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Recreational Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (Fegs) Supported by Tampa Bay, Fl
Citation:
Littles, C., N. Lewis, Ted DeWitt, AND M. Harwell. Recreational Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (Fegs) Supported by Tampa Bay, Fl. ACES, Washington ., DC, December 03 - 06, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
EPA/ORD scientists from WED and GED, in conjunction with ORISE postdoctoral fellow Chanda Littles, are working with National Estuary Program (NEP) sites to determine how coastal habitats contribute to recreational final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS). Scientists are combining visitor data from state partners with geotagged images from local users to assess recreational FEGS and the underlying habitat dependencies. This information can assist states and other stakeholders in developing comprehensive coastal land-use plans that address multiple human uses.
Description:
Coastal habitats contribute to numerous final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS), although assessing the value of cultural services they provide can be challenging. Fortunately, social media outlets have facilitated an innovative way to obtain data on what people value and how they interact with various coastal habitats. Flickr is one such platform that allows users to share geotagged images on a public platform, and from an ecosystem services perspective, provides the ability to measure value through revealed preference methods. Increasingly, researchers are using this type of information to assess and map cultural values, specifically recreational EGS, on the landscape. We took a similar approach to evaluate recreational use of coastal wetland habitats in Tampa Bay, FL. Tampa Bay is a prominent estuary on Florida’s Gulf coast that has seen steady improvements in water quality and vegetation coverage over the last two decades. We combined data from visitor surveys, the Natural Capital Project’s InVEST model for recreation, and Flickr imagery analysis to get a holistic view of the recreational FEGS supported by coastal habitat features. We evaluated FEGS depicted in Flickr photos that overlapped coastal habitats (e.g., salt flats, mangroves, beaches, marshes, seagrass beds). We then compared those revealed preference results to those from visitor surveys (i.e., stated preference) summarizing the average person-trips spent on various activities. We hypothesized recreational swimmers and boaters would be the most dominate recreational FEGS users in Tampa Bay. Interestingly, while recreational swimming was indeed the most prominent FEGS represented in visitor surveys, followed by general recreational experiences and views (e.g., hiking, birding, camping), preliminary results of revealed preferences through Flickr imagery analysis identified the same two dominant FEGS uses, but in reverse order. Results from these complimentary datasets identify key recreational FEGS that align with Tampa Bay coastal habitats and may serve as a resource for local stakeholders evaluating land-use decisions in the context of FEGS.