The Indian River Lagoon generates more than $28 billion in annual economic impact and supports over 128,000 jobs across seven counties, according to a new valuation released by the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program.
The Balmoral Group conducted the analysis through funding from EPA and NOAA, updating the region’s last economic valuation from 2016. That earlier study estimated the lagoon delivered a 33-to-1 return on investment for dollars spent on restoration and clean water.
“The last economic report for the Indian River Lagoon was back in 2016, and we at the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program have wanted to update that work, but we never had the capacity financially to do the work,” said Duane De Freese, executive director of One Lagoon.
He said the organization launched a yearlong research effort to produce a more comprehensive view of the lagoon’s value.
“A year ago we started the very rigorous research that needs to be done to look at not just the traditional economic impacts that you see with economic development commissions, but also look at the ecosystem service values that habitat restoration delivers,” De Freese said.
In the 2016 analysis, each dollar invested in lagoon restoration generated roughly $33 in value. De Freese said today’s study shows a dramatically greater economic return because earlier calculations did not include major contributors such as real estate and workforce growth.
“This is four times that,” he said. “And the reason it’s so different is back in 2016, they didn’t look at all of the factors contributing to value. So, they didn’t look at real estate. No question we’ve had a pretty radical expansion of growth in our workforce. We’ve had increase in real estate value.”
The new research evaluates direct, indirect and induced impacts tied to the lagoon economy. Direct impacts include jobs and spending connected directly to the waterway. Indirect impacts come from supply-chain economic activity, and induced impacts reflect spending of wages in the community, including jobs created through habitat restoration.
“And one of the unique aspects of this, which had never been done before for the Indian River Lagoon, is to look at the ecosystem services values that are provided by not only each of the kind of sectors, but also the benefit return ratio for those very specific projects in the NOAA project,” De Freese said.
The study estimates more than $10 billion in annual ecosystem service value, including $6.8 billion generated by recreational fishing, boating and shoreline activity, and another $3 billion tied to water quality, property values and other categories.
“This report shows that just recreational fishing, boating, and shoreline activities alone deliver $6.8 billion to our economy. That’s good for everybody,” he said. “I think one of the messages is that natural resources have value, and that value is significant. And at similar levels to industries that we’ve recognized for decades, like tourism, like agriculture, like industry, our natural resources are a major economic engine.”
De Freese said state investment has played a substantial role in the lagoon’s economic performance.
“Governor DeSantis, over the course of his now seven years, has invested, when you combine the water quality investments of the Florida legislature and the governor and the coastal resilience funds, we’re over $9 billion of state investment in water quality or coastal resilience,” he said.
He believes the financial commitment has helped drive recent improvements.
“That level of local, state, and federal investment, including the work that the National Estuary Program does to coordinate and convene and collaborate all of those partners, I’m convinced that what we’re seeing in improvement with water quality and seagrasses is being influenced directly and indirectly by the investments that we’re making,” De Freese said.
Still, he said the lagoon remains vulnerable and restoration work must continue.
“For nine, almost 10 years, we lost 90% of our seagrasses, had starving manatees, we have health impacts to Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, impacts to our fisheries. While we’re in the early stages of recovery, we still have to continue to invest in the work that we’re doing,” he said.
The NOAA-funded restoration projects included in the valuation show benefit-cost ratios ranging from 1.2 to 59.8, with an overall projected return on investment of 24 to 1.
The updated study encompasses 7 counties, 38 municipalities and 3.5 million residents across the lagoon watershed. It reports $17 billion in direct spending, $5.8 billion in indirect economic activity and nearly $4 billion in induced impacts, along with a $23 billion influence on property values.
The Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program released the full report at OneLagoon.org.