Economic Value of Recreation and Preservation Benefits of Instream Flow

Excerpts from the Introduction: The allocation of water among competing uses is an increasingly important public policy issue in the Western U.S. As both consumptive uses and water-based recreation have increased, policies of instream flow reservation have emerged in many states. Montana's 1975 Water Use Act, for example, formally recognized that instream flow for recreational and other purposes was a beneficial use of water, ending the previous "use it or lose it" philosophy. One basis for identifying appropriate levels of instream flows is to compare the economic value of instream flow to the values of competing consumptive uses. Consumptive uses are typically marketed commodities, so their values are relatively well-understood. However, the estimation of instream flow recreation and preservation values is a relatively new area of research. The basic purpose of this study is to develop and demonstrate methods for estimating the recreation and preservation benefits of alternative levels of instream flows. The specific study objectives are as follows: 1. Valuation of alternative flow levels by site. 2. Additivity of values across sites. 3. Share of direct versus indirect (intrinsic) values. 4. Valuation across activity and user type.