Stewart-Sinclair, Phoebe J., Klein, Carissa J., Bateman, Ian J., and Lovelock, Catherine E. (2021) Spatial cost–benefit analysis of blue restoration and factors driving net benefits globally. Conservation Biology, 35 (6). pp. 1850-1860.

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Abstract

Marine coastal ecosystems, commonly referred to as blue ecosystems, provide valuable services to society but are under increasing threat worldwide due to a variety of drivers, including eutrophication, development, land-use change, land reclamation, and climate change. Ecological restoration is sometimes necessary to facilitate recovery in coastal ecosystems. Blue restoration (i.e., in marine coastal systems) is a developing field, and projects to date have been small scale and expensive, leading to the perception that restoration may not be economically viable. We conducted a global cost–benefit analysis to determine the net benefits of restoring coral reef, mangrove, saltmarsh, and seagrass ecosystems, where the benefit is defined as the monetary value of ecosystem services. We estimated costs from published restoration case studies and used an adjusted-value-transfer method to assign benefit values to these case studies. Benefit values were estimated as the monetary value provided by ecosystem services of the restored habitats. Benefits outweighed costs (i.e., there were positive net benefits) for restoration of all blue ecosystems. Mean benefit:cost ratios for ecosystem restoration were eight to 10 times higher than prior studies of coral reef and seagrass restoration, most likely due to the more recent lower cost estimates we used. Among ecosystems, saltmarsh had the greatest net benefits followed by mangrove; coral reef and seagrass ecosystems had lower net benefits. In general, restoration in nations with middle incomes had higher (eight times higher in coral reefs and 40 times higher in mangroves) net benefits than those with high incomes. Within an ecosystem type, net benefit varied with restoration technique (coral reef and saltmarsh), ecosystem service produced (mangrove and saltmarsh), and project duration (seagrass). These results challenge the perceptions of the low economic viability of blue restoration and should encourage further targeted investment in this field.

Item ID:	94438
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1523-1739
Copyright Information:	© 2021 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Date Deposited:	19 Oct 2026 07:30
FoR Codes:	38 ECONOMICS > 3801 Applied economics > 380105 Environment and resource economics @ 50% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410405 Environmental rehabilitation and restoration @ 20% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410401 Conservation and biodiversity @ 30%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1802 Coastal and estuarine systems and management > 180206 Rehabilitation or conservation of coastal or estuarine environments @ 40% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1802 Coastal and estuarine systems and management > 180201 Assessment and management of coastal and estuarine ecosystems @ 60%
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