Recreational Fisheries and Phosphorous: Impacts of Nutrient Loadings on Freshwater Fishing Demand and Value

Nutrient pollution of rivers and lakes can lead to eutrophication, algal blooms, altered water clarity, and degradation of valued ecosystem services such as fishing. In the United States, significant strides have been make to... [ view full abstract ]

Nutrient pollution of rivers and lakes can lead to eutrophication, algal blooms, altered water clarity, and degradation of valued ecosystem services such as fishing. In the United States, significant strides have been make to reduce municipal and industrial point source pollution, yet reducing nutrient loads from non-point pollution sources such as agriculture and failing septic systems remains challenging. Deriving the demand for ecosystem service benefits from reductions in nutrient loadings requires an integrated understanding of how the value of final ecosystem services depends on loadings. Recreational fishing is a key service affected by nutrients. Ecological production functions were estimated to relate the abundance of several key species of sport fish to phosphorus loadings at thousands of individual lakes and stream segments in Michigan. These spatial models of fish species abundance were then linked to the demand for recreation fishing. The recreational fishing demand model uses data on fishing trips and locations collected via mail surveys from 1998 to present. The demand model relates anglers fishing behaviors (i.e., the species sought, number of trips, and fishing locations) to the distances to sites and to the abundance of fish at the sites. The resulting integrated models linking phosphorous loading to fishing behaviors inform economic estimates of fishing benefits resulting from water quality improvements due to reduced nutrient loads, and provide predictions of how patterns of recreational fishing across the landscape would change in response to reductions in nutrient loads. Such information can inform efforts to manage the fisheries and can facilitate efforts to reduce non-point source pollution.