Ecosystem Services of Wild and Scenic Rivers

Many land management agencies and conservation advocates have expressed a desire to better understand and articulate the advantages protected rivers offer to society. One method for achieving this is through ecosystem service valuation (ESV). This valuation process places values on the goods and services that rivers provide to society so that decision-makers can justify conservation and be better equipped to assess how river resources should be managed. To undertake such a valuation process, this study seeks to develop a preliminary framework for conducting ESVs for Wild and Scenic Rivers (WSRs) to both quantitatively and qualitatively assess the ecosystem services these rivers deliver at the local, regional, and national scale.