Evaluation

Valuation contributes to the systematic assessment of how a project, policy and/or activity within the ICZM framework changes the environmental and socio-economic structure of the coastal zone.
As values are no intrinsic qualities of nature; they are related to human choices. Valuating processes and policies in coastal systems asks for confrontation between values connected to natural resources and those created or represented by economic and societal activities and assets, so common scales of values have to be individuated. Different stakeholders perceive different values based on different rational and emotional considerations.
The major challenge of science support to ICZM is to provide input to valuation processes. This support consists basically of two contributions, providing:
- Descriptions in terms of easily valuable significant parameters (indicators).
- Valuation of impacts using a common unit, in order to allow comparisons of different impacts, as well as trade-off decisions.
Inversely, practical use of these research products, experiences of how to integrate valuations into planning and management processes and which indicators can be handled in the everyday context of coastal managers, yields a feedback from policy to science

Multicriteria analysis
Multi criteria evaluation tools are often used in the field of environmental analysis as they allow for the attribution of qualitative judgements in order to create hierarchies of “values” or “preferences”, and facilitate thus the confrontation between impacts, options or assets without using monetary terms. Generally tools are used which are based on techniques of ranking in order to establish a scale of values.

Economic valuations
Economic valuation for coastal management procedures goes beyond mere financial valuations integrating costs and benefits generated by the project. Integrating costs and benefits of projects which are related to environmental values as coastal zone projects are, always implies confrontation between market values (benefits produced by economic activities as commercial fisheries, tourism) etc. and  values without direct market quotation, (benefits from biodiversity, clean water, nature conservation etc.). Integrated management of coastal zones requires consideration of all these values, in order to allow for a comprehensive valuation of costs and benefits and of trade-offs between different options.
Techniques which give monetary values to benefits generated in the non-market sphere either use market impacts of – for instance - natural resources, measuring for example the contribution of landscape qualities to real estate values, or look for direct expressions of the willingness to pay for natural resources, expressed for instance in the amounts spent by visitors of protected areas. A third group of tools uses stated preferences inquiring about the willingness to pay for the protection of natural resources among a population interested by the protection policies.

Indicators
Valuation and monitoring of socio-economic impacts related to development and implementation of ICZM strategies, programs and projects for coastal areas needs suitable indicators to be identified and adopted.
Indicators reduce real world complexity and facilitate communication between scientists, practitioners, managers and public. They refer to parameters describing:

• the state of the coastal system
• the pressures exerted on it
• the resulting fluxes (processes, interactions) changes occurring in these quantities.

The challenge in constructing sets of indicators consists in individuating values that are on the one hand sufficiently sophisticated to describe changes in the state of coastal zones, and, on the other hand, sufficiently simple to be easily understood and alimented without difficulty with data retrieval in all coastal contexts.

Thematic Network Conference
12th – 13th  March  2007. Venice, Italy

The Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and the Consortium for Coordination of Research Activities Concerning the Venice Lagoon System (CORILA), are organizing a conference on socio economic impacts on coastal zones and their evaluation in a context of integrated coastal zone management.
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