A synthesis of recreation values of European forested areas and implications for national benefit transfers
Abstract
Recreation represents an important ecosystems service provided by the natural areas that contributes to the human well-being. The knowledge on the recreational value of natural areas and its determinants may support the discussion on the allocation of financial resources for nature conservation.
Our study focuses on European recreation values attributed specifically to forests. Since the last similar study published 9 years ago (Zandersen and Tol, 2009), the scientific evidence on new natural sites has emerged and may help to enhance the knowledge on the factors that affect the recreation value.
Focusing solely on forest recreation values yielded by travel cost studies (as opposed to a very recent study by Schägner et al., 2018), we hope to elucidate the effect of the travel cost methodology and specific forest characteristics on the resulting estimate of value associated with the recreational experience. Our particular aim is to assess the validity of the value transfer from Europe to natural sites in the Czech Republic and in other countries in the Central and Eastern Europe, where the evidence on recreation values is still scarce and which are not covered by most of the previous meta-analytic studies that incorporate forest recreation values