Assessing the Benefit Produced by Marine Protected Areas: The Case of Porto Cesareo Marine Protected Area (Italy)

The article focuses on the integrated environmental accounting model called ‘eValue’, developed for protected areas and applied in research programme coordinated by Italian Ministry of Environment aimed at implementing an system Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). eValue adopts a cost-benefit analysis approach. Financial based costs revenues is with accounting, which reflects revenues, i.e., benefits. environ-mental assess impacts related to human activities MPA expressed calculating carbon footprint benefits marine ecosystem services calculated applying monetary valuation techniques. values thus estimated flow into annual account, where value produced (or consumed) difference. was Porto Cesareo (Italy). showed that benefit-cost ratio reaches 3.4. Furthermore, net benefit public funding 3.7, completely covering number transfers summarizing overall money.