Research

This report examines how marine and coastal heritage assets can be managed to enhance their ability to deliver natural capital benefits while preserving their historic significance. Through a rapid literature review, stakeholder engagement, and interdisciplinary analysis, the study identifies how marine and coastal heritage assets support ecosystem services, highlighting a range of management approaches to increase co-benefits, challenges and recommendations.

This research summarises the current methods and data sources available to help carry out an ecosystem service or natural capital assessment for flood and coastal erosion risk management and marine habitat restoration schemes. Based on a review of ecosystem service classification systems and previous studies, six key ecosystem services have been identified as significant benefit providing services in the marine environment. The outlined valuation techniques can be used to conduct a marine natural capital assessment. However, it is acknowledged that there are a number of factors that limit the applicability of this methodology in the marine environment and specifically for coastal management schemes. The most significant limitations are the lack of available data on the marine environment and the interconnected nature of marine ecosystem service delivery.