Objective

Our report for the Great Lakes National Program Office of ECCC was a summary and synthesis of existing economic studies relevant to protection and restoration of Great Lakes water quality and ecosystem health and identified key gaps in information available on the economic value or protection and restoration of Great Lakes water quality and ecosystem health. The report presents the key findings of the reviewed studies and provided recommendations for future works on valuation related to Great Lakes water quality and ecosystem health. More specifically, the report:

• provided an overview of the main approaches taken by economists to environmental valuation intended for non-experts
• described the approach we took to identifying the studies we reviewed
• summarized the findings of our review
• provided our recommendation for future work on valuation related to Great Lakes water quality and ecosystem health
• provided a detailed summary of each of the studies reviewed using a standardized template

Our Role

Robert Smith, principal of Midsummer Analytics, was project lead for this report prepared for ECCC. Midsummer Analytics has previously reported on these subjects, specifically with respect to Lake Erie (Smith, 2014). The introduction of this report extracts material from that report to summarize the ways restoration and protection of Great Lakes water quality/ecosystem health can be evaluated through an economic lens.