Non-market valuation of ecosystem services: the case of recreation and water resources in Ifrane National Park

Abstract

This doctoral thesis is concerned with the non-market valuation of ecosystem services, with a focus on water resources and recreation offered by the Val d’Ifrane peri-urban forest, in Ifrane National Park. The main research question examined by this dissertation was: To what extent are non-market valuation methods and techniques feasible and suitable for producing policy-relevant information & evidence about ecosystem services' value and sustainable management in the Moroccan setting? The research is driven by constatations that forests and water bodies in Ifrane National Park are suffering increasing anthropogenic pressures which cause a continuous deterioration impacting human welfare in various aspects including environmental benefits losses. Our knowledge and understanding of these losses and their effect on human well-being and ecosystems is still insufficient, especially in Morocco, where research on environmental economic valuation remains in its infancy. The first chapter is introductory, it describes the context and background for environmental economics and non-market valuation of ecosystem services. The chapter also provides the general and specific objectives of the doctoral research. The following three chapters present specific studies that examine the general objective of the thesis. The second chapter is a documentary study to answer the research question: What is the current state of water and forestry resources degradation and its relationship with human activities in the Fez-Meknes region. To investigate this 6 question, the chapter describes the interactions between society and the environment based on the most recent available data on water and forestry and following the D.P.S.I.R. framework (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response). The analysis involves the driving forces that are causing pressures on water and forests, the type of pressures put on the resources, the alteration in the resources state due to pressures, and the resulting impact as a change in human welfare, and finally, the responses as measures taken by the society to address this change. The third chapter is an empirical study to answer the research question: "What is the recreational value that Val d'Ifrane provides to its domestic visitors, and what are the recreational preferences of the latter?". Val d’Ifrane is one of the most popular peri-urban forests in Ifrane National Park, known for its high biodiversity and its attractiveness to domestic tourists. Val d’Ifrane suffers underfunding for its conservation and development, resulting in a continuous degradation of its natural resources. Valuing the recreational use of Val d’Ifrane visitors and understanding their characteristics is essential to provide a rationale for decision-makers to formulate adequate management policies and increase funding to protect and develop the site. In this chapter, we utilize the individual travel cost method with a correction for zero-truncation and endogenous stratification to estimate the recreational use-value of Val d’Ifrane. Results suggest a recreational value of 1,063.94 DH (€ 100,62) per trip per person (5.65 times the average travel cost), with lower and upper bounds of 85.21 DH (€ 8,06) and 2,042.68 DH (€ 193,18). Annual aggregate recreational value is estimated at 159.59 million DH (€ 15.09 million) or an average of 1,063.94 DH (€ 100.66) per visit per year (confidence intervals of 12.78 million DH (€ 1.2 million) to 306.40 million DH (€ 28.97 million) per annum, or 85.21 DH (€ 8.06) to 2,042.68 DH (€ 193,18) per visit per year). Robustness of the results is tested with regard to the operationalization of the travel cost and the opportunity cost of time, as well as the consideration of multi-site and multi-destination trips. The total annual recreational value is found to be 35 times higher than the cost for the last management and investment carried out by local environmental authorities in more than ten years. This information can assist decision-makers in their deliberations on funding for Val d’Ifrane restoration and development to maintain its recreational value while minimizing the negative impacts on natural capital and preserving the site for future generations. The fourth chapter reports an empirical study that aims to answer the research question: "What would be the effect on the recreational benefits offered by Val d'Ifrane of a deterioration of its water resources in terms of quality and quantity?". There is a growing concern that increased climate change and anthropogenic pressures such as pollution and excessive water withdrawal are a potential source of water quality and levels decline in Val d'Ifrane, which can affect the recreational value offered by this natural site. The study uses a pseudo-panel approach joining revealed and stated data to estimate the effect of water resources deterioration on demand for recreational visits to Val d'Ifrane. Combining Travel Cost and Contingent Behavior methods allows exante estimation of marginal effects induced by changes in the water quality in terms of decreased clarity and increased presence of slime and a decline in water levels by 1 meter compared to current levels. We estimate a randomeffects Poisson regression model because of the panel nature of the data and to control for correlation between observations. A dataset containing four observations for each respondent allows us to estimate a model for three different water decline scenarios. Results from the random-effects Poisson models show that a hypothetical decrease in water quality to a point at which the water is unclear and the slime is abundant would decrease the recreation value of a recreational visit from 1,063.94 DH (€ 101.14) estimated at the current state to 322.58 DH (€ 30.66). A decline in water levels by 1 meter compared to current levels would decrease the recreational value to 769.23 DH (€ 73.12). A decrease in both water quality and levels would result in a recreational value of 175.43 DH (€ 16,68). These results can be used to justify investment in water resources conservation and restoration, particularly in the context of the upcoming new management and development work of Ifrane National Park, in the frame of the new Moroccan strategy for forest management 2020-2030. This study is the first to investigate the importance of water quality and water levels for nature-based recreational demand in Morocco. The study is also a valuable addition to the TC-CB literature because it explores the effect of environmental degradation on recreation instead of the more common environmental improvement.