The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) commissioned this report to produce an aggregate Total Economic Value for U.S. coral reefs from the seven U.S. states and territories with coral reefs (American Samoa, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands). The objectives of report were to:
provide an overview of the value of US coral reefs,
assess the composition of this value in terms of ecosystem services (tourism, fisheries, coastal protection, amenity value, etc.),
identify gaps in the value information that is currently available, and
estimate a value function for US coral reefs using statistical meta-analysis.
This overview of the value of services provided by US coral reefs shows an emerging picture of the economic welfare derived from these ecosystems. The estimated total economic value
of coral reef services for the US as a whole is just over US$ 3.4 billion per year. This value is considered to be a partial estimate due to (1) the limited geographical coverage of some state/territory level TEV estimates, and (2) the limited set of services that are valued for some states
and territories.
