Arup, the Value of the River Mersey
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The Value of the River Mersey INVEST IN ARUP THE VALUE OF THE RIVER MERSEY An appraisal using an ecosystem 2 | 28 April 2016 service-led approach The Value of the River Mersey FOREWORD The River Mersey contributes economic and social value to the Liverpool City Region: what is the nature of that value and can it be quantified? © Dreamstime 2 The Value of the River Mersey Contents 1 Introduction 10 1.1 What is the value of the River Mersey? ........................................ 10 1.2 Structure of the report .................................................................. 10 2 Regional context 12 2.1 Liverpool City Region ................................................................... 12 2.2 The River Mersey ......................................................................... 14 2.3 Natural asset valuation ................................................................. 15 3 Natural capital concepts 16 3.1 Total Economic Value (TEV) ......................................................... 16 3.2 Intrinsic value ............................................................................... 17 3.3 Natural capital and ecosystem services ....................................... 17 3.4 Typical ecosystem services from rivers ........................................ 18 3.5 Value, financial return or privatisation .......................................... 18 3.6 Previous studies ........................................................................... 19 4 Value: qualitative analysis 26 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................. 26 4.2 The TEV framework ...................................................................... 26 4.3 Identifying stakeholders ............................................................... 28 4.4 Applying an ecosystem service framework .................................. 28 4.5 Summary ...................................................................................... 39 5 Value: quantitative analysis 40 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................. 40 5.2 Per annum estimates ................................................................... 40 6 Conclusions and discussion 44 6.1 The evaluation .............................................................................. 44 6.2 Devolution and maximising value ................................................ 44 6.3 Intrinsic value ............................................................................... 44 7 Recommendations 45 7.1 Further study ................................................................................ 45 7.2 Further consultation ..................................................................... 45 7.3 Governance.................................................................................. 45 7.4 Traction and investment ............................................................... 45 3 The Value of the River Mersey Tables Table 1: Total Economic Value, explained by component parts. Table 2: Surface water extraction across the North West in 2013(Source: ONS / Environment Agency). Table 3: Port of Garston Statistics Table 4: Numbers of employees by industry groups along the Mersey Corridor and across the LCR Table 5: Values for specific types of recreational use (various sources) Table 6: Carbon sequestration rates Table A.1: Habitat areas within the River Mersey. Table A.2: Woodland sites along the River Mersey and within a 1km boundary. Table A.3: List of specific edible bivalves in the Mersey Bivalve Mollusc Harvesting Area Figures Figure 1: The Liverpool City Region (Source: Wikimedia Commons). Figure 2: Rural and urban areas across Merseyside Figure 3: Total Economic Value (TEV) framework. Figure 4: Links between landscape location and wetland ecosystem services. Labels in orange are indicative of the functional gradient in importance of wetland ecosystem services, with text in parentheses providing an indication of the underpinning processes/intermediate services. Figure 5: Ecosystem services provided by the Freshwater Broad Habitat. Component and sub- component habitats potentially delivering ecosystem services are river (R), lake (L), pond (P), grazing marsh (GM), reedbed (RB), fen (F), and lowland raised bog (LRB). Figure 6: Beneficiaries of the River Mersey (source: River Mersey Task Force). Figure 7: Benefits identified by the River Mersey Task Force which link to environmental goods/services. Figure 8: Mapping the environmental benefits/stakeholders in the River Mersey Task Force Study (right hand columns), against a typical ES framework (left hand column). Figure 9: Total Economic Value (TEV) framework. Figure 10: the ecosystem service framework displays the value (defined as a series of environmental goods and services) from the River Mersey, to a defined set of stakeholders. Figure 11: Agricultural land adjacent to the Mersey. Figure 12: The catchments of the North West Figure 13: Businesses on the docks generate value, through a combination of their own inputs/ investment (capital), knowledge (human capital) and ability to navigate the Mersey. They could not operate without the navigational service offered by the Mersey. Figure 14: Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) identifies a number of leisure attractions which drive visitors to the LCR, many of these are inherently linked to the river (source: https://www.liverpoollep.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/wpid-vistor- economyfullstrategy-03-2011.pdf) Figure 15: Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) identifies a number of statistics for visitors to the LCR (source: https://www.liverpoollep.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/wpid- vistor-economyfullstrategy-03-2011.pdf) Figure 16: Smaller scale recreational sites on the River Mersey (Festival Gardens and Otterspool Park and Promenade, left and Speke Garston Coastal Reserve, right) Figure 17: Employment across transport related sectors (source: MDS Transmodal) Figure A.1: The Mersey Catchment (source MerseyBasin.org). Figure A.2: Environmental designations across the LCR (Source: Magic.gov.uk) 4 The Value of the River Mersey Figure A.3: Habitat types across the Mersey. Figure A.4: Ramsar and RSPB reserves Figure A.5: Areas of managed woodland and Woodland Trust sites Figure A.6: Marine designations Figure A.7: Environment Agency mapping: Groundwater Source Protection Zones (left); areas of Flood Risk (right) and surface water abstraction licences (below) Figure B.1: Economic growth across the LCR vs. the UK (source: LCR LEP, citing ONS Regional Accounts). Figure B.2: Per annum changes in employment and GVA by sectors 2001-2011 Figure B.3: Key sectors forecasts (source: LCR LEP / Oxford Economics) Figure B.4: Passengers on various routes leaving form Liverpool Figure B.5: Agricultural land classification Figure B.6: Percentage of total employment across all industries for four comparator areas. Figure B.7: Employment in seven industries considered likely to have close links to natural capital assets (across four comparator areas). Figure B.8: Index of Multiple Deprivation mapping for the LCR Figure B.9: Living Environment Domain mapping for the LCR Appendices (not included in printed, bound version but available separately from Arup) Appendix A Selected environmental conditions Appendix B Selected socio-economic conditions 5 The Value of the River Mersey EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The aim of this research is to identify and, as far as possible, quantify many of the crucial but hidden environmental assets that are derived from the River Mersey to the Liverpool City Region (LCR). The assessment part of the work is based on an approach founded in environmental economic theory known as the ‘ecosystem service approach’. Natural capital and Value of the River Mersey 1 Environment here can be anything – a ecosystem services field, a national park, a river catchment, The River Mersey is clearly a a lake, a city park, private gardens. In natural capital assessments, significant presence throughout the environment1 is viewed as the LCR, both environmentally a stock of goods and services, and economically. A qualitative which produce value for society, appraisal was undertaken to individuals or organisations. describe the value of the River Ecosystem Services (ES) are Mersey using the Total Economic usually defined as the benefits Value (TEV) framework. The people obtain from ecosystems. purpose of this exercise is to ES flow from natural capital stocks isolate the individual benefits and are typically classified into the so that they can be examined following categories: individually, understood and aggregated for future • provisioning e.g. drinking assessments. water or fish In many cases there would be no • regulating: e.g. flood risk value created without the natural protection, CO2 storage and capital asset, but equally, no end sequestration and pollution value could be realised without filtration human creativity, investment • cultural e.g. recreation, water or time. This is true across a sports and bird watching. range of areas, from local mental health to the national economic In addition, there are supporting contributions from the port. or underpinning services which are critical to the delivery of other ecosystem or total services (outlined above). These include nutrient recycling, primary production and soil formation. An ecosystem services-led approach offers a pragmatic, rational approach to natural resource management that is familiar to economic