The recreational value of Baiyangdian Lake in northern China: An application of travel cost method

Background/Question/Methods

As the biggest freshwater lake in Northern China, Baiyangdian Lake plays a vital role in providing considerable benefits to the region for sustainable development. However, conflicting interests among different stakeholders have hindered cooperation on addressing regional environmental problems facing Baiyangdian Lake, which threaten the sustainable supply of multiple ecosystem services. Economic valuation of Baiyangdian Lake ecosystem services can clarify tradeoffs among ecosystem services and alternative economic activities, which can inform the creation of ecological compensation measures to incentivize cooperation among stakeholders to move towards improved wetland management. In this paper, we derived the recreational economic value of Baiyangdian Lake in terms of consumer surplus (CS) using a zonal travel cost method. The objective of this paper is to increase the relevance of recreational ecosystem services for policy analysis.

Results/Conclusions

We estimate the CS value for visiting Baiyangdian Lake to be CNY 82.96 per trip (USD 13.33), yielding an annual estimate of a total recreational value of CNY 111.9 million (USD 17.97 million). The results provide insight on the possible tradeoffs among recreational use values and other socio-economic benefits. Recreational activities provide an important alternative choice to other economic activities, and the demand for recreational ecosystem services are increasing in Baiyangdian Lake. Making the recreational value of Baiyangdian Lake’s ecosystem services explicit could help government officials understand how to wisely resolve conflicting interests to improve the long-term management of Baiyangdian Lake for multiple ecosystem services.