock, moderate energy intertidal rock, seagrass, sandbanks, bottlenose dolphin
Nutrient cycling	Mud habitats in deep water, seagrass, sandbanks
Formation of species habitat	Mud habitats in deep water, high energy shallow water rock, moderate energy shallow water rock, high energy intertidal rock, moderate energy intertidal rock, intertidal sand and muddy sand, tide swept channels, reef, intertidal sand and muddy sand, seagrass, Ostrea Edulis (European Flat Oyster), sandbank
Primary Production	High energy intertidal rock, seagrass
Species diversity	High energy shallow water rock, moderate energy shallow water rock, high energy intertidal rock, moderate energy intertidal rock, subtidal coarse sediment, tide swept channels, reef, intertidal sand and muddy sand, sea grass, sandbanks
Formation of physical barriers	High energy shallow water rock, moderate energy shallow water rock, high energy intertidal rock, moderate energy intertidal rock, reef

6.3 Values of Benefits from MPAs

The ecosystem services changes expected from the proposed designation and potential management measures of Scottish MPAs produce a variety of benefits to people. An attempt can be made to identify the economic value of these benefits. However, much of the valuation evidence available is uncertain, and the evidence base has very significant gaps. When combined with the uncertainties over the levels of ecosystem services changes, this makes accurate valuation of the benefits of the MPAs very difficult. The timing of realisation of benefits is also uncertain.

In order to gauge the ecosystem services accruing from marine protected areas relevant valuation literature has been assessed including a recent unpublished review prepared as part of the NEA Follow On project (Prof Kerry Turner, University of East Anglia pers. comm.). This section considers additional values from individual MPAs. The cumulative value of the network is discussed in Section 7.5.

6.3.1 Provisioning Services

By their very nature provisioning services are those services closest tied to the market economy. Goods (fish, shellfish, oil, gas) from marine ecosystems are sold in existing markets and so have a market value: the total value of Scottish fish landings was £501m in 2011 (Scottish Government, 2012a). Such market values do not include the externalities of extracting the good from the ecosystem.

In four MCZ case studies considered by Fletcher et al. (2012), it was predicted that there would be potential additional benefits associated with the delivery of ecosystem services. The only exception was certain commercial fisheries which could potentially experience initial short term disadvantage followed by longer term benefit.

6.3.2 Regulating Services

Marine regulating ecosystem services provide some essential functions. For example, carbon sequestration and storage in the marine environment helps regulate the global climate. Marine regulating services are generally difficult to quantify in scientific terms and therefore are difficult to value in monetary terms. For example, while the proposed sites have features known to be important for carbon sequestration, the expected change in carbon sequestration as a result of site designation and management cannot be reliably quantified in most cases.

With the exception of carbon (which has a price in a regulated market), marine regulating services are generally external to markets and so do not have market values. For these reasons the benefits of MPAs for regulating services have not been valued.

6.3.3 Cultural Services

The majority of cultural services from the marine environment are dependent on the quality of the marine environment, which is likely to be enhanced (or at least is less likely to be degraded) in marine protected areas. However, the extent of this improvement due to designation is very hard to predict.

Cultural services and non-use values are classified in different ways in different marine ecosystem services studies. The main evidence available relates to non-use value for biodiversity (see below) and use values for recreation, therefore the analysis looks at these two areas in detail. Other cultural services, such as the value of research and education, are hard to quantify or value either in total or in terms of the expected changes from Scottish MPAs.

6.3.3.1 Recreation and tourism

The marine environment provides a location for recreational activities and tourism, with many if not all activities inherently linked to the quality of the marine environment. Much 'marine' recreation activity relates to beaches, and therefore is not always relevant to the expected impacts of MPA designation. However, some valuation evidence for marine recreation and tourism is available. This data is estimated from the expenditure of individuals on a particular marine recreation activity (Prof Kerry Turner, University of East Anglia, pers. comm.). Only one study, by Lawrence (2005) has a value of a change in the condition of the marine environment which might reflect the changes expected from MPAs. The other studies estimate the total expenditures on activities, and therefore only give an indication of the scale of the values which might change due to the impacts of MPA designation. The IA process looks for Scottish-level benefits, and evidence of national benefits from individual sites is hard to obtain, due to difficulties in assessing potential displacement effects. Therefore it is important to note that there is a lack of evidence, not evidence of zero benefits.

There are social benefits associated with recreation and tourism activities, and therefore the proposed designation and management of MPAs could improve social welfare through access to a healthier marine environment. This is most likely under the intermediate scenario. This is because it has more significant management measures than the lower scenario, so more significant improvements in the quality of the environment are likely, but does not have restrictions on recreational activities that are part of the upper scenario management measures for some sites.

As stated above, there is a more extensive literature on beach recreation values, but beach quality is less directly associated with MPA designation. A recent review by eftec for the Dutch Government (in prep) reviewed economic literature on the recreational value of clean beaches. It recommends a range of €0.60 to €1.60 (£0.51 - £1.36) per trip for the value of moving from partly littered to fully clean beaches on the North Sea coast. While MPA designation will contribute to improved quality of the marine environment, including beaches, it will not result in 'fully clean beaches', and so these values are not directly transferable to MPAs.

The lack of published valuation studies showing the effects of MPAs on marine nature-based recreational activities found in the UK (or similar locations) is a limitation in understanding what impacts NC MPAs will have on recreational users. This in turn restricts the ability to identify socio-economic benefits from increased recreation activity as a result of designation and management of the proposed sites. Work is on going under the UK National Ecosystem Assessment follow-on project to value marine ecosystem services ( UNEP-WCMC, in press) ^[18] . It provides new evidence indicating that designation of MPAs will increase use and non-use values to anglers and divers, including through securing the quality of the marine resources they use ( i.e. protection against degradation). Once published, the evidence will be looked into further to see if it can provide monetary estimates of these values that can be used in the final impact assessment.

It should be noted that any socio-economic benefits associated with recreation and tourism will occur in coastal, often remote communities. These communities may be the same as those where many of the costs identified in Section 5 occur.

6.3.4 Supporting Services

Supporting services are perhaps the most critical set of services provided by features in MPAs. Supporting services underpin all other ecosystem services, and therefore few studies are able to extract the contribution and therefore value of each ecosystem process. Valuing supporting ecosystem services brings a significant risk of double-counting, and they support the provisioning, regulating and cultural services from MPA sites discussed above. However, not valuing supporting services also brings a risk of under-valuing benefits: if MPA designations increase supporting services that give rise to final ecosystem services outside the boundaries of MPAs, and these values are not captured because the available evidence is applied only to changes in final services inside the boundaries of MPAs.

6.3.5 Total Economic Value

As well as limited evidence on the value of different ecosystem services, there are studies that attempt to estimate the total value of the marine environment. A study by Gubbay (2006) reviewed the evidence for benefits of MPAs set up for the conservation of marine biodiversity. They found some direct evidence that MPAs can protect and enhance ES comes from situation where habitats and species protected by MPAs are known to provide specific ES. They concluded that highly protected MPAs lead to overwhelming positive effects on biodiversity ( i.e. higher densities, biomass, size and diversity of certain species or groups of species). There is some evidence of positive species community effects such as greater complexity of food webs and increase primary and secondary productivity in MPAs as a consequence of protection. There report considered habitats that are present in the proposed Scottish MPAs (Seagrass beds, Kelp forests, Mussel beds, Maerl beds, Sediment communities).

McVittie & Moran (2008) derived a primary estimate of benefits from the implementation of the nature conservation measures in the draft Marine Bill, specifically, marine conservation zones ( MCZs). They identified UK households' aggregate willingness to pay ( WTP) of £487 million to £698 million per year. This figure represents a total economic valuation for the MCZ provisions, as described in the CV scenario. Due to the nature of the MCZ outcomes, it is suggested that a high proportion of this value will be non-use value. However, the data did not allow the study to categorically isolate this component.

A median value for halting the loss of marine biodiversity (which includes, but is a wider objective than MCZ provisions) had an aggregate UK value of £1,170.7 million per year. This value is based on median estimates, and is recommended as it avoids the influence of extreme values and represents the amount that 50% of respondents would be willing to pay.

The values generated within this research were based on the best ex ante assessment of the anticipated environmental gains from the UK Marine Bill Marine Nature Conservation Zones, using a hypothetical network scenario. Because of uncertainty, there is potential for disparity between the policy benefits scenarios presented here and what is actually realised as the policy is implemented. It is also important to note that no assumption has been made for the timescale over which these benefits arise. One interpretation is that the values represent preferences for implementation of the Marine Bill, and that these benefits arise immediately from policy implementation. For IA reporting, it is feasible to assume alternative benefits timescales as part of any sensitivity analysis. For example, time lags of 2, 5 and 7 years could reasonably be used to represent the potential delay of returns in line with biological uncertainty about the trajectory of marine biodiversity benefits. This analysis is not conducted in this report.

While the proposed MPAs would be expected to contribute to halting the loss of marine biodiversity (the change considered by McVittie and Moran), the extent of this contribution is unclear due to uncertainty in the current extent, condition and trends in designated features. Therefore it is concluded that the non-use value of the improvements to marine biodiversity from the MPAs cannot be accurately valued.

It is interesting to note that the average values per household for halting loss of, or increasing, marine biodiversity in the McVittie and Moran (2008) study were lower in Scotland than in England or Wales. Nevertheless the average household values in Scotland were significant and positive. Also these values relate to average country household values for all UK waters, implying that English and Welsh households will value improvements in biodiversity in Scottish waters.

The extent to which the non-use values identified in the McVittie and Moran study are relevant to the proposed MPAs is limited due to the uncertainty over the contribution that the MPAs will make to halting marine biodiversity loss: the MPAs are focussed on specific biodiversity features, whose current status and response to management measures is often unclear. As a result, the site ecosystem services assessments mainly identify moderate non-use values for the MPAs, with a low-moderate level of confidence.

The ambiguity and uncertainty associated with the quantification of ecosystem services, as reflected in the evidence reviewed above, reinforces the necessity for a largely qualitative approach to the assessments of benefits at a site level. The approach taken is described in Section 2.3.2.4.

6.3.5.1 Value transfer studies

The range of valuation evidence reviewed above gives indications of which ecosystem services from MPA designation may be valuable to society. Consideration of different groups of services does not produce any valuation data that can be used with confidence to value the changes expected from MPAs.

In a large part of this conclusion is due to the uncertainties in how ecosystem services will change with respect to potential MPA management measures. More detailed analysis of these changes is possible, and has been carried out in a study for Scottish Environment Link ( INDUROT, 2012), which is based on a value transfer (eftec, 2010). It identifies benefits of the proposed MPAs of £4bn to £10bn over 20 years (range including sensitivity analysis of assumptions).

This work is regarded as the best available approach to value transfer given the evidence and resources available. However, it remains subject to enormous uncertainties. Firstly, the economic evidence on values of ecosystem services changes is, as discussed above, very patchy. INDUROT have had to use evidence that cannot be reliably transferred to the UK ( e.g. evidence from a Constanza et al (1997) study used in Beaumont et al. (2006). Secondly, the modelling is necessarily reliant on large scientific assumptions:

• The model distributes national ecosystem services ( ES) values within Scottish seas based on assumptions about the relative contribution of landscapes (broad scale habitats) to particular ES, based on expert judgement. The evidence base used to inform these assumptions is not presented;
• The model estimates the potential benefit to individual ES associated with the implementation of management measures using expert. This is done in a number of steps:
  ­ Firstly, the sensitivity of the landscape ( BSH) features to 'human pressure' has been assessed. The model does not appear to have distinguished between different types of human pressure. As has been demonstrated by the MCZ sensitivity matrix (Tillin et al, 2010), the sensitivity of BSH features varies greatly (depending on the particular habitat within a BSH group affected). It also varies greatly depending on the type of pressure.
  ­ The model then makes assumptions about the benefit derived from management measures (as a percentage increase in service provision). No evidence for the potential scale of benefits is presented. The largest ES values relate to food, nutrient cycling and gas and climate regulation. It is debatable whether significant benefits would occur to these services. Significant changes in nutrient cycling and gas and climate regulation have not been identified in the site ES assessments. For food, while human pressures may change species composition, this may simply result in substitution by species that provide similar services (for example, evidence that benthic productivity may increase under increased fishing pressure through increases in short-lived fast growing species with higher productivity).
  ­ The model then assumes that the pressure is present across the whole of the feature and that the benefit occurs over whole extent of the feature. However, pressures will not be uniformly distributed across the seabed or necessarily across the entirety of MPA features.
• The model doesn't take account of loss of ES provision offsite ( i.e. it provides a gross benefit). This is consistent with the ES assessments and estimated costs ( e.g. to fishing activity) for the individual sites. However, while it is true for some features that MPAs protect areas of higher biodiversity and better examples of that biodiversity that may contribute higher levels of ES, this is not universally the case. For example, a number of features such as ocean quahog, subtidal sand and gravels, are fairly uniform and the network is really just protecting representative examples of these habitats. If activity is simply displaced elsewhere, the net benefit may be significantly reduced.

These considerations are major uncertainties in the model used, and mean there is low confidence in the results arrived at by INDUROT. The complexities of this value transfer also serve to illustrate why it is not possible to produce reliable monetary values for the changes in ecosystem services resulting from MPA designation and management.

6.3.6 Conclusion

The assessment of benefits has focussed on the changes to ecosystem services that are expected to result from MPA designation and management. While the proposed MPAs undoubtedly support a considerable range and value of ecosystem services, evidence on the baseline condition of the site features, and on the expected nature of these changes in scientific or economic terms, is extremely sparse. As a result the assessment of changes in ecosystem services at individual sites (see Table 9 in Site Reports, Appendix E) is highly uncertain.