Overview
The natural resources of Tampa Bay support essential industries such as tourism, mineral extraction, marine transportation, and other commercial and recreational activities. With funding support from the Tampa Bay Environmental Restoration Fund (TBERF), the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council (TBRPC) designed a study to provide an economic valuation of the natural resources in Tampa Bay and its watershed. The results, presented in the 2023 Economic Valuation of Tampa Bay, demonstrate the Tampa Bay estuary’s value in providing substantial economic, social, and environmental benefits to the region’s industries, residents, and visitors.
The report illustrates Tampa Bay’s value in three different ways:
1. Annual economic impacts, including output, jobs, and wages, generated by bay-dependent industries on the economy. Combining direct, indirect, and induced impacts from bay-dependent industries shows that the estuary supports 207,068 employees, $10.4 billion in personal income, and $32.1 billion in total output each year. This means approximately one in ten total jobs and 10.8 percent of the watershed’s total output is sustained by the estuary.
2. Proximity effects of the bay on property value premiums. A comparable single-family parcel located within a quarter mile of the water receives a premium of approximately $52,769 to its assessed value. In total, this proximity effect adds $3.23 billion to the region’s property values.
3. Value of ecosystem services provided by habitats, such as mangrove forests, saltwater marshes, and freshwater wetlands. Using ecosystem services as a measure of value, habitats of the Tampa Bay estuary provide $52.29 million each year in carbon sequestration services, $714.51 million each year worth of denitrification services, and $924.44 million in flood protection services over 30 years for a flood that has a 1% chance of occurrence in any given year.
The final report, both full and condensed versions, can be downloaded using the links on the right side of this page.
The results of the report can be explored using the interactive Shiny dashboard. The dashboard includes a summary of the results and allows for a more immersive and interactive experience with the data. The dashboard also includes options for data download.
A screenshot of the Tampa Bay Economic Valuation Dashboard, which can be accessed via the link on the right side of this page.
All of the source code for generating the dashboard are provided on GitHub. Data underlying the report are available for use by TBEP’s partners or any interested parties, provided the report is properly cited in any subsequent publications.
