Towards Valuing Climate Change Impacts on the Ecosystem Services of a Uruguayan Coastal Lagoon

It has been well established that coastal zones in Latin America are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures including climate change impacts (e.g. sea-level rise, increased storm intensity, altered hydrological regimes, etc.). The twin challenge of maintaining human security (often via protection using dikes) and sustaining coastal ecosystems and the services they provide has been identified as a major issue for coastal management (Nicholls et al. 2010). This study was motivated by the dual observation that there are very few estimates of the local costs of climate change in developing countries and that the few studies that do exist rarely take into account the non-market value of ecosystem services. Using a case study of a coastal lagoon ecosystem in Uruguay, a preliminary interdisciplinary analysis that isolates changes in the economic value of ecosystem services was undertaken, which can be associated with historical climatic changes. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) framework is adapted to identify lagoon ecosystem services and three valuation methodologies are implemented to estimate non-market monetary values of climate change impacts on the artisanal shrimp fishery, carbon sequestration and habitat services. The results suggest that climate change is already affecting the economic value of the coastal lagoon ecosystem. Implications for local management and lessons learned from the case study are discussed.