Uncertainty in the information obtained through monitoring complicates decision making about aquatic ecosystems management actions. We suggest the value of information (VOI) to assess the profitability of paying for additional monitoring information, when taking into account the costs and benefits of monitoring and management actions, as well as associated uncertainty. Estimating the monetary value of the ecosystem needed for deriving VOI is challenging. Therefore, instead of considering a single value, we evaluate the sensitivity of VOI to varying monetary value. We also extend the VOI analysis to the more realistic context where additional information does not result in perfect, but rather in imperfect information on the true state of the environment. Therefore, we analytically derive the value of perfect information in the case of two alternative decisions and two states of uncertainty. Second, we describe a Monte Carlo type of approach to evaluate the value of imperfect information about a continuous classification variable. Third, we determine confidence intervals for the VOI with a percentile bootstrap method. Results for our case study on 144 Finnish lakes suggest that generally, the value of monitoring exceeds the cost. It is particularly profitable to monitor lakes that meet the quality standards a priori, to ascertain that expensive and unnecessary management can be avoided. The VOI analysis provides a novel tool for lake and other environmental managers to estimate the value of additional monitoring data for a particular, single case, e.g. a lake, when an additional benefit is attainable through remedial management actions.

通过监测获得的信息的不确定性使有关水生生态系统管理行动的决策复杂化。考虑到监视和管理措施的成本和收益以及相关的不确定性，我们建议使用信息价值（VOI）来评估支付额外的监视信息的获利能力。估算得出VOI所需的生态系统的货币价值具有挑战性。因此，我们不考虑单个值，而是评估VOI对变化的货币价值的敏感性。我们还将VOI分析扩展到了更现实的环境，在该环境中，附加信息并不能带来完美的信息，而是导致有关环境真实状态的不完美信息。因此，在两个替代决策和两个不确定状态的情况下，我们通过分析得出完美信息的价值。其次，我们描述一种蒙特卡洛（Monte Carlo）类型的方法来评估有关连续分类变量的不完全信息的值。第三，我们使用百分比自举法确定VOI的置信区间。我们对144个芬兰湖泊进行案例研究的结果表明，总体而言，监测的价值超过了成本。事先监测符合质量标准的湖泊，以确保可以避免昂贵和不必要的管理，这特别有利可图。VOI分析为湖泊和其他环境管理人员提供了一种新颖的工具，可用于评估特定单个案例（例如湖泊，