Mapping the Recreational Value of Non-Urban Ecosystems across Europe: Combining Meta-Analysis and GIS

We map recreational visits and the economic value per visit spatially explicit across Europe’s non-urban ecosystems using GIS, meta-analysis and geostatistical modelling techniques. Therefore, we develop a meta-analytic visitor arrival function and a meta-analytic value transfer function by regression analysis. Primary data on the dependent variables are collected from visitor monitoring and valuation studies. We analyse more than 225 studies including visitor counts and value estimates to more than 550 separate case study areas. Focusing on continuous spatial biophysical and socio-economic predictor variables, we identify underlying spatial drivers of recreational ecosystem service values. By combining our models with spatial explanatory variable layers we predict annual recreational visits and the value per visit on a one km² resolution across Europe. The resulting maps illustrate spatial variations of recreational visitor numbers and the value per visit. In total we predict about 11 billion annual visits to Europe’s non-urban ecosystems amounting an economic value of € 57 billion. Comparing our estimates with mean/unit value transfers reveals that the spatial variations of visitor numbers are substantially more important for determining the recreational value per ha than variations in the value per visit