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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:49:29am WEST

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Daily Overview

Session

Egg-Timer: Natural Capital and Resource Economics
Location: D-107
Session Chair: Yue Li, Beijing Institute of Technology

Presentation 3

Imperfect Information, Onsite time and Welfare Impact of Algal blooms on Recreation

Nan Zhang¹, Jūratė Lesutienė², Sandra Notaro¹, Smilte Baranauskaite², Artūras Razinkovas-Baziukas², Carlo Fezzi¹

1: University of Trento, Italy; 2: Marine Research Institute, Klaipeda University, Lithuania

Algal blooms originating in the coastal lagoon extend into the lagoon plume area, periodically affecting beach conditions and visitor experience. Temporary algal bloom shocks have been a problem in Melnrage Beach, which is an important recreational destination located on the SE Baltic Sea coast of Klaipėda, for both residents and visitors outside Klaipėda (Lithuania). Car parking data reveal that trip demand was not affected, but time spent on the beach was shorter in the case of an algal bloom, suggesting visitors have imperfect information on site quality before they visit, which is confirmed by the interviews carried-out at the recreation site.

This finding suggests that relying solely on the number of visits does underestimate (or, in the worst case, ignore all together) the welfare impact of algal blooms. The same consideration likely applies to all unfavorable, unpredicted, temporary site quality shocks that can affect recreational experience at an outdoor site, such as turbid water events, high surf, congestion onsite, etc.

By using both the car-parking data and the on-site survey data, we estimated the recreational value of Melnrage beach and the welfare loss due to algal bloom through the loss of onsite time in a straightforward way. This study sheds light on measuring the welfare changes of temporary site quality shocks and is complementary to the travel cost literature regarding the treatment of onsite time. Our findings should also serve as an encouragement for new modeling endeavors within the travel cost literature.