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Consultants tell Martin County commissioners Indian River Lagoon provides billions in annual value and high ROI for restoration
Summary
Presenters using the InVEST model told the Martin County Commission the Indian River Lagoon generates more than $10 billion a year in ecosystem service value, supports roughly 128,000 jobs regionally and yields very high estimated returns on restoration spending (about 24x overall).
Valerie Seidel, a researcher who has worked with the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, told the Martin County Commission the updated lagoon economic valuation finds more than $10 billion per year in ecosystem-service value across the lagoon and broad local benefits for Martin County.
Seidel said the analysis used the InVEST model and detailed land-cover mapping to estimate services such as flood-water storage, coastal protection, water filtration, habitat, recreation and property-value premiums. "That's water that would otherwise be in our homes and our roads," she said when describing natural flood-water retention.
The presentation included several headline figures: preserved lands across the lagoon retain more than 100,000,000,000 gallons of flood water annually; about…
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