Valoración de los efectos socioeconómicos y los recursos naturales en el contexto de la variabilidad climática en zonas costeras de Costa Rica

Abstract

The natural resources and ecosystem services of the coastal area in Costa Rica are vital not only for the development of the communities that live in them, but also for the national economy. Climate variability and climate change affect and will affect these resources and the socioeconomic activities that depend on them. It has generated scientific information on some of these effects, but in many cases has not been accompanied by analyzes to approximate the economic effects that will have the climate variability on productive activities. An analysis of the activities of fishing and tourism in coastal areas of Costa Rica was made and it was found that the production variables of these activities are correlated with sea surface temperature and precipitation. A literature review on the methods that have been employed to obtain an approximate value of the climatic variables variations on tourism and coastal fishing was made too. The main result of this review was that there is not a methodological approach that integrate the different steps that must be followed to develop the economic valuation of different socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the climate variability on economic activities in coastal areas. With the purpose of propose a comprehensive methodology a several analysis were carry out. In first place and due to the variability and climate change are influenced by what happens in the climate system an analysis of the components of this system was made. This analysis include how these components are affected by climatic variations and how these changes are currently being measured. Based on the above information a methodological approach was propose. This methodology allows identifying the effects that on natural resources have the variations in climatic variables and then to evaluate its effect on the economic activities that employ them. Finally, the methodology proposed was applied to a case of tourism in Coco´s Island National Park (NPCI) and in the artisanal fishing in Costa Rica. It was found that the proposed methodology is feasible to apply in these two conditions and that the revenue from economic activities will be reduced if there are increases in sea surface temperature and related natural resources are diminished.