We outline the principles of the natural capital approach to decision making and apply these to the contemporary challenge of very significantly expanding woodlands as contribution to attaining net zero emissions of greenhouse gases. Drawing on the case of the UK, we argue that a single focus upon carbon storage alone is likely to overlook the other ‘net zero plus’ benefits which woodlands can deliver. A review of the literature considers the wide variety of potential benefits which woodlands can provide, together with costs such as foregone alternative land uses. We argue that decision making must consider all of these potential benefits and costs for the right locations to be planted with the right trees. The paper closes by reviewing the decision support systems necessary to incorporate this information into policy and decision making. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Improvements to the quality of freshwater rivers and lakes can generate a wide array of benefits, from "use values" such as recreational boating, fishing, and swimming to "nonuse values" such as improved outcomes for aquatic biodiversity. Bringing these nonmarket values into decision-making is crucial to determining appropriate levels of investment in water quality improvements. However, progress in the economic valuation of water quality benefits has lagged similar efforts to value air quality benefits, with implications for water policy. New data sources, modeling techniques, and innovation in stated preference survey methods offer notable improvements to estimates of use and nonuse benefits of improved water quality. Here, we provide a perspective on how recent applications of stated preference techniques to the valuation of the nonmarket benefits of water quality improvements have advanced the field of environmental valuation. This overview is structured around four key questions: i) What is it about water quality that we seek to value? ii) How should we design and implement the surveys which elicit individuals' stated preferences? iii) How do we assess the validity of the findings provided by such studies? and iv) What are the contributions of these valuation exercises to public policy? in answering these questions, we make reference to the contributions provided by the papers in this Symposium.

The food system is a major source of both environmental and health challenges. Yet, the extent to which policy-induced changes in the patterns of food demand address these challenges remains poorly understood. Using a randomised-controlled survey of 5,912 respondents from the United Kingdom (UK), we evaluate the potential impact of carbon and/or health taxes, information and combined tax and information strategies on food purchase patterns and their resulting impact on greenhouse gas emissions and dietary health. Our results show that while information on the carbon and/or health characteristics of food is not irrelevant, it is the imposition of taxes which exerts the most substantial effects on food purchasing decisions. Furthermore, while carbon or health taxes are best at separately targeting emissions and health challenges respectively, a combined carbon and health tax policy maximises benefits both in terms of environmental and health outcomes. We show that such a combined policy could contribute to around one third of the residual emission reductions required to achieve the UK’s 2050 net zero commitments, while discouraging the purchase of unhealthy snacks, sugary drinks and alcohol and increasing the purchase of fruit and vegetables.

We estimated the influence of human disturbance and environmental factors on territory establishment in common ringed plovers Charadrius hiaticula and Eurasian oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus, to inform the conservation of these species. We examined a 212 km stretch of coastline in the United Kingdom in 2003, mapping all breeding pairs of both study species, as well as the environmental characteristics of beaches and locations of visitors on the beach, the latter measured by filming from a light aircraft. of the 1003,200 m sections of beach surveyed, 183 contained ringed plover territories (267 breeding pairs) and 117 contained oystercatcher territories (226 breeding pairs). 38,634 human visitors to the beach were mapped from three flights. Population densities of both ringed plovers and oystercatchers were lower in locations with high visitor numbers, even when accounting for the influence of the environmental characteristics of the beach. The two bird species showed similar rates of territory establishment at very low visitor rates, but oystercatchers showed a stronger negative response when visitor rates reached higher levels. Binary logistic regression models were used to identify areas where the birds would benefit most from reductions in the number of visitors and we illustrate how this information could be used to inform management around sites otherwise favourable for territory establishment.

Marine coastal ecosystems, commonly referred to as blue ecosystems, provide valuable services to society but are under increasing threat worldwide due to a variety of drivers, including eutrophication, development, land-use change, land reclamation, and climate change. Ecological restoration is sometimes necessary to facilitate recovery in coastal ecosystems. Blue restoration (i.e. in marine coastal systems) is a developing field, and projects to date have been small scale and expensive, leading to the perception that restoration may not be economically viable. We conducted a global cost-benefit analysis to determine the net benefits of restoring coral reef, mangrove, saltmarsh, and seagrass ecosystems, where the benefit is defined as the monetary value of ecosystem services. We estimated costs from published restoration case studies and used an adjusted-value-transfer method to assign benefit values to these case studies. Benefit values were estimated as the monetary value provided by ecosystem services of the restored habitats. Benefits outweighed costs (i.e. there were positive net benefits) for restoration of all blue ecosystems. Mean benefit:cost ratios for ecosystem restoration were eight to 10 times higher than prior studies of coral reef and seagrass restoration, most likely due to the more recent lower cost estimates we used. Among ecosystems, saltmarsh had the greatest net benefits followed by mangrove; coral reef and seagrass ecosystems had lower net benefits. In general, restoration in nations with middle incomes had higher (eight times higher in coral reefs and 40 times higher in mangroves) net benefits than those with high incomes. Within an ecosystem type, net benefit varied with restoration technique (coral reef and saltmarsh), ecosystem service produced (mangrove and saltmarsh), and project duration (seagrass). These results challenge the perceptions of the low economic viability of blue restoration and should encourage further targeted investment in this field.

AbstractCoronavirus has claimed the lives of over half a million people world-wide and this death toll continues to rise rapidly each day. In the absence of a vaccine, non-clinical preventative measures have been implemented as the principal means of limiting deaths. However, these measures have caused unprecedented disruption to daily lives and economic activity. Given this developing crisis, the potential for a second wave of infections and the near certainty of future pandemics, lessons need to be rapidly gleaned from the available data. We address the challenges of cross-country comparisons by allowing for differences in reporting and variation in underlying socio-economic conditions between countries. Our analyses show that, to date, differences in policy interventions have out-weighed socio-economic variation in explaining the range of death rates observed in the data. Our epidemiological models show that across 8 countries a further week long delay in imposing lockdown would likely have cost more than half a million lives. Furthermore, those countries which acted more promptly saved substantially more lives than those that delayed. Linking decisions over the timing of lockdown and consequent deaths to economic data, we reveal the costs that national governments were implicitly prepared to pay to protect their citizens as reflected in the economic activity foregone to save lives. These ‘price of life’ estimates vary enormously between countries, ranging from as low as around $100,000 (e.g. the UK, US and Italy) to in excess of $1million (e.g. Denmark, Germany, New Zealand and Korea). The lowest estimates are further reduced once we correct for under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths.

We present details of the EAERE Award for the Best Paper Published in Environmental and Resource Economics During 2019 together with those Highly Commended papers published during this period.

Gross domestic product (GDP) summarizes a vast amount of economic information in a single monetary metric that is widely used by decision makers around the world. However, GDP fails to capture fully the contributions of nature to economic activity and human well-being. To address this critical omission, we develop a measure of gross ecosystem product (GEP) that summarizes the value of ecosystem services in a single monetary metric. We illustrate the measurement of GEP through an application to the Chinese province of Qinghai, showing that the approach is tractable using available data. Known as the "water tower of Asia," Qinghai is the source of the Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers, and indeed, we find that water-related ecosystem services make up nearly two-thirds of the value of GEP for Qinghai. Importantly most of these benefits accrue downstream. In Qinghai, GEP was greater than GDP in 2000 and three-fourths as large as GDP in 2015 as its market economy grew. Large-scale investment in restoration resulted in improvements in the flows of ecosystem services measured in GEP (127.5%) over this period. Going forward, China is using GEP in decision making in multiple ways, as part of a transformation to inclusive, green growth. This includes investing in conservation of ecosystem assets to secure provision of ecosystem services through transregional compensation payments.

Abstract
. The impact of climate change on vegetation including agricultural production has been the focus of many studies. Climate change is expected to have heterogeneous effects across locations globally, and the diversity of land uses characterising Great Britain (GB) presents a unique opportunity to test methods for assessing climate change effects and impacts. GB is a relatively cool and damp country, hence, the warmer and generally drier growing season conditions projected for the future are expected to increase arable production. Here we use state-of-the-art, kilometre-scale climate change scenarios to drive a land surface model (JULES; Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) and an ECOnometric AGricultural land use model (ECO-AG). Under unmitigated climate change, by the end of the century, the growing season in GB is projected to get >5 °C warmer and 140 mm drier on average. Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 are predicted to counteract the generally negative impacts of climate change on vegetation productivity in JULES. Given sufficient precipitation, warming favours higher value arable production over grassland agriculture, causing a predicted westward expansion of arable farming in ECO-AG. However, drying in the East and Southeast, without any CO2 fertilisation effect, is severe enough to cause a predicted reversion from arable to grassland farming. Irrigation, if implemented, could maintain this land in arable production. However, the predicted irrigation demand of ∼200 mm (per growing season) in many locations is comparable to annual predicted runoff, potentially demanding large-scale redistribution of water between seasons and/or across the country. The strength of the CO2 fertilisation effect emerges as a crucial uncertainty in projecting the impact of climate change on GB vegetation, especially farming land-use decisions.

In early 2019 the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union and with it the Common Agricultural Policy. The UK Government has announced its intentions to formulate a novel agricultural policy following the principle that public funding should be restricted to the provision of public goods. However, the acceptance, interpretation and application of this principle is the subject of intense debate. We overview the background to this debate, reveal the major flaws in present policy and identify and provide our answers to three key questions which future policy must address: (1) What are the farm related public goods that public money should support?; (2) How should that spending be allocated?; (3) How much should be spent? We believe that these questions and their answers will be of general interest beyond the UK.

An important motivation for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive is the creation of non-market environmental benefits, such as improved ecological quality, or greater opportunities for open-access river recreation via microbial pollution remediation. Pollution sources impacting on ecological or recreational water quality may be uncorrelated, but non-market benefits arising from riverine improvements are typically conflated within benefit valuation studies. Using stated preference choice experiments embedded within a survey that also collected respondents' socio-economic characteristics, we aimed to disaggregate these sources of value for different river users, thereby allowing decision makers to understand the consequences of adopting alternative investment strategies. Our results suggested that anglers derived greater value from improvements to the ecological quality of river water, in contrast to swimmers and rowers, for whom greater value is gained from improvements to recreational quality. More generally, we found three distinct groups of respondents: a majority preferring ecological over recreational improvements, a substantial minority holding opposing preference orderings, and a yet smaller proportion expressing relatively low values for either form of river quality enhancement. As such, this research demonstrates that the non-market benefits that may accrue from different types of water quality improvements are nuanced in terms of their potential beneficiaries and, by inference, their overall value and policy implications.

Cairns, R. Wilsdon, J. O’Donovan, C. Arora, S. Bateman, I.J. Charman, D. Cranston, G. Mehta, L. Pharoah, J. Reynolds, J. Stirling, A. Tranter, H. and Welters, R. (2017). Sustainability in Turbulent Times: Lessons from the Nexus Network for supporting transdisciplinary research. The Nexus Network, available at www.thenexusnetwork.org

We present an integrated model of the direct consequences of climate change on land use, and the indirect effects of induced land use change upon the natural environment. The model predicts climate-driven shifts in the profitability of alternative uses of agricultural land. Both the direct impact of climate change and the induced shift in land use patterns will cause secondary effects on the water environment, for which agriculture is the major source of diffuse pollution. We model the impact of changes in such pollution on riverine ecosystems showing that these will be spatially heterogeneous. Moreover, we consider further knock-on effects upon the recreational benefits derived from water environments, which we assess using revealed preference methods. This analysis permits a multi-layered examination of the economic consequences of climate change, assessing the sequence of impacts from climate change through farm gross margins, land use, water quality and recreation, both at the individual and catchment scale.

Significance
.
. Protected public lands are insufficient to halt the loss of global biodiversity. However, most commercial landowners need incentives to engage in conservation. Through an interdisciplinary study examining palm-oil plantations in Sumatra, we demonstrate that (
. i
. ) joint consideration of both biodiversity and economic relationships permits the spatial targeting of areas that enhance conservation of International Union for Conservation of Nature Red Listed species at relatively low cost to the landowner and (
. ii
. ) the potential exists for funding such private costs of conservation through a price premium on a conservation-certified good. Such an approach avoids the need to assume intervention from an international social planner, while establishing the potential for profitable conservation on private lands, providing an important additional route for sustaining endangered species.
.

. The central challenge of the 21st century is to develop economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being. Essential to meeting this challenge is the incorporation of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides into decision-making. We explore progress and crucial gaps at this frontier, reflecting upon the 10 y since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We focus on three key dimensions of progress and ongoing challenges: raising awareness of the interdependence of ecosystems and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science of ecosystem services, and implementing this science in decisions to restore natural capital and use it sustainably. Awareness of human dependence on nature is at an all-time high, the science of ecosystem services is rapidly advancing, and talk of natural capital is now common from governments to corporate boardrooms. However, successful implementation is still in early stages. We explore why ecosystem service information has yet to fundamentally change decision-making and suggest a path forward that emphasizes: (
. i
. ) developing solid evidence linking decisions to impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, and then to human well-being; (
. ii
. ) working closely with leaders in government, business, and civil society to develop the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into everyday decision-making; and (
. iii
. ) reforming institutions to change policy and practices to better align private short-term goals with societal long-term goals.
.

Encouraging adaptation is an essential aspect of the policy response to climate change. Adaptation seeks to reduce the harmful consequences and harness any beneficial opportunities arising from the changing climate. However, given that human activities are the main cause of environmental transformations worldwide, it follows that adaptation itself also has the potential to generate further pressures, creating new threats for both local and global ecosystems. From this perspective, policies designed to encourage adaptation may conflict with regulation aimed at preserving or enhancing environmental quality. This aspect of adaptation has received relatively little consideration in either policy design or academic debate. To highlight this issue, we analyse the trade-offs between two fundamental ecosystem services that will be impacted by climate change: provisioning services derived from agriculture and regulating services in the form of freshwater quality. Results indicate that climate adaptation in the farming sector will generate fundamental changes in river water quality. In some areas, policies that encourage adaptation are expected to be in conflict with existing regulations aimed at improving freshwater ecosystems. These findings illustrate the importance of anticipating the wider impacts of human adaptation to climate change when designing environmental policies.

We combine natural science modelling and valuation techniques to present economic analyses of a variety of land use change scenarios generated for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. Specifically, the agricultural, greenhouse gas, recreational and urban greenspace impacts of the envisioned land use changes are valued. Particular attention is given to the incorporation of spatial variation in the natural environment and to addressing issues such as biodiversity impacts where reliable values are not available. Results show that the incorporation of ecosystem services and their values within analyses can substantially change decisions. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

The opportunity Value of Travel Time (VTT) is one of the most important elements of the total cost of recreation day-trips and arguably the most difficult to estimate. Most studies build upon the theoretical framework proposed by Becker (1965) by using a combination of revealed and stated preference data to estimate a value of time which is uniform in all activities and under all circumstances. This restriction is relaxed by DeSerpa's (1971) model which allows the value of saving time to be activity-specific. We present the first analysis which uses actual driving choices between open access and toll roads to estimate a VTT specific for recreation trips, thereby providing a value which conforms to both Becker's and DeSerpa's theoretical models. Using these findings we conduct a Monte Carlo simulation to identify generalizable results for subsequent valuation studies. Our results indicate that 3/4 of the wage rate provides a reasonable approximation of the average VTT for recreation trips, while the commonly implemented assumption of 1/3 of the wage rate generates downward biased results. © 2013 the Authors.

This article provides estimates of the physical and economic value of changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions projected to arise from climate change induced shifts in UK agricultural land use during the period 2004-2060. In physical terms, significant regional differences are predicted with the intensity of agricultural GHG emissions increasing in the upland north and western parts of the UK and decreasing in the lowland south and east of the country. Overall these imply relative modest increases in the physical quantity of emissions. However, rapid rises in the expected marginal value of such emissions translate these trends into major increases in their economic costs over the period considered. © 2013 European Union.

This paper provides an estimate of the contribution of the ecosystem to the provisioning services generated by agriculture. This is achieved by valuing the changes in productivity generated by a marginal alteration in ecosystem inputs. As an example, we consider the variation in rainfall and temperature projected by the recent UK Climate Impacts Programme. The analysis implements a spatially explicit, econometric model of agricultural land use based on the methodology recently developed by Fezzi and Bateman (Am J Agric Econ 93:1168-1188, 2011). Land use area and livestock stocking rates are then employed to calculate farm gross margin estimates of the value of changes in provisioning ecosystem services. Findings suggest that the variation in ecosystem inputs induced by climate change will have substantial influence on agricultural productivity. Interestingly, within the UK context climate change generates mainly positive effects, although losses are forecasted for those southern areas most vulnerable to heat-stress and drought. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Landscapes generate a wide range of valuable ecosystem services, yet land-use decisions often ignore the value of these services. Using the example of the United Kingdom, we show the significance of land-use change not only for agricultural production but also for emissions and sequestration of greenhouse gases, open-access recreational visits, urban green space, and wild-species diversity. We use spatially explicit models in conjunction with valuation methods to estimate comparable economic values for these services, taking account of climate change impacts. We show that, although decisions that focus solely on agriculture reduce overall ecosystem service values, highly significant value increases can be obtained from targeted planning by incorporating all potential services and their values and that this approach also conserves wild-species diversity.

Clearer understanding is needed of the premises underlying SI and how it relates to food-system priorities.

We investigate conflicts between wildlife conservation and recreational use that can occur at open-access sites when visitors dislike crowding. A theoretical model is proposed which determines the spatial distributions of visitors to a beach, given their willingness to walk to avoid crowding and the configuration of beach access points. This model is estimated for three sections of coastline in eastern England using data from aerial video photography. Visitor density is strongly and negatively correlated with distance from access points. Willingness to walk has a highly skewed population distribution. We discuss the implications of these findings for the management of conflicts between conservation and recreation at open-access sites. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Results are presented from a large-scale stated preference study designed to estimate the nonmarket benefits for households in England and Wales arising from the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD). Multiple elicitation methods (a discrete choice experiment and two forms of contingent valuation) are employed, with the order in which they are asked randomly varied across respondents, to obtain a robust model for valuing specified WFD implementation programs applied to all of the lakes, reservoirs, rivers, canals, transitional, and coastal waters of England and Wales. The potential for subsequent policy incorporation and value transfer was enhanced by generating area-based values. These were found to vary from 2,263 to 39,168 per km 2 depending on the population density around the location of the improvement, the ecological scope of that improvement, and the value elicitation method employed. While the former factors are consistent with expectations, the latter suggests that decision makers need to be aware of such methodological effects when employing derived values. Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union.

Arguably the greatest challenge to contemporary research is to capture the inter-relatedness and complexity of the real world environment within models so at to better inform decision makers of the accurate and complete consequences of differing options. The paper presents an integrated model of the consequence of climate change upon land use and the secondary and subsequent effects arising subsequently. The model predicts the shift in land use which climate change is likely to induce and the impacts upon farm gross margins arising from this. However, both the direct driver of climate change and the induced shift in land use patterns will cause secondary effects upon the water environment for which agriculture is the major source of diffuse pollution. We model the consequent impact of changes in such pollution upon water ecology showing that these will be spatially specific and significant. These impacts are likely to cause further knock-on effects upon the recreational benefits of water environments and these are assessed using a spatially explicit revealed preference database. Taken together this analysis permits a holistic examination of a much wider range of effects and net value consequences arising from climate change impacts upon land use.

Ricardian models predicting the impact of climate change on agriculture are typically estimated on data aggregated across counties and assuming additively separable effects of temperature and precipitation. We investigate the potential bias induced by such assumptions by using a large panel of farm-level data and estimating a semi-parametric specification. Consistent with the agronomic literature, we observe significant nonlinear interaction effects, with more abundant precipitation being a mitigating factor for heat stress. This interaction disappears when the same data is aggregated in the conventional manner, leading to predictions of climate change impacts which are severely distorted.

We present an experiment designed to investigate the presence and nature of ordering effects within repeat-response stated preference (SP) studies. Our experiment takes the form of a large sample, full-factorial, discrete choice SP exercise investigating preferences for tap water quality improvements. Our study simultaneously investigates a variety of different forms of position-dependent and precedent-dependent ordering effect in preferences for attributes and options and in response randomness. We also examine whether advanced disclosure of the choice tasks impacts on the probability of exhibiting ordering effects of those different types. We analyze our data both non-parametrically and parametrically and find robust evidence for ordering effects. We also find that the patterns of order effect in respondents' preferences are significantly changed but not eradicated by the advanced disclosure of choice tasks a finding that offers insights into the choice behaviors underpinning order effects. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.

Non-market techniques are widely used for valuing environmental goods and services. Recent articles obtain results showing respondents to the right of the political spectrum are significantly less likely to vote in favour of environmental programs that provide public goods through public means. In consequence, their WTP is lower than that of individuals on the political left. We examine whether WTP differs systematically in accordance with political affiliation by using data from three stated preference surveys. We obtain results similar to the previous literature from only one survey. Our other two surveys employ different contexts that change the nature of the benefits from the good and/or its provision mechanism. The first of these finds no significant differences in WTP by respondent political affiliation and the second finds that respondents on the right of the political spectrum have statistically higher WTPs for a good when it is privately provided than under collective provision. Our results provide further support that context matters and that preferences elicited from surveys for environmental goods are not necessarily independent of the means by which the good is provided. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Recent interest in the economics of biodiversity and wider ecosystem services has been given empirical expression through a focus upon economic valuation. This emphasis has been prompted by a growing recognition that the benefits and opportunity costs associated with such services are frequently given cursory consideration in policy analyses or even completely ignored. The valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services is therefore increasingly seen as a crucial element of robust decision making and this has been reflected in a growing body of related research. We provide a critical review of some of this research, considering the valuation methods applied to date and focussing upon their limitations in respect to certain categories of ecosystem services (particularly cultural services) and the applicability of the extant literature to new settings. Substantial questions also remain at the interface of natural science and economics and we consider the potential contribution of the conceptualization of ecosystems as assets as a response to this challenge. As part of this review we also highlight the role which large scale 'ecosystem assessments' have played as an impetus to extending the valuation evidence base and the way in which frameworks and assessments of how ecosystems contribute to human wellbeing might be translated into policy thinking and decision analyses. © the Authors 2012. Published by Oxford University Press.

Using choice experiment data for economic valuation we analyse how disbelief in survey information could affect the retrieved welfare estimates. We distinguish between two types of survey information to the respondents. The first type of information concerns the current environmental status of a water body. This information is provided prior to the valuation questions and the corresponding beliefs in the provided information are also elicited before valuation. The second type of information concerns the proposed improvements in the environmental status of the water body. We find that average welfare measures differ considerably according to whether respondents who disagree with the status quo levels and find proposed scenarios unlikely are included or not. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Despite heightened awareness of the need to find additional resources for tropical biodiversity conservation, and recognition that the benefits to populations in developed countries may be significant, very few empirical studies have been conducted to estimate these values. In this article, we report the results of a choice experiment survey that investigated the preferences of UK residents for the conservation of threatened wildlife in the Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania, part of the Eastern Afromontane "biodiversity hotspot". We examine the sensitivity of values to species types, the number of species, the number of conservation sites and, more unusually, to potential substitutes/complements. Critically we find some evidence of coherency in preferences. Respondents are willing to pay significant, positive amounts to conserve charismatic and/or endemic species and are scope sensitive to the number of endemic species. In contrast, species which are neither endemic nor charismatic, and the number of conservation sites, do not contribute significantly to utility. Further, changing the overall scope of the 'good' is found to have a significant and differential impact on respondent's choices depending on the species type: as the availability of wildlife increases, we observe substitution effects for non-endemic charismatic species, and complementarity for endemic (non-charismatic) species. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Mapping the distribution of the quantity and value of forest benefits to local communities is useful for forest management, when socio-economic and conservation objectives may need to be traded off. We develop a modelling approach for the economic valuation of annual Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) extraction at a large spatial scale, which has 4 main strengths: (1) it is based on household production functions using data of actual household behaviour, (2) it is spatially sensitive, using a range of explanatory variables related to socio-demographic characteristics, population density, resource availability and accessibility, (3) it captures the value of the actual flow rather than the potential stock, and (4) it is generic and can therefore be up-scaled across non-surveyed areas. We illustrate the empirical application of this approach in an analysis of charcoal production in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania, using a dataset comprising over 1100 observations from 45 villages. The total flow of charcoal benefits is estimated at USD 14. million per year, providing an important source of income to local households, and supplying around 11% of the charcoal used in Dar es Salaam and other major cities. We discuss the potential and limitations of up-scaling micro-level analysis for NTFP valuation. © 2012.

The opportunity Value of Travel Time (VTT) is one of the most important parts of the total cost of recreation day-trips and arguably the most difficult to estimate. Most studies build upon the theoretical framework proposed by Becker's (1965) by using a combination of revealed and stated preference data to estimate a value of time which is uniform in all activities and under all circumstances. This restriction is relaxed by DeSerpa's (1971) model which allows the value of saving time to be activity-specific. We present the first analysis which uses actual driving choices between open access and toll roads to estimate a VTT specific for recreation trips, thereby providing a value which conforms to both Becker's and DeSerpa's models. Using these findings we conduct a Monte Carlo simulation to identify generalizable results for use in subsequent valuation studies.

Background: There is a need to identify and analyse the range of models developed to date for delivering health-related lifestyle advice (HRLA), or training, for effectiveness and cost-effectiveness in improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities in the UK, with particular reference to the reduction of inequalities. Objectives: to identify the component intervention techniques of lifestyle advisors (LAs) in the UK and similar contexts, and the outcomes of HRLA interventions. Data sources: Stakeholder views, secondary analysis of the National Survey of Health Trainer Activity, telephone survey of health trainer leads/coordinators. A search of a range of electronic databases was undertaken [including the Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), EMBASE, NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), MEDLINE, Psyc INFO, etc.], as well searching relevant journals and reference lists, conducted from inception to September 2008. Review methods: Identified studies were scanned by two reviewers and those meeting the following criteria were included: studies carrying out an evaluation of HRLA; those taking place in developed countries similar to the UK context; those looking at adult groups; interventions with the explicit aim of health improvement; interventions that involved paid or voluntary work with an individual or group of peers acting in an advisory role; advice delivered by post, online or electronically; training, support or counselling delivered to patients, communities or members of the public. After quality assessment, studies were selected for inclusion in the review. Data were abstracted from each study according to an agreed procedure and narrative, and realist and economic approaches were used to synthesise the data. Cost-effectiveness analysis of interventions was undertaken. Results: in total, 269 studies were identified but 243 were excluded. The 26 included studies addressing chronic care, mental health, breastfeeding, smoking, diet and physical activity, screening and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection prevention. Overall, there was insufficient evidence to either support or refute the use of LAs to promote health and improve quality of life (QoL), and thus uncertainty about the interventions' cost-effectiveness. However, the economic analysis showed that LA interventions were cost-effective in chronic care and smoking cessation, inconclusive for breastfeeding and mental health and not cost-effective for screening uptake and diet/physical activity. LA interventions for HIV prevention were cost-effective, but not in a UK context. Limitations: the wide variety of LA models, delivery settings and target populations prevented the reviewers from establishing firm causal relationships between intervention mode and study outcomes. Conclusions: Evidence was variable, giving only limited support to LAs having a positive impact on health knowledge, behaviours and outcomes. Levels of acceptability appeared to be high. LAs acted as translational agents, sometimes removing barriers to prescribed behaviour or helping to create facilitative social environments. Reporting of processes of accessing or capitalising on indigenous knowledge was limited. Ambiguity was apparent with respect to the role and impact of lay and peer characteristics of the interventions. A future programme of research on HRLA could benefit from further emphasis on identification of needs, the broadening of population focus and intervention aims, the measurement of outcomes and the reviewing of evidence. Funding: This study was funded by the Health Technology Assessment programme of the National Institute for Health Research.

California's highly variable climate and growing water demands combine to pose both water-supply and flood-hazard challenges to resource managers. Recently important efforts to more fully integrate the management of floods and water resources have begun, with the aim of benefitting both sectors. California is shown here to experience unusually large variations in annual precipitation and streamflow totals relative to the rest of the US, variations which mostly reflect the unusually small average number of wet days per year needed to accumulate most of its annual precipitation totals (ranging from 5 to 15 days in California). Thus whether just a few large storms arrive or fail to arrive in California can be the difference between a banner year and a drought. Furthermore California receives some of the largest 3-day storm totals in the country, rivaling in this regard the hurricane belt of the southeastern US. California's largest storms are generally fueled by landfalling atmospheric rivers (ARs). The fractions of precipitation and streamflow totals at stations across the US that are associated with ARs are documented here and, in California, contribute 20-50% of the state's precipitation and streamflow. Prospects for long-lead forecasts of these fractions are presented. From a meteorological perspective, California's water resources and floods are shown to derive from the same storms to an extent that makes integrated flood and water resources management all the more important.

The recognition of the economic value of nature and the services it provides to humanity has become increasingly essential in the context of coastal zone management. In this paper we review the progress to date on both the necessary conceptual framework and empirical valuation studies required to bolster decision support systems (DSS) targeted at integrated coastal zone management goals. We highlight the importance of using an ecosystem services approach and recommend some basic sequential, although overlapping, analytical steps for appropriate environmental valuation and policy assessment: spatial explicitness; marginal changes; double counting; non-linearities; and threshold effects. We illustrate the practical use of the DSS by reviewing an existing UK case study on managed coastal realignment along the Eastern coast of England, and a new UK case study on managed realignment implemented in a southern area on the same coast. Comparing the two studies, the importance of spatial explicitness and the need for a sequential decision support system when dealing with ecosystem services valuation and project policy appraisal become particularly evident. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

The paper seeks to contribute to the expanding literature on ecosystem service assessment by considering its integration with economic analyses of such services. Focussing upon analyses for future orientated policy and decision making, we initially consider a single period during which ecological stocks are maintained at sustainable levels. The flow of ecosystems services and their contribution to welfare bearing goods is considered and methods for valuing resultant benefits are reviewed and illustrated via a case study of land use change. We then broaden our time horizon to discuss the treatment of future costs and benefits. Finally we relax our sustainability assumption and consider economic approaches to the incorporation of depleting ecological assets with a particular focus upon stocks which exhibit thresholds below which restoration is compromised. © 2010 the Author(s).

To meet European Water Framework Directive requirements, data are needed on faecal indicator organism (FIO) concentrations in rivers to enable the more heavily polluted to be targeted for remedial action. Due to the paucity of FIO data for the UK, especially under high-flow hydrograph event conditions, there is an urgent need by the policy community for generic models that can accurately predict FIO concentrations, thus informing integrated catchment management programmes. This paper reports the development of regression models to predict base-and high-flow faecal coliform (FC) and enterococci (EN) concentrations for 153 monitoring points across 14 UK catchments, using land cover, population (human and livestock density) and other variables that may affect FIO source strength, transport and die-off. Statistically significant models were developed for both FC and EN, with greater explained variance achieved in the high-flow models. Both land cover and, in particular, population variables are significant predictors of FIO concentrations, with r2 maxima for EN of 0.571 and 0.624, respectively. It is argued that the resulting models can be applied, with confidence, to other UK catchments, both to predict FIO concentrations in unmonitored watercourses and evaluate the likely impact of different land use/stocking level and human population change scenarios.

We implement a controlled, multi-site experiment to develop and test guidance principles for benefits transfers. These argue that when transferring across relatively similar sites, simple mean value transfers are to be preferred but that when sites are relatively dissimilar then value function transfers will yield lower errors. The paper also provides guidance on the appropriate specification of transferable value functions arguing that these should be developed from theoretical rather than ad-hoc statistical approaches. These principles are tested via a common format valuation study of water quality improvements across five countries. While this provides an idealised tested, results support the above principles and suggest directions for future transfer studies. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

This paper develops a spatially disaggregated, structural econometric model of agricultural land use and production based on the joint multi-output technology representation introduced by Chambers and Just (1989). Starting from a flexible specification of the farm profit function, we derive land use allocation, input application, crop yield, and livestock intensity equations in a joint and theoretically consistent framework. To account for the presence of censored observations in micro-level data, the model is estimated as a system of two-limit Tobit equations via quasi-maximum likelihood. We present an empirical application using fine-scale spatial data covering the entirety of England and Wales and including the main economic, policy, and environmental drivers of land use change in the past forty years. A simulation of the effects of diffuse pollution reduction measures illustrates how our approach can be applied for agro-environmental policy appraisal. © the Author (2011). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. All rights reserved.

A split sample experiment is conducted to test one of the most fundamental assumptions underpinning choice experiments in an environmental setting: whether stated values are absolute or relative. The test uses a natural experiment involving respondents at different home locations relative to potential new wetland sites. Respondents were presented with one of two ranges of distances. An absolute value interpretation requires that the functional relations with distance derived from these two ranges be consistent with each other. We reject a null hypothesis of no range bias, suggesting that respondents may perceive attribute levels in a relative rather than absolute sense. © 2011 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Understanding the spatial distribution of the quantity and value of Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) collection gives insight into the benefits that local communities obtain from forests, and can inform decisions about the selection of forested areas that are eligible for conservation and enforcement of regulations. In this paper we estimate transferable household production functions of NTFP extraction in the Eastern Arc Mountains (EAM) in Tanzania, based on information from several multisite datasets related to the behaviour of over 2000 households. These micro-level models can be used to predict the value of NTFP collection across a broader spatial scale. The study shows that the total benefit flow of charcoal, firewood, poles and thatch from the EAM to the local population has an estimated value of TSH 59 billion (USD 42 million) per year, and provides an important source of additional income for local communities, especially the poorest. We therefore argue that further restrictions on forest access to promote conservation will require additional policies to prevent a consequent increase in poverty, and an enforced trade-off between conservation and energy supply to rural and urban households.

Background: Since the inception of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in England, there have been questions about the empirical basis for the cost-per-QALY threshold used by NICE and whether QALYs gained by different beneficiaries of health care should be weighted equally. The Social Value of a QALY (SVQ) project, reported in this paper, was commissioned to address these two questions. The results of SVQ were released during a time of considerable debate about the NICE threshold, and authors with differing perspectives have drawn on the SVQ results to support their cases. As these discussions continue, and given the selective use of results by those involved, it is important, therefore, not only to present a summary overview of SVQ, but also for those who conducted the research to contribute to the debate as to its implications for NICE. Discussion. The issue of the threshold was addressed in two ways: first, by combining, via a set of models, the current UK Value of a Prevented Fatality (used in transport policy) with data on fatality age, life expectancy and age-related quality of life; and, second, via a survey designed to test the feasibility of combining respondents' answers to willingness to pay and health state utility questions to arrive at values of a QALY. Modelling resulted in values of £10,000-£70,000 per QALY. Via survey research, most methods of aggregating the data resulted in values of a QALY of £18,000-£40,000, although others resulted in implausibly high values. An additional survey, addressing the issue of weighting QALYs, used two methods, one indicating that QALYs should not be weighted and the other that greater weight could be given to QALYs gained by some groups. Summary. Although we conducted only a feasibility study and a modelling exercise, neither present compelling evidence for moving the NICE threshold up or down. Some preliminary evidence would indicate it could be moved up for some types of QALY and down for others. While many members of the public appear to be open to the possibility of using somewhat different QALY weights for different groups of beneficiaries, we do not yet have any secure evidence base for introducing such a system. © 2011 Donaldson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

The paper seeks to contribute to the expanding literature on ecosystem service assessment by considering its integration with economic analyses of such services. Focussing upon analyses for future orientated policy and decision making, we initially consider a single period during which ecological stocks are maintained at sustainable levels. The flow of ecosystems services and their contribution to welfare bearing goods is considered and methods for valuing resultant benefits are reviewed and illustrated via a case study of land use change. We then broaden our time horizon to discuss the treatment of future costs and benefits. Finally we relax our sustainability assumption and consider economic approaches to the incorporation of depleting ecological assets with a particular focus upon stocks which exhibit thresholds below which restoration is compromised.

This paper describes a novel methodology for generating models of demand for informal outdoor recreation. We analyze visitor data from multiple forest sites across Great Britain. We introduce a wide range of variables typically omitted from most economic demand models of recreation. These include on-site characteristics, and off-site locational drivers of visitation including substitute and complement availability. A Poisson multilevel model is used to model visitor counts, and the methodology is applied to a dataset of more than 10,000 visits to open-access woodland sites. Results confirm it identifies a broader range of demand drivers than previously observed. The use of nationally available explanatory variables enhances the transferability and hence general applicability of the methodology.

To meet European Water Framework Directive requirements, data are needed on faecal indicator organism (FIO) concentrations in rivers to enable the more heavily polluted to be targeted for remedial action. There is an urgent need for generic models that can accurately predict FIO concentrations using readily available catchment data. This paper reports the development of regression models to predict base-and high-flow faecal coliform (FC) and enterococci (EN) concentrations during the summer bathing season for 153 monitoring points across 14 UK catchments, using land cover, population (human and livestock density) and other variables that may affect FIO source strength, transport and die-off. Statistically significant models were developed for both FC and EN. Both land cover and, in particular, population variables are significant predictors of FIO concentrations. At base flow (i.e. during dry weather), human (sewage-related) sources are identified as dominant, whereas livestock sources assume greater significance at high flow, with dairy farming systems being especially important. In more parsimonious land cover-and population-based models, developed for ease of transferability to other catchments, quite high explained variances were achieved for the high-flow models, with r2 maxima for EN of 0.571 and 0.624, respectively. Out-of-sample testing identified some degree of variability between the individual catchment studies, which is attributed to both inter-catchment and temporal factors. It is argued that the resulting models can be applied with confidence to other UK catchments to predict FIO concentrations in unmonitored watercourses and evaluate the likely impact of different land use management and policy scenarios.

This article illustrates a statistical approach for deriving farm economic impacts of policy options aiming to reduce nitrate diffuse pollution. Building upon Fezzi et al. (2008), who assess the costs of Water Framework Directive-related measures on farm accounts data, we estimate regression models allowing such costs to be predicted for any region for which land use patterns and livestock numbers are known. We derive economic impacts in terms of changes in farm gross margin for (a) reducing inorganic fertilizer application, (b) reducing livestock stocking rates, and (c) converting arable land to ungrazed grassland. A case study of the agriculturally diverse Yorkshire Derwent catchment, in the North of England, demonstrates the overall approach. In addition, for this illustration, we combine these cost estimates with prediction of the water quality changes arising from each measure, derived via an integrated hydrological model of the Derwent. This allows a comparison of cost-effectiveness. Finally, we implement our spatially explicit approach to target the measures to specific subcatchments identified as being of particular environmental policy interest. © 2010 International Association of Agricultural Economists.

Previous literature has found that politically conservative individuals express a lower willingness-to-pay (WTP) for environmental goods than left-wing supporters. Using data from three surveys valuing water we investigate the role of context by evaluating whether the means of provision (public or private) matters. While left-wing voters have higher WTP for publically provided public goods, right-wing voters have a higher WTP when a good is privately provided. Our findings have implications for values typically obtained for environmental public goods using survey data from constructed markets since scenarios typically describe improvements as being publically provided.

The Water Framework Directive has caused a paradigm shift towards the integrated management of recreational water quality through the development of drainage basin-wide programmes of measures. This has increased the need for a cost-effective diagnostic tool capable of accurately predicting riverine faecal indicator organism (FIO) concentrations. This paper outlines the application of models developed to fulfil this need, which represent the first transferrable generic FIO models to be developed for the UK to incorporate direct measures of key FIO sources (namely human and livestock population data) as predictor variables. We apply a recently developed transfer methodology, which enables the quantification of geometric mean presumptive faecal coliforms and presumptive intestinal enterococci concentrations for base- and high-flow during the summer bathing season in unmonitored UK watercourses, to predict FIO concentrations in the Humber river basin district. Because the FIO models incorporate explanatory variables which allow the effects of policy measures which influence livestock stocking rates to be assessed, we carry out empirical analysis of the differential effects of seven land use management and policy instruments (fiscal constraint, production constraint, cost intervention, area intervention, demand-side constraint, input constraint, and micro-level land use management) all of which can be used to reduce riverine FIO concentrations. This research provides insights into FIO source apportionment, explores a selection of pollution remediation strategies and the spatial differentiation of land use policies which could be implemented to deliver river quality improvements. All of the policy tools we model reduce FIO concentrations in rivers but our research suggests that the installation of streamside fencing in intensive milk producing areas may be the single most effective land management strategy to reduce riverine microbial pollution.

In this paper, we report the results of an online choice experiment designed to test the theoretical consistency of stated preferences for a complex predominantly non-use good. Our case study concerns the values held by UK residents for the conservation of wildlife in the Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania, part of the Eastern Afromontane "biodiversity hotspot". Theoretical consistency is assessed through tests of value sensitivity to the scope of the scheme, ordering effects and (more unusually) the presence of substitutes. Critically, we find that 'substitution effects' may account for apparent insensitivity to scope. We also find some evidence that preferences are invariant to the presentation order. Our results highlight the importance of incorporating information about substitutes into the valuation process since welfare estimates may otherwise be overstated.

Increasing demand for cooking oil and biofuels has made palm oil, > 80% of which is grown in South-east Asia, the dominant globally traded vegetable oil. However, this region is host to some of the worlds most biodiverse and threatened tropical forests. Strategic engagement with commercial operations is increasingly recognized to be an essential part of the solution for raising funds for conservation initiatives, raising consumer consciousness and potentially stemming environmental degradation. Linking market incentives towards conservation is also of critical importance because it is becoming widely recognized that conservation needs to begin to address the wider countryside (outside protected areas) where human-wildlife interactions are frequent and impacts are large. Using the Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae as both a threatened species in its own right and emblematic for wider species diversity, we show that western consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for products using palm oil grown in a manner that reduces impacts on such species. Results suggest that the price premium associated with a tiger-friendly accreditation may provide a useful additional tool to raise conservation funds and, within the right institutional context, serve as an inducement to address the problem of habitat and species loss. Copyright © 2010 Fauna & Flora International.

Objectives: to identify characteristics of beneficiaries of health care over which relative weights should be derived and to estimate relative weights to be attached to health gains according to characteristics of recipients of these gains (relativities study); and to assess the feasibility of estimating a willingness-topay (WTP)-based value of a quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) (valuation study). Design: Two interview-based surveys were administered - one (for the relativities study) to a nationally representative sample of the population in England and the other (for the valuation study) to a smaller convenience sample. Setting: the two surveys were administered by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in respondents' homes. Participants: 587 members of the public were interviewed for the relativities study and 409 for the valuation study. Methods: in the relativities study, in-depth qualitative work and considerations of policy relevance resulted in the identification of age and severity of illness as relevant characteristics. Scenarios reflecting these, along with additional components reflecting gains in QALYs, were presented to respondents in a series of pairwise choices using two types of question: discrete choice and matching. These questions were part of a longer questionnaire (including attitudinal and sociodemographic questions), which was administered face to face using a computer-assisted personal interview. In the valuation study, respondents were asked about their WTP to avoid/prevent different durations of headache or stomach illness and to value these states on a scale (death = 0; full health = 1) using standard gamble (SG) questions. Results: Discrete choice results showed that age and severity variables did not have a strong impact on respondents' choices over and above the health (QALY) gains presented. In contrast, matching showed age and severity impacts to be strong: depending on method of aggregation, gains to some groups were weighted three to four times more highly than gains to others. Results from the WTP and SG questions were combined in different ways to arrive at values of a QALY. These vary from values which are in the vicinity of the current National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) threshold to extremely high values. Conclusions: with respect to relative weights, more research is required to explore methodological differences with respect to age and severity weighting. On valuation, there are particular issues concerning the extent to which 'noise' and 'error' in people's responses might generate extreme and unreliable figures. Methods of aggregation and measures of central tendency were issues in both weighting and valuation procedures and require further exploration. © 2010 Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO.

To identify characteristics of beneficiaries of health care over which relative weights should be derived and to estimate relative weights to be attached to health gains according to characteristics of recipients of these gains (relativities study); and to assess the feasibility of estimating a willingness-to-pay (WTP)-based value of a quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) (valuation study). Two interview-based surveys were administered - one (for the relativities study) to a nationally representative sample of the population in England and the other (for the valuation study) to a smaller convenience sample. The two surveys were administered by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in respondents' homes. 587 members of the public were interviewed for the relativities study and 409 for the valuation study. In the relativities study, in-depth qualitative work and considerations of policy relevance resulted in the identification of age and severity of illness as relevant characteristics. Scenarios reflecting these, along with additional components reflecting gains in QALYs, were presented to respondents in a series of pairwise choices using two types of question: discrete choice and matching. These questions were part of a longer questionnaire (including attitudinal and sociodemographic questions), which was administered face to face using a computer-assisted personal interview. In the valuation study, respondents were asked about their WTP to avoid/prevent different durations of headache or stomach illness and to value these states on a scale (death = 0; full health = 1) using standard gamble (SG) questions. Discrete choice results showed that age and severity variables did not have a strong impact on respondents' choices over and above the health (QALY) gains presented. In contrast, matching showed age and severity impacts to be strong: depending on method of aggregation, gains to some groups were weighted three to four times more highly than gains to others. Results from the WTP and SG questions were combined in different ways to arrive at values of a QALY. These vary from values which are in the vicinity of the current National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) threshold to extremely high values. With respect to relative weights, more research is required to explore methodological differences with respect to age and severity weighting. On valuation, there are particular issues concerning the extent to which 'noise' and 'error' in people's responses might generate extreme and unreliable figures. Methods of aggregation and measures of central tendency were issues in both weighting and valuation procedures and require further exploration.

This paper seeks to address the problem of conveying changes in open-water quality to the public within surveys such as within stated preference valuation studies. This is achieved through the creation of a new water quality ladder designed to address both the use value issues which have dominated previous such ladders and ecological change and associated non-use values. The assumptions underpinning the ladder allow its levels to be related to nationally available data concerning measures of water quality so as to enhance the transferability of values derived from using such a scale. This paper also seeks to compare the new water quality ladder to the standards for different ecological states outlined by the UK Technical Advisory Group (UKTAG) for meeting the commitments of the Water Framework Directive and shows how such an analysis can be an aid to applying a benefits transfer.

The paper reviews recent developments in the incorporation of real-world spatial issues into the economic appraisal of land use change. The opening discussion introduces non-economists to the concepts underpinning the approach. The remainder of the paper uses a case study approach (concerning potential conversions from agriculture into multi-purpose woodland) to illustrate the quantification and valuation of land use change. The application of geographical information system (GIS) routines allows spatial complexity to be incorporated within the analysis. Key concepts are introduced such as making allowance for subsidies, the marginal value concept, and the valuation of non-market externalities such as carbon storage of open-access recreation. The case study also shows that, if issues such as spatial variation and externalities are ignored, sole reliance upon market prices can lead to perverse outcomes which are actually to the detriment of society. © 2009 Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO.

A case study of the Yorkshire Derwent (UK) catchment is used to illustrate an integrated approach for assessing the viability of policy options for reducing diffuse nitrate losses to waterbodies. For a range of options, modeling methods for simulating river nitrate levels are combined with techniques for estimating the economic costs to agriculture of modifying those levels. By incorporating spatially explicit data and information on catchment residence times (which may span many decades particularly in areas of groundwater discharge) a method is developed for efficient spatial targeting of measures, for example, to the most at-risk freshwater environments. Combining hydrological and economic findings, the analysis reveals that, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the ranking of options is highly sensitive to both (i) whether or not specific stretches of river within a catchment are regarded as a priority for protection, and (ii) the criterion of nitrate concentration deemed most appropriate as an indicator of the health of the environment. Therefore, given the focus under European legislation upon ecological status of freshwaters, these conclusions highlight the need to improve understanding of mechanistic linkages between the chemical and biological dynamics of aquatic systems.

The paper considers methodological issues pertinent to the economic assessment of ecosystem services. It is primarily written for a natural science audience however it also proposes a methodology which is intended to be of interest to economists charged with undertaking valuation work for ecosystem service assessments. The first part of the report introduces the concepts underpinning the economic approach towards the assessment and valuation of ecosystem services. The second part considers the particular issues arising for the economic analysis of findings from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) Annexes to the paper use a case study approach to illustrate particular issues. The first concerns potential conversions from agriculture into multi-purpose woodland and illustrates the quantification and valuation of land use change. The application of geographical information system (GIS) routines allows spatial complexity to be incorporated within the analysis. Key concepts are illustrated such as making allowance for subsidies, the marginal value concept, and the valuation of non-market externalities (such as carbon storage of open-access recreation). The case study also shows that, if issues such as spatial variation and externalities are ignored then sole reliance upon market prices can lead to perverse outcomes which are actually to the detriment of society. This spatial focus is extended in a second annex to consider issues arising in the aggregation of values. A third annex reproduces a short questionnaire send to natural scientists working on the NEA intended to help identify the goods which will be the focus of the economic analysis.

Standard practice in stated preference typically blurs the distinction between household and individual responses, but without a clear theoretical or empirical justification for this approach. To date there have been no empirical tests of whether values for say a two adult household elicited by interviewing one randomly selected adult are the same as the values generated by interviewing both adults simultaneously. Using cohabiting couples, we conduct a choice experiment field study valuing reductions in dietary health risks. In one treatment a random individual is chosen from the couple and interviewed alone; in the other treatment, both partners are questioned jointly. We find significant differences in household values calculated from joint as opposed to individual responses, with further variation between the values elicited from men and women. Our results question the assumption, implicit in common practice, that differences between individually and jointly elicited estimates of household values can effectively be ignored. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

We develop and test guidance principles for benefits transfers. These argue that when transferring across relatively similar sites, simple mean value transfers are to be preferred but that when sites are relatively dissimilar then value function transfers will yield lower errors. The paper also provides guidance on the appropriate specification of transferable value functions arguing that these should be developed from theoretical rather than ad-hoc statistical principles. These principles are tested via a common format valuation study of water quality improvements across five countries. Results support our various hypotheses providing a set of principles for future transfer studies. The application also considers new ways of incorporating distance decay, substitution and framing effects within transfers and presents a novel water quality ladder.

In the majority of choice experiments (CEs) the attributes of non-market goods are conveyed to respondents as a table of numeric and/or categorical data. Recent research suggests that respondents may have difficulties evaluating data in this format. In the context of a CE eliciting preferences for changes in coastal land use, this study uses a split-sample experiment to compare standard presentations with virtual reality (VR) visualisations conveying objectively identical information. We find that compared to the standard presentation, preferences elicited in VR treatments are less variable and exhibit a significant reduction in asymmetry between willingness to pay (WTP) for gains and willingness to accept (WTA) for corresponding losses. We conjecture that the greater 'evaluability' of the VR presentation reduces respondent judgement error and moderates reliance on the loss-aversion heuristic. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The paper presents results from a four year study of the economic and ecological potential for implementation of conservation schemes within the rapidly expanding palm oil plantations of South East Asia. Unparalleled access to financial records combined with a highly intensive ecological data gathering exercise allows us to develop spatially explicit cost effectiveness models for optimising conservation efforts. This is integrated with a further study of the price premium potential of conservation-grade palm oil to yield insights into the optimal design of schemes for delivering biodiversity within existing plantations.

As tourists are sensitive toweather conditions and changes to the environments they visit, it is likely that climate change will affect coastal recreation in the future. To understand these impacts, it is first important to quantify how visitor numbers are associated with beach characteristics and weather patterns. Using the East Anglian coastline, UK, as a case study, information on the spatial distribution of visitors recorded from aircraft flights is combinedwith beach characteristic data in aGeographical Information System. In addition, surveys are undertaken at two beaches to assess temporal variations in visitation. The study finds a diverse range of characteristics are associated with visitor numbers. These findings are evaluated alongside the anticipated effects of climate change and management policies. Although it is predicted that warmer weather will increase visitor numbers overall, sea-level rise may reduce numbers at wide sandy beaches, which are currently most preferred by tourists.

We present an experiment designed to investigate the presence and nature of ordering effects within repeated response stated preference studies. We formulate a general structural model of such effects and use this to isolate signature patterns for position-dependent effects (learning about preferences or institutions, and the impact of fatigue) and precedent-dependent effects (starting point effects, reference pricing and various forms of strategic behavior). This is tested within a large sample, full factorial study designed to mitigate against misspecification bias and design-induced error variance problems. Non-parametric and parametric analyses are applied, the latter adopting a novel data-driven approach to the detection of ordering patterns. While we find little evidence of position dependent effects, we do find evidence of a starting point effect and various types of strategic behavior including a reference price effect where respondents tend to reject alternatives that are priced higher than recently seen alternatives.

The economic value of carbon storage associated with British woodland is calculated. Models were developed to estimate C flux associated with live trees, forest floor litter, soils, wood products, harvest, fossil fuel used in manufacturing and C displacement from biofuels and products for representative British plantation species: Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) and beech (Fagus sylvatica). Map databases of publicly and privately owned woodlands were compiled for Great Britain. Carbon flux was determined for individual woodland sites, and monetised using candidate parameters for the social discount rate (1, 3, 3.5 or 5%) and social value of carbon (US$109.5, $1, $10 or $17.10/t). A conventional discount function was applied. Final results are expressed as Net Present Values, for the base year 2001, with discounting commencing in 2002. The minimum suggested NPV (discount rate = 3% and social value of carbon = $1) of GB woodlands already existing in 2001 is $82 million, with a further $72 million that might be added by future afforestation. These figures rise dramatically if a discount rate of 1% and social value of sequestered carbon = $109.5/t are assumed. The calculated total value of C stored in British woodland depends significantly on parameter assumptions, especially about appropriate discount rate and social value of sequestered carbon. Crown Copyright © 2008.

The east coast of England is under threat from climate change effects such as the sea level rise, and because of isostatic movements. In the face of these problems, the UK government is reorientating its coastal management strategy with a view to increasing its flexibility and adaptability. On the east coast this policy switch has included a series of managed realignment projects by which some sea defences are breached and the land flooded. These projects result in the restoration of salt marshes, which are a soft and more sustainable flood defence helping to dissipate wave energy. Salt marshes are considered as a benefit because they also create the opportunity for biodiversity enhancement, as well as expanded opportunities for amenity and recreation. Furthermore, carbon is stored underneath salt marshes helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. An ecosystem services approach was used to provide a framework for the cost-benefit analysis of multifunctional coastal schemes in the Blackwater estuary (Essex, UK). This method allowed a wide range of welfare impacts to be considered on a common monetary scale. The valuation of ecological services such as carbon storage, fish nurseries, and recreation and amenity can be encompassed in this method. A binary choice experiment was designed and a survey conducted in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk (UK) to elicit the value of salt marshes created by a series of managed realignments considered as a single project in the Blackwater estuary. The final aggregate value of salt marshes was then inserted in a CBA assessing the efficiency of management realignment schemes on a catchment level such as an estuary area together with the other benefits of the project: carbon storage and fish nursery. The combined work of science and economics produced interesting results showing the economic efficiency of managed realignment projects realised at an estuary scale level.

The choice experiment elicitation format confronts survey respondents with repeated choice tasks. Particularly within the context of valuing pure public goods, this repetition raises two issues. First, does advanced awareness of multiple tasks influence stated preferences from the outset, and second, even in the absence of such awareness, does the process of working through a series of choice tasks influence stated preferences leading to choice outcomes that are dependent on the order in which a question is answered? the possible motivators of these effects include economic-theoretic reasons such as strategic behavior, as well as behavioral explanations such as response heuristics and learning effects. A case study of a familiar good (drinking water quality) combines a split sample treatment of the presence/absence of advanced awareness with a full factorial design permitting systematic variation of the order in which choices are presented to respondents. A further sample division allows examination of effects arising from variation in the scope of the initial good presented to respondents. Using discrete choice panel data estimators we show that both advanced awareness and order effects exist alongside interactions with the scope of the initial good.

While a dominated choice involves a situation in lich one option clearly dominates another on all relevant dimensions, an asymmetrically dominated choice typically arises where at least two options do not dominate each other and one (but not both) of those options does dominate a third option. We demonstrate that the introduction of such an asymmetrically dominated option can have a significant impact upon choices between non-dominated options within the same choice set f6r non-market goods. Furthermore, we show that this effect can then translate into significant impacts upon subsequent valuations for those non-dominated options. © 2008 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Declining agricultural incomes, increasing concern over rural poverty and sporadic crises such as those of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Foot and Mouth Disease mean that the imposition of further costs on U.K. agriculture are likely to be politically and socially sensitive. Such additional costs are however on the agenda with the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD; European Commission, 2000). The WFD aims to achieve "good ecological status" in EU water bodies reducing, inter alia, diffuse pollution from agriculture. In this study, we assess four possible WFD measures proposed to the U.K. Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs: reducing inorganic fertilizer application, conversion of arable land to ungrazed grassland, reducing livestock stocking rates, and reducing livestock dietary N and P intakes. For each measure, changes in farm gross margins (FGMs) are estimated using a dataset of over 2000 farms. In contrast to previous analyses, which have focussed upon mean responses on stylized farms, our approach allows the analysis of the range of impacts across a wide variety of real-world farms and farm types. Findings reveal high variability in impacts. Cost-effectiveness analysis indicates that, on average, cropping farms seem capable of reducing nutrient leaching in a more cost-efficient way than livestock or dairy enterprises. © 2008 International Association of Agricultural Economists.

The paper develops a spatially explicit method for integrated assessment of alternative measures to reduce nitrate leaching into rivers and lakes from farms, a key objective of the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD). This approach combines regression models, based on Farm Business Survey and June Agricultural Census data, for predicting the economic costs to agriculture of nitrate reduction measures with a hydrological model encompassing both diffuse and point source pollution to estimate the water quality changes arising from such instruments. A case study of the agriculturally diverse Yorkshire Derwent catchment in the north of England illustrates the overall approach. We consider three measures previously proposed to the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for tackling diffuse agricultural pollution: (i) reducing inorganic fertilizer application, (ii) reducing livestock stocking rates and (iii) converting arable land to un-grazed grassland. The results reveal marked variability in the economic impacts and nitrate leaching reductions, with the cost effectiveness of these measures varying by up to a factor of three. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that WFD implementation may entail major land use changes resulting in substantial economic impacts. The spatially explicit aspect of our approach permits assessment of the optimal targeting of policy implementation to areas of particular environmental interest.

We extend the contingent valuation (CV) method to test three differing conceptions of individuals' preferences as either (i) a-priori well-formed or readily divined and revealed through a single dichotomous choice question (as per the NOAA CV guidelines [K. Arrow, R. Solow, P.R. Portney, E.E. Leamer, R. Radner, H. Schuman, Report of the NOAA panel on contingent valuation, Fed. Reg. 58 (1993) 4601-4614]); (ii) learned or 'discovered' through a process of repetition and experience [J.A. List, Does market experience eliminate market anomalies? Q. J. Econ. (2003) 41-72; C.R. Plott, Rational individual behaviour in markets and social choice processes: the discovered preference hypothesis, in: K. Arrow, E. Colombatto, M. Perleman, C. Schmidt (Eds.), Rational Foundations of Economic Behaviour, Macmillan, London, St. Martin's, New York, 1996, pp. 225-250]; (iii) internally coherent but strongly influenced by some initial arbitrary anchor [D. Ariely, G. Loewenstein, D. Prelec, 'Coherent arbitrariness': stable demand curves without stable preferences, Q. J. Econ. 118(1) (2003) 73-105]. Findings reject both the first and last of these conceptions in favour of a model in which preferences converge towards standard expectations through a process of repetition and learning. In doing so, we show that such a 'learning design CV' method overturns the 'stylised facts' of bias and anchoring within the double bound dichotomous choice elicitation format. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

As part of a wider partnership with developing country producers examining the economic and financial viability of strategies to protect endangered species, we report results from a field experiment examining the viability and extent of a potential premium for 'tiger-friendly' produce. A split sample design provides clear evidence of the significant influence of varying price, quality and marketing strategies upon this premium assessed through analysis of both the propensity to purchase and willingness to pay for such goods. Such results suggest that the price premium associated with 'tiger-friendly' accreditation may provide a useful inducement to address the problem of habitat loss and hence enhance the viability of the species.

We test one of the most fundamental of all assumptions underpinning choice experiments; that any given attribute level is comprehended in its absolute form rather than relative to the other levels of that attribute. A split sample test uses a natural experiment arising from respondents differing distances from a set of potential new wetland recreation sites. Respondents were presented with one of two ranges of distances. Absolute value interpretation requires that the functional relation with distance derived from these two ranges be consistent with each other. This test failed with respondents exhibiting significant range bias effects.

We argue that the literature concerning the valuation of non-market, spatially defined goods (such as those provided by the natural environment) is crucially deficient in two respects. First, it fails to employ a theoretically consistent structural model of utility to the separate and hence correct definition of use and non-use values. Second, applications (particularly those using stated preference methods) typically fail to capture the spatially complex distribution of resources and their substitutes within analyses, again leading to error. This paper proposes a new methodology for addressing both issues simultaneously. We combine revealed (travel cost) and stated preference (choice experiment) data within a random utility model formulated from first principles to yield a theoretically consistent distinction between the use and non-use value of improvements in a non-market natural resource. The model is specified to relate both types of value to the attributes of the good in question including the spatial arrangement of the resource under consideration and its substitutes. We test the properties of the model using data simulated from a real world case study examining an improvement of open-access waters to good ecological standards. Through a Monte Carlo experiment we show that both use and non-use parameters can be precisely estimated from a modest sample of observations.

Using a two-stage hedonic pricing methodology we estimate a system of structural demand equations for different sources of transport-related noise. In the first stage, we identify market segments using model-based clustering techniques and estimate separate hedonic price functions (HPFs) for each segment. In so doing, we show how a semiparametric spatial smoothing estimator outperforms other standard specifications of the HPF. In the second stage, we control for non-linearity of the budget constraint and identify demand relationships using techniques that account for problems of endogeneity and censoring of the dependent variable. Our estimated demand functions provide welfare estimates for peace and quiet that we believe to be the first derived from property market data in a theoretically consistent manner. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

This paper reports two experiments which examine the use of ranking methods to elicit 'certainty equivalent' values. It investigates whether such methods are able to eliminate the disparities between choice and value which constitute the 'preference reversal phenomenon' and which thereby pose serious problems for both theory and policy application. The results show that ranking methods are vulnerable to distorting effects of their own, but that when such effects are controlled for, the preference reversal phenomenon, previously so strong and striking, is very considerably attenuated. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007.

Declining agricultural incomes, increasing concern over rural poverty and sporadic crises such as those of BSE and Foot and Mouth Disease mean that the imposition of additional costs on UK agriculture are likely to be politically and socially sensitive. Such additional costs are however on the agenda with the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (European Commission, 2000). Like the Nitrates Directive (European Commission, 1991) before it, the WFD aims to, inter alia, reduce nitrate leaching from agriculture. The benefits of reduced nitrate concentrations in rivers and lakes will come at some cost to farms. In this study we assess four possible WFD measures proposed to Defra: reduced inorganic fertiliser application, conversion of arable land to un-grazed grassland, reduced livestock stocking rates and reduced livestock dietary N intakes. For each measure, changes in farm gross margins are estimated using a panel dataset of over 3000 farms. In contrast to previous analyses which have focussed upon mean responses at stylised farms, our approach allows analysis of the range of impacts across a wide variety of real-world farms and farm types. Findings reveal high variability in impacts and cost-effectiveness analysis indicates that, on average, cropping farms seems capable of reducing nitrate leaching in a more cost-efficient way than livestock or dairy enterprises.

Prior studies have observed that the attractiveness of playing a simple gamble (7/36 to win $9; otherwise win nothing) is greatly enhanced by introducing a small loss (7/36 win $9; otherwise lose 5¢). The present studies tested and confirmed an explanation of this finding based on the concept of evaluability and the affect heuristic. Evaluators of the "no-loss" gamble lack a precise feeling for how good $9 is, hence give it little weight in their judgment. In the second gamble, comparison with the small loss makes $9 "come alive with feeling" and become weighted in the judgment, thus increasing the attractiveness of the gamble. These results demonstrate the importance of contextual factors in determining affect and preference for simple risk-taking opportunities. They show that the meaning, utility, and weighting of even a very familiar monetary outcome such as $9 is not fixed, but depends greatly on these contextual factors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Ongoing concerns with regard to the appropriate approach to elicitation of willingness-to-pay responses in contingent valuation studies have led to the development of a number of alternative techniques. One of the most recent, and on the surface, most promising of these is the random card sorting approach (RCS) which has been used for policy purposes to value risk reductions. This paper provides the first formal test of this procedure, comparing it against the widely used payment card (PC) format from which it is developed and whose recognised problems, such as range bias, it claims to address. However, the findings suggest that the RCS procedure is no less vulnerable to range bias than the PC method for eliciting both monetary values of health risk reductions and non-monetary estimates of death rates. Conclusions for future research initiatives are drawn.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) (European Commission, 2000) represents a fundamental change in the management of water quality in Europe. Amongst many fundamental changes to previous practice, the Directive moves the emphasis of policy from assessments of the chemical composition of waterways towards their biological condition. Specifically, it requires an improvement of all European waters to a 'good ecological status' by 2015. This in turn requires a reduction of diffuse pollution, the primary source of which is agriculture. Clearly, the benefits of reduced nitrate concentrations in rivers and lakes are likely to come at some cost to farms. This study is an assessment of various policy options proposed to Defra to achieve the standards required by the WFD. Specifically, we consider (a) reducing inorganic fertiliser applications, (b) conversion of arable land to un-grazed grassland, (c) reducing livestock stocking rates (d) reducing livestock dietary N and P intakes. For each measure, we assess both the costs for agriculture (in terms of reduction in activity gross margin (GM) and hence farm gross margin (FGM)) and the benefits in terms of improvement in water quality, measured in N and P concentration in rivers. Section 1 presents an economic analysis of the impacts of the various measures on UK farming systems. Changes in farm gross margins are estimated using a panel dataset of roughly 2400 farms collected by the Farm Business Survey (FBS). In contrast to previous (principally linear programming) analyses, which have focused upon mean responses at stylised farms, our approach allows analysis of the range of impacts across a wide variety of real-world farms and farm types. This wealth of data encompasses the complex agroclimatic, environmental and farm system variation that characterizes the diversity of agriculture across England and Wales. Our analysis reveals considerable variability in the economic impact of the measures considered. This diversity varies across both policy measure and the individual characteristics of the farm. Contrasting these cost estimates with existing analyses of the nitrate leaching effect of different measures suggests that, while there are clear differences in the cost-effectiveness of a policy within a farming sector, targeting policies to specific farm types can achieve superior outcomes. In particular, targeting arable systems appears a more cost effective approach to reducing nitrate leaching than applying the same measure to all farm types. This result is explained by two factors: higher GM/ha and a more responsive relationship between revenue and inputs (particularly fertilizer) for livestock (in particular dairy) farms. Regarding phosphate, the most efficient policy is reducing stocking rates in beef and sheep farms, followed again by the measures targeting arable systems. Nevertheless, the variability in impacts demonstrated by this analysis shows how WFD related measures can result in substantial reductions in GMs in a significant number of enterprises. Such variation is somewhat hidden within stylized "average" farm studies. We extend our analysis to develop regression models of the responsiveness of FGM to each policy option. Equipped with these statistical relationships between farm characteristics and potential WFD measure impacts, one can predict the likely FGM changes in a specific area if one knows the land use activities carried on in that area. We conclude Section 1 with a consideration of the limitations of this analysis. We emphasise that this approach does not include any behavioural element but implements the effects of the various policies in a rather mechanical fashion. For example, switches between different land uses and activities (apart from the arable land conversion) in response to the measures are not considered. Furthermore, only gross margins are analysed, thereby providing no indication about profits and long run investment costs. Considering nitrate, prior cost-effectiveness work has focussed upon rates of leaching from fields. A limitation of such approaches is that they ignore the in-stream processes which determine the ultimate ecological impact of nitrate pollution which is the focus of the WFD. This limitation is relaxed in Section 2 of this report, which uses an integrated hydrological model to estimate the changes in water quality arising from of a range of measures considered previously. The focus is on the Yorkshire Derwent catchment. The nitrate flow modelling involves the integration of two hydrological models: CASCADE (CAtchment SCAle DElivery), a diffuse pollution model, and QUESTOR (QUality Evaluation and Simulation TOol for River-systems) an in-stream water quality model. This allows us to obtain estimates of the nitrate concentrations into the river system, (rather than absolute nitrate load deriving from diffuse pollution) which, as mentioned, has direct bearing upon ecological status; the primary objective of the WFD. We show that only drastic changes in land use (e.g. from arable to low intensity grassland systems) can result in significant reductions in levels of nitrate-N leaching in the catchment under analysis. Thus, for example, feasible reductions in fertiliser levels are insufficient to generate such changes. Furthermore, levels of nitrate leaching are very sensitive to short-term rainfall patterns, particularly when levels of leachable nitrate-N in the soil are high following crop harvest. In addition, spatial targeting of measures in parts of the catchment has an impact on the water quality. Nitrate-N content at the catchment outlet is sensitive to where mitigation options are targeted. The measures under consideration appear most effective if targeted throughout the catchment; importantly, including lower catchment areas close to downstream reaches where intensive agriculture is more prevalent than elsewhere. In Section 3, the modelling approaches outlined in the two previous sections are used to evaluate the policy measures in the Yorkshire Derwent catchment. The economic (Section 1) and the hydrological (Section 2) modelling are founded on coherent assumptions thereby providing an integrated framework to evaluate various WFD policy implementations. Our case study area has been chosen for its heterogeneity (the northern part is dominated by grazing livestock whereas the south is mainly devoted to crop cultivation) and for the high fraction of agricultural and natural areas within it (urban and suburban areas constitute less than 8% of the total case study area). For this reason, the nitrate in rivers within the catchment is mainly from diffuse, agricultural pollution sources. Furthermore, the catchment contains areas of special interest in the context of the Catchment Sensitive Farming Programme. Our findings suggest that achieving considerable improvements in the water quality within the Derwent would require substantial land use changes, including switching a significant portion of arable cropping to un-grazed grassland. Indeed, this seems to be the most efficient measure, being roughly three times more efficient than the other two policy options considered. Furthermore, particularly high water quality standards can be achieved in the areas deemed of special interest if the land conversion is targeted to those specific sub-catchments, providing, at the same time, important nitrate reductions at the catchment outlet. However, these improvements in water quality will come at a significant cost for the local rural economy. For example, reducing N concentration at the catchment outlet by nearly 20% (switching arable land to un-grazed grassland) would reduce aggregated Derwent's FGM by roughly £5.5 million.

Purpose – Achieving excellence is a current preoccupation in UK public health organisations. This article aims to use a case study to explain how a mental health trust delivers excellent performance using a balanced scorecard (BSC) management approach. Design/methodolgy/approach – Reports a project to implement a BSC approach in the South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust to achieve its “excellence” objectives. The authors were participants in the project. The design of the pilot project was informed theoretically by the work of Kaplan and Norton and practically by in-house discussions on a strategy to achieve excellence. Findings – Explains the process of building a BSC strategy step-by-step. Discusses how the vision and strategies of a mental health trust can be translated into tangible measures, which are the basis for actions that are driven strategically. Research limitations/implications – There are many possibilities for a BSC management approach and this case study is specific to mental health trusts in the UK, although it is believed that the case has a universally applicable modus operandi. Practical implications – This article will help healthcare managers to evaluate the benefits of a BSC management approach. Originality/value – This article explains how actions can be structured in connection with a BSC management approach. © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) represents a fundamental change in the management of water in Europe with a requirement that member states ensure 'good ecological status' for all water bodies by 2015. Agriculture is expected to bear a major share of WFD implementation costs as it is compelled to reduce the emission of diffuse water pollutants. The research outlined here comprises interdisciplinary modelling of agricultural land use, hydrology and consequent water quality effects to consider both agricultural costs and the non-market recreational use (and potentially non-use) values that implementation of the Directive may generate. A theme throughout the research is the spatial distribution of the costs and benefits of WFD implementation, which is addressed through the use of GIS techniques in the modelling of agricultural land use, the integration of land use and hydrological models, and the estimation, aggregation and transfer of the economic value of the benefits. © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The paper outlines a programme of research funded under the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. The proposed research will examine the likely effects of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in terms of both its impacts upon the farming sector and the non-market benefits it may generate. From an agricultural perspective the WFD will impose a substantial extension of controls upon diffuse pollution from farms. A major objective of the research will be to assess the likely response and consequent economic costs to an already fragile farming sector. This objective will be addressed via a highly interdisciplinary methodology combining hydrological and other physical sciences with quantitative and qualitative socio-economic analyses to generate an integrated hydrological-economic model of farm activities and incomes. This will dynamically link farm local and regional activities to water standards, allowing feedback loops to indicate the impacts of altering farm activity and changing water quality targets. Model parameters and response scenarios will initially be established via quantitative estimation and then refined through a series of farm attitude and behaviour surveys. This cost-effectiveness analysis will be complemented by an assessment of the benefits arising from the WFD and an aggregation and equity analysis of the distribution of both costs and benefits. Planned deliverables include assessments of the impact of alternative WFD implementation strategies allowing policy makers to inspect effects upon farmer and the wider community at a variety of spatial scales.

This paper contrasts applications of both the contingent valuation (CV) and contingent ranking (CR) methods as applied to a common issue, the valuation of improvements to the water quality of an urban river (the River Tame, running through the city of Birmingham, UK). Building upon earlier experimental work, the CV design used ensures that respondents are fully aware of all impending valuation tasks prior to undertaking any one of those tasks. Such an approach is directly comparable to the CR design for which full awareness of all options is a pre-requisite. Findings indicate that the CV responses exhibit strong internal consistency with expected relationships observed between values and theoretically expected parameters. External comparisons show that CR valuations are substantially larger than those elicited through CV (with protest votes excluded), and that the response rate for the CR survey is significantly higher than that for the CV survey.

A contingent valuation study is conducted to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for reducing skin cancer risks. A split sample design contrasts dichotomous choice (DC) with open-ended (OE) methods for eliciting WTP. A novel scope test varies the remit of risk reductions from just the individual respondent to their entire household allowing us to examine both the statistical significance and scale of scope sensitivity. While OE responses fail such tests, DC responses pass both forms of testing. We conclude that conformity of the size of scope effects with prior expectations should form a focus for future validity testing. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Over the past few decades the problem of eutrophication of water bodies has accelerated due to large additions of nutrients from human sources. This paper conducts a contingent valuation of household willingness to pay to reduce eutrophication impacts. The application employs the recently proposed one-and-one-half-bound dichotomous choice method for eliciting willingness to pay responses. It is also novel in that an examination of the rate and determinants of survey participation are analysed allowing superior aggregation of total values by allowing for those who refuse to be interviewed. A simple cost benefit analysis of anti-pollution measures is also reported.

Provision of public parks has long been advocated as an equalising measure between different elements of society. However, in practice, parks have usually been sited with little regard for the geography of where different social groups live. This study assesses equity of park provision for different ethnic and income-status populations in the urban area of Birmingham in western England. The analysis was undertaken using different geographical units, and with different (but correlated) deprivation measures, to test the sensitivity of the results to methodological choices. Parks were categorized as being all of one type, or one of two types: pleasant green areas suited for more solitary and passive activities (amenity) or open spaces designed more for informal sports or other physical and group activities (recreational). Distance-weighted access scores were calculated and compared for five groups sorted by relative social deprivation, and for five ethnic groups: Bangladeshis, blacks, Indians, Pakistanis and whites. Visual analysis suggested that both poor, mostly non-white inner city areas and relatively affluent and white outer suburbs would tend to be disadvantaged (compared to the city average) with regard to parks. Statistical analysis found the greatest disparities between deprivation groups, with the most deprived 25% and 10% of the population consistently having the worst access to all park categories, but especially the recreational park category. There was weaker evidence of disparities on the basis of ethnicity and with regard to the amenity parks category. We found evidence to suggest that even within the most deprived areas, whites have better access to park areas than non-whites.

For many industrialised nations environmental noise is emerging as a local pollutant of major concern. Incorporating such concerns into policy guidance tools such as social cost benefit analysis requires estimates of the monetised benefits of noise reduction. Using a two-stage hedonic pricing methodology we estimate a system of structural demand equations for different sources of transport-related noise. Our application applies state-of-the-art econometric techniques. In the first stage, we identify market segments using model-based clustering techniques and estimate separate hedonic price functions for each segment. We spatially smooth the data to account for omitted spatial covariates and employ a semiparametric estimator to allow flexibility in functional form. In the second stage, we control for nonlinearity of the budget constraint and identify demand relationships using techniques that account for problems of endogeneity and censoring of the dependent variable. We report welfare estimates for peace and quiet that we believe to be the first derived from property market data in a theoretically consistent manner.

We undertake a series of tests examining the extent to which the affect heuristic (Slovic et al. 2002) is or is not triggered by changes in the framing and hence context of assessments of hypothetical gamble tasks using a rating scale response mode. Our initial investigations examine the replicability of findings using the same parameters used by Slovic et al. We then examine the robustness of the affect phenomena across a number of previously unexplored dimensions. These latter tests can be subdivided into two types. First we consider the persistence of affective responses to changes in the parameters of a given gamble. Second, we consider whether or not certain individuals are relatively more or less 'immune' to the affect heuristic as a decision making rule. We find that the affect heuristic is a commonly applied decision rule in a variety of contexts.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in using the related concepts of affect and evaluability to understand a wide range of decision behaviours. However, a common feature of studies to date is that they have adopted hypothetical payoff designs. Such an approach is open to criticisms of non-consequentiality. In this paper we address this criticism, presenting a series of incentivised, real payoff, experimental studies examining the roles of affect and, the related concept of evaluability in judgments and decisions across a range of contexts including money gambles and the purchase of and preference for various market goods. We demonstrate that the affect heuristic remains a feature of decision making in the contexts considered within this experiment.

We extend the contingent valuation (CV) method to test three differing conceptions of individuals' preferences as either: (i) a-priori well-formed or readily divined and revealed through a single dichotomous choice question (as per the NOAA CV guidelines; Arrow et al. 1993]; (ii) learned or 'discovered' through a process of repetition and experience [Plott, 1996; List, 2003]; (iii) internally coherent but strongly influenced by some initial arbitrary anchor [Ariely et al. 2003]. Findings reject both the first and last of these conceptions in favour of a model in which preferences converge towards standard expectations through a process of repetition and learning.

Recent research suggests that, in some situations, numeric information may lack the 'evaluability' of visual representations of the same data. In such cases, reliance upon numeric information exacerbates tendencies for survey respondents to rely upon heuristics rather than their underlying preferences in formulating responses. Adapting such insights to the field of non-market valuation, for certain environmental goods, information on increases or decreases in the numeric levels of an attributes may trigger reliance upon the loss aversion heuristic, leading to an exacerbation of the well know gains/loss asymmetry problem (Horowitz and McConnell, 2002). A split sample choice experiment (CE) is described in which standard approaches to conveying a land use change scenario (relying principally on numeric information) are contrasted with an alternative treatment in which objectively identical information is presented in visual form via virtual reality (VR) visualisations. A third treatment combines both formats. Results show that the gains/loss asymmetry is roughly twice as strong under a conventional numeric CE design than in the presence of visual information. The combined VRCE methodology developed in the paper therefore significantly ameliorates this pervasive anomaly and, we contend, represents an exciting prospect for the incorporation of complex real world environments within economic analyses.

We present the first assessment of willingness to pay (WTP) for water supply change to be conducted in the largest city in the developing world: Mexico City. Two large sample contingent valuation surveys are conducted to investigate WTP for two levels of water service quality: maintenance of or improvement over current provision levels. This study design permits one of the first tests of the "scope sensitivity" of WTP responses to different levels of baseline supply provision. This testing is complicated within the present case because as our study confirms, higher-income households typically enjoy better levels of current provision, while poorer households generally endure lower current standards of water supply. We incorporate this heterogeneity of service and correlation with income within a suite of novel scope sensitivity tests. These confirm prior expectations that richer households enjoying higher baseline service levels would prefer programs to maintain the status quo, while poorer households enduring lower initial quality of service would prefer schemes which improve the quality of suppplies. The implications of these findings are further investigated by contrasting conventional benefit-cost analysis aggregation procedures with an equity weighting approach which confirms the difference in priorities according to initial supply conditions. In this case, the ranking of programs changes when the ability to pay is equalized across society. In fiscal terms, aggregate WTP figures show that authorities could collect the resources necessary to fund households' preferred schemes and simultaneously substantially reduce current subsidies. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.

We describe a model that estimates the social benefits of carbon (C) sequestered in plantation Sitka spruce in Great Britain. Final net present values (NPV, base year=2003) resulting from plausible variations in model parameters are calculated. The discount rate, social value of C, timber yield, rate of gain into live wood, length of rotation, lifetime of products, amount of C displaced by products and the changes in C flux on afforested peat soils are the most influential model components. The study predicts that C fluxes in actively managed forests in second or subsequent rotations or planted on peat soils will tend to have low or (on average) negative NPV. © 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

We review the literature regarding the aggregation of benefit value estimates for non-market goods. Two case studies are presented through which we develop an approach to aggregation which applies the spatial analytic capabilities of a geographical information system to combine geo-referenced physical, census and survey data to estimate a spatially sensitive valuation function. These case studies show that the common reliance upon political rather than economic jurisdictions and the use of sample mean values within the aggregation process are liable to lead to significant errors in resultant values. We also highlight the fact that for resources with use values then we should expect overall values to reduce with increasing distance from such sites, but that changes in the choice of welfare measure will determine whether such 'distance decay' is to be expected within values stated by those who are presently non-users. The paper concludes by providing recommendations for future improvements to the methodology. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Climate change seems likely to impact upon both open-access water bodies and the costs of ensuring high quality domestic supplies. This paper describes separate studies examining willingness to pay to avoid climate change induced problems upon both of these resources in the UK. Values for avoiding impacts upon open-access water bodies are assessed using the contingent valuation method while those associated with avoiding non-health related impacts upon domestic water supplies are assessed using the choice experiment approach. Results suggest that impacts upon both resources would induce substantial losses of value.

It is widely recognised that organisations involved in coastal management must take steps to improve the ways in which stakeholders and the public are involved in coastal decision-making. In particular, there needs to be more emphasis on improving participation, consultation, and information provision throughout the process. In recognition of this, there is a need to develop new techniques that could aid the communication of coastal information to the public. It has been suggested that some of these techniques might involve the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Whilst GIS are widely used by coastal managers, their application is hampered by the highly technical output that they often produce. However, the advent of a new type of system known as virtual reality GIS enables the likely effects of coastal management decisions to be presented in a format that is suitable for widespread consultation and dissemination. A proposed managed realignment scheme on the north Norfolk coast, England, is used to describe an integrated GIS methodology allowing the production of virtual reality representations of the current site environment and simulations of what might be present after the intervention. Both static and user-navigable visualisations have been produced because these lend themselves to both paper and electronic publication. Comparisons between the alternative methods are presented along with a discussion of the technical, user, and institutional issues surrounding the potential application of the methodology. It is argued that the techniques presented have the potential to stimulate meaningful discussion during the consultation process, although further research is still required to determine the exact form this might take.

We present the results of a 'natural experiment' to test how variations in exogenous risk levels affect resultant willingness to pay (WTP) for risk reduction. The case study presented considers WTP for reductions in the skin cancer risks associated with exposure to solar UV radiation. A common design contingent valuation survey is conducted in four countries, across which variation in geographical latitude and genetic mix mean that exogenous risks differ substantially. Survey respondents were presented with both a private and public good route for affecting risk reduction. In both cases, results confirm that once adjustment had been made for expected relationships with other covariates (such as income and risk averting behaviour), valuation responses for both goods conformed to expectations with the ordering of values across countries reflecting the ordering of scientifically established health risks. This suggests that links between values and objective health risks may be observed within such situations and provides a justification for continuing research into more natural representations of risk and risk reductions in order to yield consistent and robust measures of associated values. © Springer 2005.

A host of experiments have examined theories of risky choice using individuals. However, many important economic decisions are taken within multi-adult households. This paper reports on the first economic experiment designed to test theories of household choice. We use established couples and face them individually and jointly with decisions involving monetary payoffs. We find that joint choices typically are more risk averse than those made by individuals. Meanwhile, choices made by couples exhibit the same kinds of departures from expected utility theory (e.g. the common ratio and common consequence effects) as are regularly recorded with individuals. © Royal Economic Society 2005.

While a dominated choice involves a situation in which one option clearly dominates another on all relevant dimensions, an asymmetrically dominated choice typically involves more than two options in which at least two options do not dominate each other but one (but not both) of those options does dominate a third option. We demonstrate that the introduction of an asymmetrically dominated option can significantly impact upon choices between non-dominated options within the same choice set. Furthermore, we show that this effect can then translate into significant impacts upon subsequent valuations for those non-dominated options. Such findings are at odds with standard theory yet accord with a substantial number of findings within the marketing and experimental economics literatures. More fundamentally these results show that the introduction of alternatives which are, from a formal perspective, irrelevant can significantly impact upon non-market valuation estimates derived from both choice experiments and contingent valuation studies. We consider the impact of such effects and their implications for future valuation research.

This paper provides a first application of the techniques of benefits transfer to the health economics literature. These techniques seek to transfer the value of some good from one 'survey' context to a new 'policy' context so avoiding the need for new valuation surveys each time a new policy question arises. Two approaches to benefits transfer are assessed: the simple transfer of mean values and the transferral of value functions. We develop a new methodology for the latter approach in which value functions are iteratively built up from theoretical principles with transfer errors being tested each time a new variable is added. Through a novel application of advanced statistical tests we show that this approach outperforms the transferral of statistically driven Best-fit functions. The case study presented focuses upon the transfer of contingent valuation (CV) willingness to pay (WTP) estimates and associated value functions for reducing the health risks associated with solar ultraviolet (UV) exposure. Common format studies are conducted in four countries with transfers between all of these being undertaken. By calculating errors in predicted versus actual values across countries we show that, when transferring between similar contexts, simple mean-value transfers outperform more complex value function transfers (with the magnitude of the former errors being encouragingly small). However, this result is reversed when transfers are undertaken across dissimilar contexts where value functions partially adjust for these differences. In summary these findings provide support and guidance for future applications. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A contingent valuation study is conducted to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for reducing the risks of skin cancer arising from exposure to solar UV light in New Zealand, where skin cancer incidence rates are among the highest in the world. A split sample design contrasts dichotomous choice (DC) with open ended (OE) methods for eliciting WTP responses. We attempt to distinguish theoretically consistent preferences from those which are procedurally variant and constructed. This is achieved both through explicit testing of the influence of available heuristics upon responses and a novel scope sensitivity test. The latter test addresses concerns that survey respondents sometimes fail to understand a specified change in provision. This is achieved by holding the good constant but making its remit vary from just the individual respondent to their entire household. A key feature of this latter test is whether the observed degree of scope sensitivity is not only statistically significant but also conforms to prior expectations. While our OE responses show clear evidence of preference construction, the DC responses pass both forms of testing. We conclude by arguing that the degree of scope sensitivity and its conformity with prior expectations should form a focal criterion for future validity testing.

The paper introduces the reader to the contingent valuation method for monetary valuation of individuals' preferences regarding changes to environmental goods. Approaches to the validity testing of results from such studies are discussed. These focus upon whether findings conform with economic-theoretic expectations, in particular regarding whether valuations are sensitive to the size (or 'scope') of environmental change being considered, and whether they are invariant to alterations in study design which are irrelevant from the perspective of economic theory. We apply such tests to a large sample study of schemes to alter the acidity levels of remote mountain lakes. Results suggest that, when presented with environmental changes which respondents are concerned about, their values exhibit scope sensitivity and conform to theoretical expectations, and therefore could be used for formulating policy. However, when presented with changes which respondents feel are trivial, their values fail tests of theoretical consistency and are not scope sensitive, and therefore cannot be used within economic appraisals. Interestingly we find that qualitative focus group analyses are good indicators of whether a given change is likely to be considered trivial or not and therefore whether scope sensitivity tests are likely to be satisfied. © EAWAG, 2005.

The European Union (EU) Bathing Water Directive of 1976 ([Commission of the European Communities, 1976. Council Directive of 8th December 1975 Concerning the Quality of Bathing Water (76/160/EEC). Official Journal of the European Community. 5th February 1976, L31/1, Brussels]) sets out standards for designated bathing waters which should be complied with by all member states. Intervening advances in pollution science, related technology and managerial expertise have allowed the European Commission to consider revision of EU environmental legislation where appropriate. As a result, a number of revisions to the 1976 Directive have been proposed ([Commission of the European Communities, 1994. Commission Proposal for a Council Directive Concerning the Quality of Bathing Water. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, COM (94) 36 Final, Brussels; Commission of the European Communities, 2000. Developing a New Bathing Water Policy, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, COM (2000) 860 Final, 21/12/200, Brussels; Commission of the European Communities, 2002. Commission Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council Concerning the Quality of Bathing Water, COM (2002) 581 Final, 24/10/2002, Brussels]). This paper considers these revisions in terms of the economic costs and benefits associated with any change in policy. The focus is on the public's willingness to pay for a revised Directive and the consequent public health benefits afforded to individuals and society. These economic benefits are compared to the costs of implementing changes to bring bathing waters up to the required standard.

This study investigates the temporal stability and transferability of dichotomous choice willingness to pay responses and their determinants from two large-scale contingent valuation surveys in the area of flood control and wetland conservation. The study considers a time period between surveys which is more than double that considered in previous test-retest analyses. Whereas such previous studies have reported stable values over relatively short time periods, the present study finds a statistically significant decrease in real willingness to pay over this more extended time period. Analyses of model transfer between the two survey periods indicate that models derived solely from economic-theoretic determinants pass transferability tests. However, expanding these models to include more ad hoc, transitory factors yields nontransferable models. This provides a guide for future analyses. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.

This paper reports an 'adversarial collaboration' - a project carried out by two individuals or research groups who, having proposed conflicting hypotheses, seek to resolve their dispute. It describes an experiment which investigates whether, when individuals consider giving up money in exchange for goods, they construe money outlays as losses or as foregone gains. This issue bears on the explanation of the widely observed disparity between willingness-to-pay (WTP) and willingness-to-accept (WTA) valuations of costs and benefits, which has proved problematic for contingent valuation studies. The results of the experiment are broadly consistent with the hypothesis that money outlays are perceived as losses. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The report reviews the literature regarding the aggregation of benefit value estimates for environmental resources. The report is prompted by the UK Environment Agency 'political jurisdiction' approach to aggregation of values for a single site as used in their study for the River Kennet tribunal. Two case studies are presented through which an alternative approach to aggregation is developed that applies the spatial analytic capabilities of a geographical information system to combine geo-referenced physical, census and survey data to estimate a spatially sensitive valuation function. These functions highlight the fact that resource values are expected to decline with increasing distance of households from the resource. The case studies show that the reliance upon political jurisdictions and the use of sample mean values within the aggregation process are liable to lead to significant errors in resultant values. The report concludes with some limitations of the approach used as well as recommendations for future work in this area.

One tactic for mitigating climate change associated with human-origin CO2 releases is to promote C storage in biomass, particularly trees. The economic value of C storage associated with woodland can be compared to the costs (or benefits) of other strategies for mitigating climate change. Models were developed to calculate the rates of marginal carbon storage (or release) associated with live trees, forest floor litter, soils, wood products, harvest, fossil fuel used in manufacturing and C displacement from bio-fuels and products for representative British plantation species: Sitka spruce (Picea Sitchensis) and beech (Fagus sylvatica). Map databases of public and privately-owned woodlands were compiled for Great Britain. Marginal carbon gains (or losses) were determined for each woodland in the dataseis. C flux was monetised using candidate parameters for the social discount rate (1, 3, 3.5 or 5%) and social value of carbon (US$109.5, $1, $10 or $17.10/metric tonne). A conventional discount function was applied. Final results were expressed as Net Present Values, base year 2001. The modelling suggests that the minimum NPV (assuming discount rate=3% and social value of carbon = $1) of carbon sequestering in GB woodlands existing in 2001 was $82 million, with a expected further $72 million that might be added by subsequent afforestation. These figures rise dramatically if a discount rate of 1% and social value of sequestered carbon = $109.5/tonne are assumed. The total value of C stored in British woodland depends very much on the assumptions about appropriate discount rate and social value of sequestered carbon.

Concerns have been raised that the payment card (PC) format widely used in contingent valuation surveys of health treatments and risk reductions is subject to range bias. In response recent surveys have adopted an alternative random card sorting (RCS) approach - though this approach's susceptibility to range bias has not yet been formally tested. This study addressed this gap and showed, somewhat unexpectedly, that the RCS procedure was no less vulnerable to range bias than the PC method for eliciting both monetary values of health risk reductions and non-monetary estimates of death rates. Conclusions for future research initiatives are drawn.

This paper examines the extent to which inequalities in noise exposure are present in the city of Birmingham in the English Midlands. Estimates of road and rail noise levels were made using established sound propagation models and were combined with data on noise generated from the city's airport. Demographic details from the 1991 UK Census provided information on population age, ethnic make-up and deprivation. No relationship was established between noise exposure and population age, and there was only rather weak evidence of an association between noise exposure and ethnicity. Similarly weak disparities were observed in estimated noise exposures and levels of socioeconomic deprivation. The implications of these findings with regard to possible efforts to reduce urban noise levels are discussed. © 2004 the Editors of Urban Studies.

A simple but novel experiment is described examining the impact of interviewer appearance upon stated willingness to pay (WTP) for an environmental good. This test consists of an interviewer wearing either formal or more casual clothing. This analysis is interacted with a cross cutting treatment examining the well known impact of adding information on certain of the less familiar attributes of the good in question. Face-to-face interviews are employed to collect a sample of respondents who are randomly allocated to one of the four treatment permutations described by our interviewer appearance and information change study design. Our analysis suggests that both altering the appearance of an interviewer and changing the degree of information provided can have significant impacts upon stated WTP. Furthermore this effect is heightened when both effects are running in parallel. We argue that such findings are to be expected given the highly interactive nature of face-to-face interviewing but note that this serves to provide a cautionary note regarding the complex array of influences at work when members of the public are asked to express preferences regarding goods for which they have not previously provided monetary values. © 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

This paper considers the use of contingent valuation to estimate non-market benefits from separately valued nested goods. Survey respondents were asked referendum WTP questions regarding either a scheme to protect the "whole" area of a wetland or a scheme to protect some nested "part" sub-area. The survey design permitted first-response testing and comparison of part and whole values revealed mixed evidence of scope sensitivity. However, allowing for variation in the degree to which differing schemes are considered to be realistic revealed highly significant scope sensitivity. These results illustrate the need for a detailed understanding of the preferences and beliefs of respondents when performing scope sensitivity tests. © 2004 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Recent advances in the theoretical understanding of equilibria in property markets predict that the equilibrium hedonic price function will typically be highly nonlinear. Rather than adopting progressively more flexible econometric specifications to deal with this nonlinearity we adopt an alternative estimation strategy based on a further insight provided by the theoretical literature. That insight is that in equilibrium the market may not be characterised by a continuum of properties over attribute space. Rather the market may well be lumpy, being well-provided with properties exhibiting certain combinations of characteristics and sparsely provided elsewhere. We test the predictions of two different models; one that suggests that the market will be characterised by clusters of properties with similar physical attributes, one that the market will be characterised by clusters of neighbourhoods exhibiting similar socioeconomic compositions. We identify clusters by applying techniques of model-based clustering which allow the data to inform on the nature and the number of clusters. Our estimation strategy for handling nonlinearity, therefore, is to avoid estimating the hedonic price function over the entire attribute space. Rather, we fit separate price functions for the properties in each cluster thereby forming local approximations to the hedonic price surface over the attribute area spanned by the properties in each cluster. Finally we test to see which partitioning of the data, either according to the attributes of properties or the socioeconomics of neighbourhoods, is capable of explaining more of the variability in the data.

Although attractive in terms of its incentive compatibility, the standard single bound (SB) dichotomous choice technique for eliciting willingness to pay (WTP) responses in contingent valuation surveys has a major drawback in terms of its low statistical efficiency. While alternatives such as the double bound (DB) approach (which supplements an initial SB style question concerning a specified bid amount with a subsequent follow-up question concerning a different bid amount) offer improved statistical efficiency, they do so at the cost of compromised incentive compatibility and have also been shown to be vulnerable to a number of response anomalies. An innovative alternative, the one-and-one-half-bound (OOHB) dichotomous choice approach, has recently been proposed by Cooper, Hanemann and Signorello (2002). The OOHB differs from the DB in a number of important respects; the most important being that while each respondent is again exposed to two bid amounts, these are presented prior to any response as upper and lower limits on the cost of schemes. This preserves the incentive compatibility of responses concerning those two limits while generating most of the efficiency gains afforded by the DB method. However, Cooper, Hanemann and Signorello fail to test the method for robustness against response anomalies. Such a test is provided by the present paper. A number of theoretical consistency hypotheses are formulated by contrasting standard expectations with those derived from non-standard reference dependent utility theory. These are tested through the first application of the OOH method within its intended public goods context in a study concerning WTP for remediating impacts upon water quality associated with climate change. Data is collected through a face-to-face survey of over 1250 UK households. Results reject the theoretical consistency of elicited WTP responses showing that the OOHB is highly vulnerable to a number of anomalies. In particular acceptance rates for a given bid amount varied according to which other amount it was paired with and the order in which responses were elicited. We speculate upon the implications of these findings.

A frequent assumption of hedonic price estimation using property market data is that spatial autocorrelation of regression residuals is a feature of the error generating process. Under this assumption, spatial error dependence models that impose a specific spatial structure on the error generating process provide efficient parameter estimates. In this paper we argue that spatial autocorrelation is induced by spatial features influencing property prices that are not observed by the researcher. Whilst many of these features comprise the subtle nuances of location that might adequately be handled by modelling the error process, others may be substantive spatial features whose absence from the model is likely to induce omitted variable bias in the parameter estimates. Accordingly we propose an alternative estimation strategy. We use spatial statistics to determine the nature of spatial dependence in regression residuals. Subsequently we adopt a semiparametric smooth spatial effects estimator to account for omitted locational covariates over the spatial scale indicated by the spatial statistics. The parameter estimates from this model are found to differ significantly from those of a spatial error dependence model.

In this paper we argue that the burgeoning empirical debate over scope sensitivity within contingent valuation studies is fundamentally incomplete in that it has neglected a systematic examination of certain effects of study design upon observed scope sensitivity. In particular we highlight the fact that in certain study designs the choice set initially offered (or "visible") to respondents is changed in a stepwise manner as they progress through a valuation exercise, while other designs involve advance disclosure regarding the full extent of the final visible choice set prior to any choices or values being elicited. The issue of changes in the visible choice set is alluded to by Smith (J. Environ. Econom. Manage. 22(1) 71), who identifies this as a primary challenge to Kahneman and Knetsch's (J. Environ. Econom. Manage. 22(1) 57), well-known experimental results. Kahneman and Knetsch contend that it seems "highly implausible that this minor procedural change would significantly alter results" (p. 61), but do not test this assertion. We present experimental and field tests of the impact upon contingent values of varying the visible choice set through stepwise and advance disclosure. These dimensions of design are interacted with changes in the order in which nested goods are presented (bottom-up versus top-down). When a stepwise disclosure procedure is adopted, the observed scope sensitivity is substantially and significantly affected by the order in which goods are presented but such procedural variance is not observed within advance disclosure designs. Conjectures regarding the origin and implications of such findings are presented. © 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

The paper introduces the reader to the contingent valuation method for monetary valuation of individuals' preferences regarding changes to environmental goods. Approaches to the validity testing of results from such studies are discussed. These focus upon whether findings conform to prior expectations, in particular regarding whether valuations are sensitive to the size (or 'scope) of change being considered and whether they are invariant to changes in study design which are irrelevant from the perspective of economic theory. We apply such tests to a large sample study of two possible changes to the acidity levels of remote mountain lakes. Results suggest that robust values can be observed for a policy which would prevent further acidification of such lakes, but that values associated with measures to reduce acidity below present levels fail validity tests. Interestingly, values associated with preventing further acidification of lakes appear to be significantly lower for individuals who live further away from such lakes and there may even be a national component to this distance decay suggesting that those who live in the same country as the lakes in question hold higher values for their improvement.

We present the results of an experiment involving established couples, which uses choices between lotteries to test some economic models of household decision-making. Subjects make choices individually and jointly and are asked to make predictions about their partner's choices. Income pooling is not rejected in joint choice but has less explanatory power in individual choice. Many joint choices do not satisfy the Pareto principle. Overall, couples are more risk averse when making choices jointly compared to individual choice. Gender is not a direct determinant of power in joint choices, but female economic dependence significantly reduces women's decisiveness in joint choice.

Critics of the contingent valuation (CV) method have argued that individuals apply "noneconomic" motives in responding to CV questions, implying that elicited values are not valid measures of the economic benefit of environmental improvement. This study examines the role of such motives by using measures of attitude and motive strength to interpret willingness-to-pay (WTP) values for a set of nested environmental goods with potential use and nonuse benefits. Motivational structure is found to be more complex than suggested by the simple distinction between valid economic-theoretic and "noneconomic" motives. Social motivations possibly associated with the benefit of contributing to a public good rather than the benefits of the good itself are potentially relevant to the WTP decision but do not give rise to separable values. The strength of perceived personal responsibility for provision of the good is significantly associated with WTP but also with the theoretically desirable property of enhanced scope sensitivity. WTP is not found to be associated with the extent to which the individual feels under some general moral obligation to contribute to "good causes". Motives arising from ethical concerns for the environment and altruism are also potentially relevant to WTP but are closely related to underlying motives associated with existence and personal use values, respectively. It is suggested that the CV debate should be informed by further empirical investigation of the extent to which motives for WTP can be treated as separable. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mexico City suffers from increasing problems of poor water supply. We show that service conditions are highly heterogeneous across three large areas of the city, and that these conditions are significantly associated with household income in those areas. A contingent valuation survey is used to investigate households' ability and willingness to pay (WTP) for maintained and improved levels of service. In accordance with prior expectation we observe that poorer households are primarily concerned with securing reliable services, while wealthier households, which already enjoy better services, are WTP higher amounts to avoid service deterioration than for improvements. We demonstrate how WTP results can be used to create equity based policy of water tariffs reflecting income distribution. The aggregated WTP amounts show that the authorities could collect sufficient resources for both service modernisation and could also reduce existing subsidies by about 70%. Remaining subsidies could be targeted on households with lower income levels.

The paper presents a variety of meta analysis models of woodland recreation benefit estimates, contrasting conventionally estimated models with those provided by novel, multi-level modeling (MLM) techniques (Goldstein 1995). Our conventional models suggest that studies carried out by certain authors are associated with unusually large residuals within our meta-analysis. However, the MLM approach explicitly incorporates the hierarchical nature of meta-analysis data with estimates nested within study sites and authors. These residuals are not a significant determinant upon values, suggesting that, at least in this aspect, estimates may be more robust than indicated by less sophisticated models.

The paper presents a variety of meta analysis models of woodland recreation benefit estimates, contrasting conventionally estimated models with those provided by novel, multi-level modeling (MLM) techniques (Goldstein, 1995). Our conventional models suggest that studies carried out by certain authors are associated with unusually large residuals within our meta-analysis. However, the MLM approach explicitly incorporates the hierarchical nature of meta-analysis data, with estimates nested within study sites and authors. Allowing for this reveals that these residuals are not a significant determinant upon values, suggesting that, at least in this aspect, estimates may be more robust than indicated by less sophisticated models. However, previously noted differences in benefit estimates between alternate valuation methods persist across our various analyses and remain a cause for concern.

Contingent valuation (CV) is a popular method in economics for eliciting individuals' preferences for non-market environmental resources, but very few attempts have been made to apply it to distant environmental goods of global importance. This paper reports the results of a CV study in the UK and Italy, which evaluated non-users' willingness to pay for the implementation of a proposed programme of protected areas in Brazilian Amazonia. The main focus of the survey was the wealth of biodiversity in the region proposed for protection and the ecosystem services provided by such areas. Taking both countries together, respondents were willing to pay, on average, £30 (US$ 45.60) per household per annum to fund the implementation of a protection programme covering 5% of Brazilian Amazonia and £39 (US$ 59.28) per household per annum to fund a 20% programme. Aggregated across households, an annual fund to conserve 5% of Brazilian Amazonia as strictly protected areas could yield around £600 million (US$ 912 million) in the UK and a similar amount in Italy. It should be noted that respondents appeared to show a high degree of uncertainty in the bid decision process for such an unfamiliar and distant good, leading to questions as to the validity and reliability of results. Nevertheless, responses were non-random and systematically related to a range of socio-economic characteristics and attitudinal variables. Thus initiatives such as international financial transfers from wealthy developed countries to support the protection of threatened areas of global significance could attract widespread support in those countries.

A simple but novel experiment is described examining the impact of interviewer appearance upon stated willingness to pay (WTP) for an environmental good. This test consists of an interviewer wearing either formal or more casual clothing. This analysis is interacted with a cross cutting treatment examining the more familiar impact of adding information on certain of the less familiar attributes of the good in question. Face to face interviews are employed to collect a sample of respondents who are randomly allocated to one of the four treatment permutations described by our interviewer appearance and information change study design. Our analysis suggests that both altering the appearance of an interviewer and changing the degree of information provided can have significant impacts upon stated WTP. Furthermore this effect is heightened when both effects are running in parallel. We argue that such findings are to be expected given the highly interactive nature of face-to-face interviewing but note that this serves to provide a cautionary note regarding the complex array of influences at work when members of the public are asked to express preferences regarding goods for which they have not previous provided monetary values.

This paper reports an exercise in adversarial collaboration. An adversarial collaboration is an investigation carried out jointly by two individuals or research groups who, having proposed conflicting hypotheses, seek to resolve the issue in dispute. The experiment reported was designed to reconcile differences between the apparently conflicting results of two previous experiments, one carried out by Kahneman, the other by the other authors. Specifically, it investigates whether, when consumers consider giving up money in exchange for goods, they construe potential money outlays as losses. This issue bears on the explanation of the widely observed disparity between willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept valuations of costs and benefits, which has proved so problematic for contingent valuation studies. The results of the experiment do not decisively resolve the question in dispute, but they are broadly consistent with the hypothesis that money outlays are perceived as losses.

This paper examines the extent to which inequalities in noise exposure are present in the city of Birmingham in the English midlands. Estimates of road and rail noise levels were made using established sound propagation models and were combined with data on noise generated from the city's airport. Demographic details from the 1991 UK Census provided information on population age, ethic makeup, and deprivation. No relationship was established between noise exposure and population age, and there was only rather weak evidence of an association between noise exposure and ethnicity. However, greater disparities were observed in estimated noise exposures and levels of socio-economic deprivation. The implications of these findings with regard to possible efforts to reduce urban noise levels are discussed.

Given the evidence against the unitary model of the household, there is a need to understand the predictions of alternative household models within the context of valuation. This paper derives the relationship between household and individual willingness to pay (WTP) for the non-cooperative model of the household. We stress the dependence of WTP on a) the conjectures held by respondents about the behaviour of other members of the household and b) on whether all the members of the household make contributions to household public goods. The results suggest that the relationship between individual WTP and household WTP may be a complex one and that identifying gender-specific environmental preferences may not be possible within standard stated preference exercises.

Within a contingent valuation (CV) survey ordering effects are defined where responses to a given question vary in a theoretically unanticipated manner according to the positioning of that question relative to others in the survey instrument. This paper employs a split-sample CV design to investigate the potential for such ordering effects upon stated willingness to pay for nested goods. In one 'top-down' design, values are first elicited for protecting the 'whole' of an endangered area after which values for a 'part' sub-area are elicited. A second 'bottom-up' treatment reverses the order of valuation tasks with the 'part' scheme valued prior to the 'whole'. Results show that 'whole' and 'part' valuation responses are logically ordered and determined by a consistent set of factors irrespective of question order. However, variance to question order was observed in both the 'part' and 'whole' valuations. The correspondence of these results to standard and non-standard preference theories is explored and the difficulties and practical issues concerning valuing nested goods are highlighted. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper develops a decision support system for evaluation of wetland ecosystem management strategy and examines its, so far partial, application in a case study of an important complex coastal wetland known as the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, in the east of England, UK. Most managed ecosystems are complex and often poorly understood hierarchically organized systems. Capturing the range of relevant impacts on natural and human systems under different management options will be a formidable challenge. Biodiversity has a hierarchical structure which ranges from the ecosystem and landscape level, through the community level and down to the population and genetic level. There is a need to develop methodologies for the practicable detection of ecosystem change, as well as the evaluation of different ecological functions. What is also required is a set of indicators (environmental, social and economic) which facilitate the detection of change in ecosystems suffering stress and shock and highlight possible drivers of the change process. A hierarchical classification of ecological indicators of sustainability would need to take into account existing interactions between different organization levels, from species to ecosystems. Effects of environmental stress are expressed in different ways at different levels of biological organization and effects at one level can be expected to impact other levels, often in unpredictable ways. The management strategy, evaluation methodologies and indicators adopted should also assess on sustainability grounds whether any given management option is supporting, or reducing, the diversity of functions which are providing stakeholders with the welfare benefits they require.

Previous work on hedonic price functions tends to have focused on one of a number of specification and estimation issues; namely, market segmentation, choice of functional form, multicollinearity or spatial autocorrelation. The purpose of this paper is to bring together these various strands to provide a comprehensive modelling approach. In particular we use a combination of factor analysis and cluster analysis to define market segments and reduce collinearity in the data. We adopt Robinson's semiparametric specification of the hedonic price function and account for spatial autocorrelation using Kelejian and Prucha's generalized moments estimator. The modelling approach is applied to a large and extremely detailed dataset for the City of Birmingham constructed from multiple data sources and compiled with the use of GIS. The focus of this application is the identification of implicit prices for noise pollution from road, rail and air traffic sources.

Many of the analyses undertaken by environmental and resource economics are intimately concerned with spatial variations. This article examines the contribution which Geographical Information Systems (GIS) may provide in incorporating the complexities of the spatial dimension within such analyses. The paper introduces the reader to the types of data handled by a GIS and overviews the practical functionality offered by such systems. A brief literature review is supplemented by a number of more detailed applications illustrating various GIS techniques which may be of use to the applied environmental or resource economist.

Tourism is regarded by many countries, particularly resource-poor countries, as a potential stimulus to the economy. Yet tourism, by the nature of the activities involved, is constrained by the natural resource base and infrastructure, and by the pollution and other environmental and social impacts of tourist numbers. Tourism development strategies of national governments have been diverse in the face of this complex relationship between the economic costs and benefits of tourism. This paper examines tourist development based on concepts of open access and renewable natural resources. The experiences of two economies highly dependent on tourism, the Maldives and Nepal, are compared and contrasted. Although these countries offer very different attractions to tourists, they are faced with similar problems in terms of adverse environmental impacts of tourism. The dominant impacts in both areas are those associated with solid waste disposal and water resources, compounded by the depletion of natural resources. Both countries are currently employing 'dispersal' techniques to overcome the adverse impacts of tourism, but such strategies do not address the fundamental problem of maintaining tourism revenues whilst minimizing environmental damage. Even if an ecological carrying capacity can be defined, the experiences of these two countries indicate that impacts on local communities may well exceed so-called cultural carrying capacity.

Many studies in the USA have noted inequities with regard to the socioeconomic status or racial character of communities and their relative exposure to environmental disamenities. In this paper the authors focus particularly on the environmental equity of air pollution in the English city of Birmingham. Using statistical methodologies they examine the pattern of exposure to two key air pollutants: carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) across certain population groups in the city. Estimated emission levels of CO and NO2 were mapped by using modelled associations between vehicle densities and measured emissions at existing monitoring stations. These data were input to a geographical information system (GIS) for subsequent comparisons with population maps. Three types of variables were considered to distinguish possibly disadvantaged populations: age profile, ethnic make-up, and poverty indicators. From the 1991 Census, relevant statistics were derived for each enumeration district in the city. No relationship could be established on the age variable (that is, neither children nor pensioners appear to differ from the general population in their likely exposure patterns). However, there was a striking relationship between modelled emissions and poverty indicators and ethnicity. The effects are difficult to separate out but there is strong evidence to suggest that the two factors (poverty and ethnicity) operate in an independent manner. The implications of these findings, with regard to the causes of the disparities and the likely impacts of possible efforts to improve air quality in Birmingham, are discussed.

Three interrelated management problems - eutrophication of multiple use shallow lakes, sea level rise and flood risk mitigation and tourism pressures - are analysed in the context of an internationally important wetland area, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads in the UK. The ecological-economic research findings presented should provide essential information to underpin the regulatory and management process in this quasi-national park. The relevant authority has somehow to balance the maintenance of public navigation rights, nature conservation and tourism promotion in a highly dynamic ecosystems setting. Because of the stakeholder conflicts, potential and actual, a more inclusionary decision-making procedure is required and is currently being implemented.

Dichotomous choice contingent valuation questions are relatively inefficient in that large sample sizes are required for a given level of estimation precision. An increasingly common approach to this problem is to supplement the initial question with subsequent dichotomous choice questions in a multiple-bound design. However, a number of commentators have suggested that such designs may generate responses which are internally inconsistent in that the distribution of underlying preferences implied by answers to the initial question may not be the same as that implied by the entire sequence of replies. We consider a variety of potential causes of such inconsistencies and use data from a contingent valuation study with two follow-ups and post survey debriefing focus groups to test both the effects caused by moving from one bound to another and those caused when respondents follow either the bid-increasing path generated by a positive response at a given bid amount, or the bid-decreasing path generated by negative responses. Results indicate that both bound and path effects are significant and generate a pattern corresponding to certain of the causes of inconsistency identified in the paper. Conclusions for the future application of such designs are presented. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This study employs a mixed methodological approach, using questionnaire surveys of individuals and stakeholder focus groups to investigate economic values placed on a wetland surrounding Kalloni Bay on the island of Lesvos, Greece. The questionnaire survey of local people and visitors to the area included a rating exercise of four possible development scenarios, and each individual was then asked their willingness to participate in payment for their chosen scenario, and if they were willing to participate, they were then asked a willingness to pay question. Participants were also asked a series of attitudinal questions concerning the local environment and issues relevant to the area. This information was then combined with qualitative information derived from the focus groups, which elicited opinions from important local stakeholders, such as fishermen, elected representatives, constructors and hotel owners about their priorities for both conservation and development. By combining these methodologies, information and conclusions of greater relevance to policy makers can he obtained than using either methodology in isolation. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V.

Previous models to describe the desire for recreation at English forest sites have tended to use fairly crude and regional measures. This study demonstrates how forest recreation demand can be modelled quite locally and using just site-specific characteristics or simple measures of available population as input. A field survey of 33 Forestry Commission sites was made in order to collect data on attractive features at each site. These data were supplemented with variables to indicate the availability of competing woodlands and population totals within set travel distances. The outputs were simple but robust stand-alone functions to describe visits across many sites.

Many studies in the United States have noted inequities with regard to the socio-economic status or racial character of communities and their relative exposure to environmental disamenities. This paper focuses particularly on air pollution in the city of Birmingham in western England. Estimated emissions levels for carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide were obtained for the city using known correlations between land use and measured emissions at existing monitoring stations. These data were input to a geographical information system (GIS) for subsequent comparisons with population maps in Birmingham. The authors considered three types of variables to distinguish possibly disadvantaged populations: age profile, ethnic makeup and poverty indicators. From the 1991 Census relevant statistics were derived for each enumeration district in the city. No relationship could be established on the age variable (i.e. neither children nor pensioners appear to differ from the general population in their likely exposure patterns). However, there was a striking relationship between modelled emissions and poverty indicators and race. The effects are difficult to separate out but there is strong evidence to suggest that the two factors (poverty and race) are distinct: i.e. with regard to air quality, it is worse to be poor and black/Asian, than poor and white. These findings have implications with regard to possible efforts to improve air quality in Birmingham.

This paper is concerned with valuing the health risks of sun exposure due to ultra violet (UV) radiation. The study's main objective is to assess the public perception and valuation of UV health risks in countries in which the scientifically established risk levels are significantly different. Using a multi-country survey, we investigate the relationships between risk awareness, perception, behaviour and willingness to pay for risk reductions. These risk reduction premia are evaluated both for a private good (a new sun protection product) and a public good (a global fund for reducing global emissions of stratospheric ozone-depleting substances). We find that public awareness of risks is highest in New Zealand. Interestingly, the health effects of sunbathing are perceived as more detrimental in South Europe (Portugal and Greece) than in North Europe (England and Scotland), even though the actual risks are higher in the latter. We furthermore find that a substantial market exists for higher protection sunscreens, as evidenced by willingness to pay in the private good case. These willingness to pay amounts can be fairly well explained using a model incorporating both exogenous risk factors and risk-reducing behaviour. In terms of the public good, the policy message, which emerges is that public willingness to contribute to the Multilateral Fund established under the Montreal Protocol is highly variable across the countries studied.

In most applied cost-benefit analyses, individual willingness to pay (WTP) is aggregated without using explicit welfare weights. This can be justified by postulating a utilitarian social welfare function along with the assumption of equal marginal utility of income for all individuals. However, since marginal utility is a cardinal concept, there is no generally accepted way to verify the plausibility of this latter assumption, nor its empirical importance. In this paper, we use data from seven contingent valuation studies to illustrate that if one instead assumes equal marginal utility of the public good for all individuals, aggregate monetary benefit estimates change dramatically. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V.

The contingent valuation method is often used for valuing environmental goods which have nonuse as well as direct-use values. However, it is often not clear how respondents to a contingent valuation survey allocate values when asked for willingness-to-pay amounts. In this paper, we investigate use and nonuse values for the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus), an endangered species, by using a survey conducted in Mytilene, on the island of Lesvos, Greece. Using factor analysis of the survey we found five factors which described respondents' attitudes towards conserving the monk seal, which were labelled protection, moral responsibility, ambivalence, limited resources, and tourist potential. Multilevel modelling was then used to compare willingness-to-pay responses with attitudinal and sociodemographic variables. The results suggest that willingness to pay for use, option, and existence values are predicted by different attitudinal variables.

In this paper we argue that the burgeoning empirical debate over scope sensitivity within contingent valuation studies is fundamentally incomplete in that the effect of study design upon observed scope has largely been ignored. In particular we highlight the frequently overlooked fact that in many common study designs the choice set initially offered (or 'visible') to respondents is changed in a stepwise disclosure manner as they progress through a valuation exercise. Conversely, other designs give advance disclosure regarding the full extent of the final visible choice set prior to any choices or values being elicited. Although this issue has been raised within this journal by several commentators (e.g. Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992; Smith, 1992) it has not been formally tested. We present laboratory and field tests of the impact upon contingent values of varying the visible choice set through stepwise and advanced disclosure modes using exclusive choices throughout (i.e. providing a situation in which procedural variance is not expected). These dimensions of design are interacted with changes in the order in which nested goods are presented (bottom-up versus top-down). We find that when a stepwise disclosure procedure is adopted the observed scope sensitivity is substantially and significantly affected by the order in which goods are presented but such procedural invariance is not observed within advanced disclosure designs. Conjectures regarding the origin and implication of such findings are presented.

Everyone likes clean seawater to bathe in and standards for acceptable seawater quality are set by the European Commission (CEC, 1976). In 1994, proposals to revise these standards were announced. These proposals were the subject of a House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry (HMSO, 1994, 1995), which deplored the fact that a soundly based cost-benefit analysis of the proposed revision had not been produced. This paper considers the question of developing means to assess the adequacy of the proposed revision from a social/public perception standpoint, using a mixed methodology of quantitative survey and qualitative focus groups. The aim of using such an approach is to provide a more in-depth and informative input into the decision-making process for policy makers. Our results show that mean willingness-to-pay amounts, representing the economic benefits of the revision to the 1976 EC bathing water standard, are roughly of the same order of magnitude as the estimated potential cost increases in average annual household water bills necessary to implement the revision. This result is qualified by analysis of how preferences are constructed in terms of socioeconomic variables, perceptions and attitudes towards risk, and issues such as trust, blame and accountability of institutions and regulatory processes involved in setting standards for bathing water quality. © 2000, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Interval data analysis of CV discrete choice responses delivers efficiency gains which must be weighed against the risk of introducing strategic response bias. Efficiency gains are also achievable by improved bid design. We assess these gains on median WTP estimates first in an empirical application, then by means of a Monte Carlo experiment comparing three different bid designs. Improved, but sub-optimal, bid design delivers comparable gains to those achieved by one and two follow-up questions. The first follow-up captures more than 50% of the efficiency gain provided by a second follow-up.

Models of carbon storage in softwood and hardwood trees and forest soils and its emission from timber products and waste are developed and integrated with data on storage benefits to yield estimates of the value of the net carbon flux generated by afforestation. The long-term nature of the processes under consideration and the impact of varying the discount rate are explicitly incorporated within the model. A geographical information system (GIS) is used to apply carbon sequestration models to data on tree growth and soil type distribution for a large study area (the entire country of Wales). The major findings are: (1) all three elements under analysis (carbon sequestration in livewood, release from different products and waste, and storage or emission from soils) play a vital role in determining overall carbon flux; (2) woodland management has a substantial impact upon carbon storage in livewood however the choice of discount rate exerts the largest overall influence upon estimated carbon flux values; (3) timber growth rates (yield class) also have a major impact upon values; (4) tree species does affect storage values, however this is less important than the other factors listed above; (5) non-peat soils generally sequester relatively low levels of carbon. Planting upon peat soils can result in very substantial emissions of carbon which exceed the level of storage in livewood. The GIS is used to produce valuation maps which can be readily incorporated within cost-benefit analyses regarding optimal locations for conversion of land into forestry. © 2000 Academic Press.

One of the results of new road construction is often a reduction in the price of nearby properties. In the United Kingdom property owners can be compensated for this loss through the Land Compensation Act. The appropriate level of compensation is currently determined by valuers and is mainly based upon their expertise and skill. This study aims to determine what the correct level of compensation should be. It has been specifically designed to fulfil the requirements of current legislation and can be integrated into existing compensation procedures. This was achieved through a hedonic pricing study that relates current property prices to a wide range of factors. These variables include the structure, neighbourhood, accessibility, and environment of the property, in addition to the impact of nearby roads. These were all created through GIS and large-scale digital data. The study, which is based on over 3500 property sales in Glasgow, Scotland, suggests that property prices were depressed by 0.202% for each decibel increase in road noise. This result has enabled a more streamlined compensation procedure to be developed and demonstrates that compensation claims can be estimated at the road-development stage. This would allow any compensation claims to be assessed prior to road construction and inform the design of noise-reduction measures.

This article explores public perceptions of, and attitudes toward, possible health risks from polluted coastal bathing waters in the United Kingdom. Cultural theory is applied in the present analysis, using a mixed methodology of quantitative analysis from interviews and qualitative interpretation of focus group discussions to provide insights into how different cultural solidarities view a number of issues. These include risks to health; attitudes toward regulation; public consultation and information provision; and trust, blame, and accountability applied to different stakeholders in the bathing-water-quality debate. The results show that individuals' standpoints can be represented on a number of dimensions, consistent with cultural theory, including perceptions of power and authority, beliefs in the efficacy of collective action, and acceptance or rejection of incremental change as opposed to radical solutions. The discussion focuses both on methodological and substantive issues related to the use of cultural theory as a research tool, and on policy recommendations arising from this research.

Recent debate following the rejection of the Environment Agency case regarding an application for water abstraction at Axford on the River Kennet has focused upon the benefits procedure employed for aggregating non-user benefits which underpinned the economic case put forward by the Agency (although this was not the reason cited by the inquiry for rejection of the case). Commentators have seen this case as setting an unfortunate precedent for the use of economic assessments in such resource management issues. The paper presents a number of highly tractable alternative methods for the aggregation of benefits estimates designed to address the central problems of the definition of a relevant aggregation population and a potential decay of values with increasing distance from a given valuation site. These methods are tested using data obtained from a national survey of non-users of a specific natural area. Results from this application indicate that simpler approaches such as that used at the Axford inquiry may result in aggregate benefits estimates which are very substantially larger than those produced by our proposed alternative approaches to aggregation.

This paper describes how a standard GIS package can be used to convert large-scale vector digital data (point, line and annotation features) into polygons using standardised and replicable methods. Building area, garden and land use polygons are all derived from such data (Ordnance Survey LandLine.Plus). These entities are then combined with further sources of digital data to derive more refined information such as property types. Finally, complex DEMs are developed for use in visibility studies. The variables calculated are subsequently employed in a property valuation study where many are found to be significant determinants of property price. The main exception is variables relating to viewsheds, although it is argued that this does not invalidate the techniques used in their deviation but highlights the difficulties involved in modelling a large number of variables in a property price analysis. © 2000 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This paper develops a methodology for implementing benefit transfer through the medium of a geographical information system. Data from a survey of visitors to a woodland site in eastern England were used to estimate an arrivals function which was then utilized to predict visits to other locations. The validity of this function was tested against actual arrivals at locations in Wales and was found to be a satisfactory estimator of visits. This function was then used to generate predictions of visitor arrivals across Wales to simulate the impact of sites being converted into woodland. The visitor demand map generated by this analysis was then converted to a monetary equivalent using values derived from a cross-study analysis of the existing UK literature on the value of recreational visits to woodland. This final map provides a useful aid to optimal implementation of policies such as the Community Woodland Scheme which aims to target subsidies according to local demand. The paper concludes by highlighting limitations of the analysis and outlining possible extensions.

Environmental economists usually pay little attention to inherently spatial aspects of much of their work. Such analyses also tend to suffer from considerable inefficiencies in data handling. This paper demonstrates how use of GIS and appreciation of the nature of spatial datasets can greatly facilitate natural resource valuation using the technique of travel cost analysis. This work forms the basis for tackling an important research topic in environmental economics: the feasibility of transferring benefits between studies. Using GIS allowed us to implement such transfer with greater ease, consistency, and recognition of the spatial aspects of study design and variable handling than is normally seen in such research. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This interdisciplinary paper reports the results of a study into the costs and benefits of eutrophication reduction in the Baltic Sea. A large multidisciplinary team of natural and social scientists estimated nutrient loadings and pathways within the entire Baltic drainage basin, together with the costs of a range of abatement options and strategies. The abatement cost results were compared with clean-up benefits on a basin-wide scale, in order to explore the potential for international agreements among the countries which border the Baltic. Most countries would seem to gain net economic benefits from the simulated 50% nitrogen and phosphorus reduction policy.

Ongoing concerns regarding the economic losses associated with the CAP and the negative environmental impacts of present land use have led to calls for land use change and consequent efforts to identify areas which are, from both a financial and social perspective, most appropriate for such conversion. This paper develops and applies an output value modelling methodology in which site-specific biophysical factors are combined with farm level data in order to predict input usage and, subsequently, farm profit. The spatial analytic capabilities of a geographical information system (GIS) are used to combine the variety of data employed to permit analysis of a large study area (the entirety of Wales) and yield models of both the market and shadow value of output from the two principal agricultural sectors of the area: dairying and sheep farming. The GIS is then used to produce readily interpretable maps of these values across the study area. The resulting maps are highly compatible both with value maps of alternative land uses given in the recent literature and with approaches to policy formulation currently under development by a range of UK agencies. Such maps may be used to assist estimation of the extent and location of farming response to land use policy change.

The main objective of this study is to explore people's perception and valuation of reduced health risks as expressed in a contingent valuation study carried out in New Zealand. Alongside perceptions, the study elicits awareness of and attitude and behaviour regarding the health risks of sun exposure in a part of the world where skin cancers are a major public health problem and per capita morbidity and mortality rates are among the highest in the world. The benefits of reduced health risk levels are placed in both a public and private good context and focus on measures taken at the sources of ozone depleting atmospheric emissions and the risk receptors, i.e. those individuals who are as a consequence subject to elevated risk exposure. Respondent WTP for reduced risk levels as a private good is significantly lower than WTP for reduced risk levels as a public good, as the latter benefits both the individual respondents and their families and others in society, now and in the future. The private good is a sunscreen which protects the respondents and their families from the harmful effects of UV radiation, while the public good concerns the transfer of technology to reduce ozone depleting emissions. The following methodological issues are tested and found to be significant, some of which are related to the CV method and the WTP question in particular, while others are more general to social survey techniques: individual versus household WTP responses; sequencing of WTP responses; elicitation format effects; anchoring; the effect of statistical model specification on calculated WTP values and theoretically consistent welfare measures.

The use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in environmental decision-making and the contingent valuation (CV) technique as input into traditional CBA to elicit environmental values in monetary terms has stimulated an extensive debate. Critics have questioned the appropriateness of both the method and the technique. Some alternative suggestions for the elicitation of environmental values are based on a social process of deliberation. However, just like traditional economic theory, these alternative approaches may be questioned on their implicit value judgements regarding the legitimacy of the social-political organisation of the process of value elicitation. Instead of making assumptions a priori, research efforts should be focused on the processes by which actual public attitudes and preferences towards the environment can best be elicited and fed into environmental or other public policy decision-making. In the study presented in this paper, support was found for both the individual WTP based approach and a participatory social deliberation approach to inform the environmental decision-making process, suggesting that a combination of both approaches is most appropriate.

Recent debate following the rejection of the Environment Agency case regarding an application for water abstraction at Axford on the River Kennet has focussed upon the benefits procedure employed for aggregating non-user benefits which underpinned the economic case put forward by the Agency (although this was not the reason cited by the inquiry for rejection of the case). Commentators have seen this case as setting an unfortunate precedent for the use of economic assessments in such resource management issues. The paper presents a number of highly tractable alternative methods for the aggregation of benefits estimates designed to address the central problems of the definition of a relevant aggregation population and a potential decay of values with increasing distance from a given valuation site. These methods are tested using data obtained from a national survey of non-users of a specific natural area. Results from this application indicate that simpler approaches such as that used at the Axford inquiry result in aggregate benefits estimates which are very substantially larger than those produced by our proposed alternative approaches to aggregation.

We explore public perceptions of and attitudes to the problem of health risks from polluted coastal bathing waters in the United Kingdom, an issue currently of major public concern. Cultural theory has been applied using a mixed methodology of quantitative survey and qualitative focus groups to provide insight into how different cultural solidarities view issues such as risks to health, regulatory approaches, public consultation and information provision, and trust, blame and accountability applied to different stakeholders in the bathing water quality debate. Our results show that individuals' standpoints can be represented on a number of dimensions, consistent with cultural theory, which include perceptions of power and authority, beliefs in the efficacy of collective action, and acceptance or rejection of incremental change as opposed to radical solutions. Discussion focuses on both methodological and substantive issues related to the use of cultural theory as a research tool, and policy recommendations arising from our research are provided.

Everyone likes clean seawater to bathe in and standards for acceptable seawater quality are set by the European Commission. In 1994, proposals to revise these standards were annouced. These proposals were the subject of a House of Lords Select Committee Enquiry (HMSO, 1994, 1995), which deplored the fact that a soundly based cost benefit analysis of the proposed revision had not been produced. This paper considers such an analysis and assesses the adequacy of the proposed revision from a social/public perception standpoint using the Contingent Valuation method via a questionnaire survey. Members of the public were interviewed at three locations: two seaside towns, Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, and in Norwich, a city roughly 20 miles inland. People were asked whether or not they would be willing to pay higher water rates in order for all the beaches in the Anglian Water region to pass the new standard set by the proposed revision. The percentage of those who answered 'yes' to this question was 83 at Norwich, 71 in Lowestoft and 64 in Great Yramouth, a clear majority in each case for a cleanup. After allowing for thos who refused to pay, this gave an average willingness to pay amount of £35.73 per household. This amount is roughly of the same order of magnitude as the estimated potential cost increased in average annual household water bills necessary to implement the proposed improvement in bathing water quality. Furthermore, the public expectation of the proposed revisions is that incidence of illness from sea bathing should be reduced by about 50% from that achieved by the current EC standard.

Littoral areas of the British Isles present an array of properties and features which have long been exploited by human populations and have contributed to the wealth and the quality of life of the nation. Past and ongoing differentiation in uses of coastal zones has led to conflicts ranging from deleterious effects on supporting ecosystems to symbiosis with human activities. This paper aims to elicit the main forces influencing the development of coastal areas and the means available to assess the present use and manage future exploitation of the coastal zone, following the P-S-I-R Framework and an ecosystem function-based valuation methodology. A variety of pressures and their trends is analysed (climate change, population and tourism changes, port development, hydrocarbon and marine aggregate extraction and pollution). All these factors are examined in the context of the sustainable use of coastal resources and on the basis of an interdisciplinary ecological economics approach.

A contingent valuation (CV) study was undertaken to investigate individuals' stated willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce perceived risks of illness from the quality of bathing water at two beaches in East Anglia, United Kingdom. One beach, Great Yarmouth, failed to meet the EC (European Community) Bathing Water Quality Directive standard, whereas the other at Lowestoft passed. The analysis focuses on determinants of individuals' WTP, including measures of risk perception and attitudes to health not usually measured in CV studies. A conceptual model is then presented which sets the valuation of individual preferences in the context of personal worldviews, and external cultural, societal, and environmental factors which may influence, directly or indirectly, an individual's stated WTP.

The aim of this research was to assign money values to the negative impacts associated with road development, more specifically noise and visual intrusion. These impacts do not have observable prices and so have to be calculated indirectly. One way of doing this is to examine their effect upon house prices. The valuations such a method produces can then be included alongside other costs and benefits in the appraisal of a road development. However in order to calculate these prices, one also has to control for the many other factors that affect house prices, in addition to specifying the two road variables. In previous research this has required much time and effort which has consequently limited the scope of such studies. The aim of this project was to use a geographical information system (GIS) and large-scale digital data to derive all the required variables in a quick and efficient manner. The flexibility of a GIS allows a large number of possible explanatory variables to be calculated, leading to a large and complex dataset. This paper describes how such a dataset was modelled and price estimates for road noise and the visual intrusion extracted. It concludes by commenting upon the benefits of using GIS in this type of study and considers the main limitations to their wider adoption.

Although dichotomous choice (DC) contingent valuation (CV) has been recommended by the US NOAA 'blue-ribbon' panel for large-scale contingent valuation studies, useful information can still be obtained from smaller, open-ended (OE) studies, often undertaken as a precursor to a DC survey. The CV study considered here was carded out in Greece and looked at willingness-to-pay (WTP) for protecting the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus-monachus) in the Aegean area. This is the most endangered seal in the world, and the application of the CV methodology was the first such application in Greece. The OE data consist of two responses: first, a binary response detailing whether or not respondents were in principle prepared to pay for the protection of this seal; secondly, those respondents who answered 'yes' to the first question were then asked to state their maximum WTP for such protection. A multivariate binomial - log-normal mixture model is used to develop a bid function including explanatory variables such as income, sex, age and education. Such a modelling approach provides an alternative to more commonplace tobit estimation. However, the model is extended to include further information which was collected on: (a) an increased WTP amount given in response to information that the initial WTP amount may not be enough to prevent the extinction of the seal; (b) respondents were asked to divide their final WTP amount between use, option and existence values, the latter requiring a multivariate model with four binary and four continuous responses per individual in the same model. The discussion focuses on the methodological issues raised with some comment on the substantive interpretation of results.

Malignant melanoma skin cancer has been increasing in incidence over the past few decades. A significant risk factor is exposure to UV radiation in sunlight, particularly acute, intermittent exposure such as occurs when an individual is sunburned. Fair skinned populations are particularly at risk of this type of skin cancer. A survey was undertaken in the UK and New Zealand to assess young people's knowledge, attitudes and behaviour towards the risk of skin cancer. In New Zealand, where the risk from sun exposure is higher, there was a greater knowledge and awareness of the risks, and some evidence of less positive attitudes to having a deep sun tan. Use of sun protection products was also greater than in the UK. However, young people in New Zealand were still more likely to experience either painful or blistering sunburn which could increase their risk of malignant melanoma. The discussion focuses on how public health policy could encourage young people to alter their attitudes and behaviour in both the UK and New Zealand.

This paper investigates the distribution of three common air polluatnts, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulates (PM10) in England and Wales with respect to social class, ethnicity and population density. A multilevel model is used to demonstrate regional differences in the social distribution of pollution. These differences suggest that national legislation introduced to reduce air pollution levels may give rise to environmental injustice, with geographical and social differences in the costs and benefits arising to the population due to such legislation.

In the shoreline management plan for the coast of North Norfolk (England), managed retreat has been identified as the most preferable option for the Cley Marshes nature reserve. In general, arguments in favour of managed retreat are (i) opportunities for nature restoration and development, (ii) economic efficiency, and (iii) enhanced resilience to environmental stress and shock. However, with respect to the Cley reserve, recent floods have shown that increased salinity is likely to decrease its natural value, while this study shows that the economic-efficiency criterion is not valid either. This paper discusses the application of contingent valuation and travel-cost methods on data collected by interviews of 160 visitors to the reserve, which has provided estimates of the annual recreational value of the site. © 1998 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A geographic information system (GIS) is used to combine and analyse data from a variety of existing large area databases concerning tree growth, plantation management and the environmental characteristics of planted sites. Principal component analysis and regression techniques are employed to estimate a number of Yield Class models for Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong). Carr.). The GIS is used to extrapolate results and generate maps of predicted yield for a large study area (the entirety of Wales). The resulting methodology produces well fitting models of timber yield which compare favourably with those reported in the literature while the GIS generated maps are readily compatible with those currently under construction by various UK forestry authorities in order to plan for a proposed increase in afforested land.

Recent years have seen a growing interest, both from academics and policy makers, in the potential for producing generally applicable models for the valuation of non-market environmental goods and services which do not rely upon expensive and time consuming original survey work but rather extrapolate results from previous studies of similar assets. This paper presents such a meta-analysis for the use and non-use values generated by wetlands across Europe and North America. This study directly addresses two fundamental methodological issues: (i) whereas previous analyses have tended to examine valuation differences between various environmental goods, the present study focuses down a further level to assess the values attributable to the individual use and non-use values associated with the ecological, biogeochemical and hydrological functions provided by a given complex environmental asset; (ii) previous meta-analyses have been criticised for insufficiently addressing the potential problem of clustering within the multiple values derived from single valuation studies; this issue was examined through the application of advanced, multi-level modelling methods which allow for the hierarchical structure of data implicit in such clustering. The study opens with a qualitative descriptive analysis of wetland functions. This is used as the basis of the subsequent quantitative meta-analysis of evaluations derived from a large number of contingent valuation (CV) studies of wetlands. These studies yield over 100 value estimates which our meta-analysis relates to the previously defined function variables and various CV design parameters. Results from the meta analysis identify a number of distinct values for wetland functions. Interestingly, use values such as flood control, water generation and water quality attributes were found to exert a stronger influence over willingness to pay (WTP) than non-use elements such as the biodiversity functions of wetlands, a result which accords with the findings of recent mixed revealed and expressed preference studies of non-market goods. A number of standard CV design effects were also shown to have a significant impact upon WTP including the choice and of payment vehicle and elicitation method (the previously observed discrepancy between dichotomous choice and open ended formats being particularly noticeable). Routine considerations of issues such as inter-country effects were also conducted yielding interesting results. The analysis also included a number of novel elements such as a scope test, an assessment of study quality and the aforementioned investigation of potential evaluation clustering due to identival survey design or sample population. Tests showed that this approach afforded a significant improvement in modelling of the data over that achieved by more conventional meta-analyses. Although considerable effort has been put into specifying the characteristics of the environmental functions and correspondingly the environmental goods and services involved, many sample population characteiristics remain unevaluated. Typically, in meta-analysis inferences are made on the basis of information on global statistics, such as the mean and standard deviations of parameter estimates. These may or may not describe individual behaviour adequately. In order to overcome this problem, a next step is to analyse individual data supplied by authors of the studies included in the meta-analysis. This provides an important test of the appropriateness of meta-analysis as an instrument to synthesise CV outcomes, for example for the purpose of benefits transfer.

Eight alternative methods of eliciting preferences between money and a consumption good are identified: two of these are standard willingness-to-accept and willingness-to-pay measures. These methods differ with respect to the reference point used and the dimension in which responses are expressed. The loss aversion hypothesis of Tversky and Kahneman's theory of reference-dependent preferences predicts systematic differences between the preferences elicited by these methods. These predictions are tested by eliciting individuals' preferences for two private consumption goods; the experimental design is incentive-compatible and controls for income and substitution effects. The theory's predictions are broadly confirmed.

A split-sample approach is employed to test three potential design options for contingent valuation studies. A survey of unpriced woodland recreation is undertaken to test: (a) the impact of introducing budget-constraint questions; (b) the effect of varying temporal extent from willingness to pay (WTP) per annum to WTP per visit; and (c) the consequences of varying the order in which such WTP questions are presented to respondents. Some significant design effects are detected. Alternative explanations of such findings are considered and implications discussed.

Littoral areas of the British Isles present an array of properties and features which have long been exploited by human populations and have contributed to the wealth and the quality of life of the nation. Past and ongoing differentiation in uses of coastal zones has led to conflicts ranging from deleterious effects on supporting ecosystems to symbiosis with human activities. This paper aims to elicit the main forces influencing the development of coastal areas and the means available to assess the present use and manage future exploitation of the coastal zone, following the P-S-I-R Framework. A variety of pressures and their trends are analysed (eg climate change, population and tourism changes, port development, hydrocarbon and marine aggregate extraction and pollution). All these factors are examined in the context of the sustainable use of coastal resources.

The existence of part-whole bias has been hotly disputed in the recent contingent valuation literature. This paper reports on an experiment into part-whole bias. Employing vouchers for parts of a restaurant meal and using an incentive compatible procedure, valuations of the parts and of the whole were elicited. The sum of the valuations of the parts consistently exceeded that of the whole, providing evidence of the existence of part-whole bias in a context where traditional explanations would not have predicted it. © Royal Economic Society 1997.

Methodologies for transfer of non-market, natural resource recreation benefits are an active research topic. This arises because of the appeal of modelling the impacts of possible changes in site quality or benefits at unsurveyed sites. However, successful benefit transfer must necessarily rely on development of reliable visitor demand functions that incorporate travel time, demographic and substitute factors. Previous efforts to include all of these elements in a single arrivals model are rare. By integrating data from numerous sources within a geographical information system (GIS) we have developed a model to predict the number of visitors to a recreational woodland in eastern England. Variables were classified into discrete groups that were combined into comparatively homogeneous zones from which to calculate visit rates. Poisson regression techniques were then applied in a stepwise procedure to assess the influence of each determinant. Our analysis highlighted both substantial promise and some caveats in using GIS for future benefit transfer work.

A great deal of the ongoing academic debate concerning the contingent valuation (CV) method has focused upon whether or not the method is suitable for assessing non-use values. This paper presents results from a study examining non-users' values for preserving the Norfolk Broads, a wetland area of recognized international importance, from the threat of saline flooding. Discussion of results centres upon the validity of the CV method for eliciting unbiased estimates of non-use value. A graphical representation of findings from a variety of studies is presented to suggest that such results are logically ordered across goods and valuation scenarios. However, as the paper concludes, logicality and validity are not necessarily synonymous.

The contingent valuation method is often criticised for being grounded in a hypothetical market in which respondents are not actually required to make the contributions they claim to be willing to pay. This paper undertakes a non-experimental comparison of real and hypothetical donations towards the public good of environmental preservation, based on a carefully defined theoretical framework. Evidence is presented which suggests that the mean hypothetical payment obtained from an open-ended CV mail survey is likely to be at least four times as high as the real payments that would be collected from a comparable charitable appeal. In addition, it is found that in a hypothetical context people are less likely to opt out of making a donation - however, the donations which are made are on average no larger than those that could be expected in a real payment context. The implication is tentatively that the primary effect of the hypothetical context may be to reduce the extent of extreme free-riding, as opposed to creating incentives for strategic over-bidding. These results are subject to a number of significant empirical limitations.

The zonal travel-cost method is a popular technique for assessing the value of non-priced recreational goods. It requires identification of zones of origin, frequently defined by administrative boundaries, for surveyed visitors to a recreation site. More appropriate zones of origin, based on areas of constant time (i.e. an isochrone surface), can be generated using a geographical information system, although the quality of input data and assumptions about isochrone behaviour must be considered. Using surfaces generated under various scenarios, several models were created to predict visitor arrivals to a public-access woodland in eastern England. The analysis indicates that the approach is robust even under diverse model forms. Crown Copyright © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

The use of dichotomous choice (DC) questions in the elicitation of willingness to pay (WTP) in contingent valuation studies is common practice at the present time. Recent research has shown that double-bounded DC questions provide statistically superior results to single-bounded questions, given an appropriate sampling design. This paper uses a relatively new multilevel modelling technique to analyze a triple-bounded DC design, which in addition includes an initial non-monetary question on whether an individual accepts, in principle, a WTP some unspecified amount. The theoretical basis of the multilevel model used is described, and some of the possibilities of this potentially powerful and versatile technique are discussed. The practical operation of the multilevel model is demonstrated using data from a contingent valuation study conducted in the Norfolk Broads, England, an internationally important wetland resource. © 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

This paper reports on the results of a contingent valuation survey of a kerbside recycling scheme in the village of Hethersett, South Norfolk, U.K. A 'dichotomous choice' (DC) willingness-to-pay question was applied, the setting of the bid levels being determined from a pilot sample of respondents presented with an open-ended question. The study was unique in that, as the scheme was already operational, the respondents had a high level of information about the good that they were valuing, thus minimising many of the common problems facing contingent valuation studies. The survey was undertaken in conjunction with a recycling survey, allowing responses to be related to the use that people were making of the recycling scheme. It was found that socio-economic factors were important in determining whether or not people said they would pay for the scheme, but that, once they had accepted the payment principle, their response to the DC bid level depended mainly upon its magnitude, and, to a lesser extent, on the amount of recycling that they were already undertaking before the scheme's implementation.

A contingent valuation (CV) study was undertaken to investigate stated willingness to pay (WTP) for bathing water quality health risk reductions at two beaches in East Anglia, United Kingdom. One beach, Great Yarmouth, failed to meet the EC Bathing Water Quality Directive standard, whilst the other at Lowestoft passed. The analysis focuses on determinants of individuals' WTP, including measures of risk perception and attitudes to health not usually measured in CV studies. A theoretical model is then presented which sets the valuation of individual preferences in the context of personal world views, and external cultural, societal and environmental factors which may influence, directly or indirectly, an indivdiual's stated willingness to pay.

Everyone likes clean seawater to bathe in; but the cost of cleaning up all of Britain's beaches is enormous (£9 billion). But would the British public be willing to meet the costs of the clean up? This was the central question asked in this economic and epidemiological investigation of coastal bathing water health risks. Visitors and locals were interviewed at two beaches: Lowestoft, which meets the EC bathing water standard; and Great Yarmouth, which does not. People were asked whether or not they would be willing to pay higher water rates to preserve or attain the EC standard at all Britains beaches. Thepercentage of those asked who answered 'yes' to this question was 56.63 at Great Yarmouth and 58.33 in Lowestoft, a clear majority in each case for a cleanup. After allowing for those who refused to pay this gave similar amounts at both beaches, averaging £18.19 at Great Yarmouth and £16.21 at Lowestoft.

The UK Forestry Commission's recently implemented Community Woodland scheme sets out to provide new recreational woodland facilities near to towns and cities where such resources are in short supply. This study examines household willingness to pay (WTP) for such a proposed woodland by means of the contingent valuation (CV) method. A stratified sample of 325 households in Wantage, Oxfordshire, was interviewed and asked to state both their annual and per-visit WTP. Analysis of a number of recognized potential biases suggested that the results obtained must be treated with caution although we argue that the CV provides a useful ballpark indication of preferences. A simultaneous CV survey of farmers' willingness to accept compensation for converting agricultural land into woodland proved to be far more robust, despite a small sample size. We conclude that farmers are more familiar with the concept of assessing potential compensation than are households with estimating hypothetical payments for increased provision of public goods.

A review of the travel cost (TC) literature shows that the base measurements of travel time and distance underpinning many studies are often obtained via crude simplifications. This paper presents an application of the TC method conducted using geographical information system (GIS) software. This permits superior measurement of both travel time and distance providing a more accurate and realistic basis for valuations.

A great deal of the ongoing academic debate concerning the contingent valuation (CV) method has focused on whether or not the method is suitable for assessing non-use values. This paper presents results from a study examining non-users values for preserving the Norfolk Broads, a UK wetland area of recognised international importance, from the threat of saline flooding. Discussion of results centres upon the validity of the CV method for eliciting unbiased estimates of non-use value. A graphical representation of findings from a variety of studies is presented to suggest that such results are logically ordered across goods and valuation scenario's. However, as the paper concludes, logicality and validity are not necessarily synonymous. -Authors

A great deal of the ongoing academic debate concerning the contingent valuation (CV) method has focused on whether or not the method is suitable for assessing non-use values. This paper presents results from a study examining non-users values for preserving the Norfolk Broads, a UK wetland area of recognised international importance, from the threat of saline flooding. Discussion of results centres upon the validity of the CV method for eliciting unbiased estimates of non-use value. A graphical representation of findings from a variety of studies is presented to suggest that such results are logically ordered across goods and valuation scenario's. However, as the paper concludes, logicality and validity are not necessarily synonymous. -Authors

Economists commonly identify four measures of welfare change: willingness to pay; willingness to accept; equivalent loss; and equivalent gain. Hicksian theory recognises the possibility of divergences between these measures but assumes that such differences will be independent of an individuals initial endowment of goods. A competing view is put forward by Tversky and Kahneman (1991) who propose a reference - dependent theory of preferences. A set of testable hypotheses concerning all four welfare measures are constructed. These are tested in a laboratory experiment wherein individuals are presented with a series of trading opportunities concerning well known consumer goods and money. Results typically failed to conform to Hicksian theory but were generally consistent with the expectations of reference-dependent theory. -from Authors

Economists commonly identify four measures of welfare change: willingness to pay; willingness to accept; equivalent loss; and equivalent gain. Hicksian theory recognises the possibility of divergences between these measures but assumes that such differences will be independent of an individuals initial endowment of goods. A competing view is put forward by Tversky and Kahneman (1991) who propose a reference - dependent theory of preferences. A set of testable hypotheses concerning all four welfare measures are constructed. These are tested in a laboratory experiment wherein individuals are presented with a series of trading opportunities concerning well known consumer goods and money. Results typically failed to conform to Hicksian theory but were generally consistent with the expectations of reference-dependent theory. -from Authors

The authors test two potential effects upon responses to contingent valuation questions asking individuals to state their willingness to pay (WTP) for a non-market environmental good (open access woodland recreation): the impact of asking respondents, prior to the WTP question, to consider the amount they spend per annum on this category of goods (their "mental account') and the effect, upon both measures, of asking for WTP per annum prior to eliciting WTP per visit, and vice-versa (allowing us to examine both "question ordering' and "temporal embedding' effects). A split sample approach is used to test the impact of the various permutations of the above. Results show that WTP sums vary significantly between subsamples. Competing explanations of these effects are considered and conclusions drawn. -from Authors

The authors test two potential effects upon responses to contingent valuation questions asking individuals to state their willingness to pay (WTP) for a non-market environmental good (open access woodland recreation): the impact of asking respondents, prior to the WTP question, to consider the amount they spend per annum on this category of goods (their "mental account') and the effect, upon both measures, of asking for WTP per annum prior to eliciting WTP per visit, and vice-versa (allowing us to examine both "question ordering' and "temporal embedding' effects). A split sample approach is used to test the impact of the various permutations of the above. Results show that WTP sums vary significantly between subsamples. Competing explanations of these effects are considered and conclusions drawn. -from Authors

When economics sets the agenda, the environment often loses out. But when economists and environmentalists join forces, the interests of both can be served. In the UK researchers in East Anglia are using GIS to assign an economic value to the recreational enjoyment of woodland areas and identifying sites that could profitably be converted from agriculture to woodland. -Authors

This paper utilizes geographical information systems (GIS) to model arrivals at a particular woodland site and test the efficiency of the resultant arrivals function in predicting visits to other sites. A benefit transfer analysis is also undertaken and the results applied to our arrivals predictions to produce a valuation of estimated recreation demand. A survey was undertaken to examine the factors determining visits to a woodland. The most important influence was the travel time between the journey origin and the forest. From this data an arrivals function was estimated relating total visits to the distribution of population around the site. Tests were undertaken to examine the validity of applying this function to a regular grid of potential forest sites across Wales, to simulate the impact of sites in different locations being converted from agriculture into woodland. The validity of such an approach was established and a potential recreation arrivals surface was estimated. A separate benefits transfer study was undertaken providing a cross-study analysis of the value of recreation trips to UK woodlands. Results from this analysis study are applied to our potential recreation arrivals surface to provide a monetary evaluation of that recreation demand. -Authors

This paper utilizes geographical information systems (GIS) to model arrivals at a particular woodland site and test the efficiency of the resultant arrivals function in predicting visits to other sites. A benefit transfer analysis is also undertaken and the results applied to our arrivals predictions to produce a valuation of estimated recreation demand. A survey was undertaken to examine the factors determining visits to a woodland. The most important influence was the travel time between the journey origin and the forest. From this data an arrivals function was estimated relating total visits to the distribution of population around the site. Tests were undertaken to examine the validity of applying this function to a regular grid of potential forest sites across Wales, to simulate the impact of sites in different locations being converted from agriculture into woodland. The validity of such an approach was established and a potential recreation arrivals surface was estimated. A separate benefits transfer study was undertaken providing a cross-study analysis of the value of recreation trips to UK woodlands. Results from this analysis study are applied to our potential recreation arrivals surface to provide a monetary evaluation of that recreation demand. -Authors

This paper applies a multi-level model to dichotomous choice contingent valuation data, focusing on methodological issues and following a step-by-step approach to model specification using a software package called ML3. Dichotomous choice data form a natural hierarchy as many individuals are asked to respond "yes' or "no' to a particular bid amount, and several bid amounts are included in the survey. Therefore, individuals are nested within bid amounts and effects may be seen at both the individual and bid amount levels. Conventional regression analyses do not allow for individual and group effects to be modelled simultaneously. The discussion focuses on the potential for analyzing contingent valuation using a multi-level approach, as well as tackling issues such as sample design. -from Authors

This paper applies a multi-level model to dichotomous choice contingent valuation data, focusing on methodological issues and following a step-by-step approach to model specification using a software package called ML3. Dichotomous choice data form a natural hierarchy as many individuals are asked to respond "yes' or "no' to a particular bid amount, and several bid amounts are included in the survey. Therefore, individuals are nested within bid amounts and effects may be seen at both the individual and bid amount levels. Conventional regression analyses do not allow for individual and group effects to be modelled simultaneously. The discussion focuses on the potential for analyzing contingent valuation using a multi-level approach, as well as tackling issues such as sample design. -from Authors

The paper examines tourist development in environmentally fragile areas, based on concepts of open access and renewable natural resources. The experiences of two economies highly dependent on tourism, the Maldives and Nepal, are compared and contrasted. The dominant impacts in both areas are those associated with solid waste disposal and water resources. These are compounded by the depletion of natural resources; by deforestation in Nepal, and in the form of damage to coral reefs in the Maldives. Both countries are currently employing "dispersal' techniques to overcome the adverse impacts of tourism. In Nepal, this involves opening up new areas, and encouraging small-scale tourism development in rural areas. In the Maldives new developments are being initiated on hitherto undeveloped atolls. Neither strategy is without serious environmental costs, nor do they address the fundamental problem of maintaining tourism revenues whilst minimising environmental damage. -from Authors

The paper examines tourist development in environmentally fragile areas, based on concepts of open access and renewable natural resources. The experiences of two economies highly dependent on tourism, the Maldives and Nepal, are compared and contrasted. The dominant impacts in both areas are those associated with solid waste disposal and water resources. These are compounded by the depletion of natural resources; by deforestation in Nepal, and in the form of damage to coral reefs in the Maldives. Both countries are currently employing "dispersal' techniques to overcome the adverse impacts of tourism. In Nepal, this involves opening up new areas, and encouraging small-scale tourism development in rural areas. In the Maldives new developments are being initiated on hitherto undeveloped atolls. Neither strategy is without serious environmental costs, nor do they address the fundamental problem of maintaining tourism revenues whilst minimising environmental damage. -from Authors

The use of dichotomous choice (DC) questions in the elicitation of willingness to pay (WTP) in contingent valuation studies is common practice at the present time. Recent research has shown that double-bounded DC questions provide statistically superior results to single-bounded questions, given an appropriate sampling design. This paper uses a relatively new multilevel modelling technique to analyze a triple-bounded DC design, which in addition includes an initial non-monetary question on whether an individual accepts, in principle, a WTP some unspecified amount. The theoretical basis of the multilevel model used is described, and some of the possibilities of this powerful and versatile technique are discussed. The practical operation of the multilevel model is demonstrated using data from a contingent valuation study conducted in the Norfolk Broads, England, an internationally important wetland resource. -Authors

The use of dichotomous choice (DC) questions in the elicitation of willingness to pay (WTP) in contingent valuation studies is common practice at the present time. Recent research has shown that double-bounded DC questions provide statistically superior results to single-bounded questions, given an appropriate sampling design. This paper uses a relatively new multilevel modelling technique to analyze a triple-bounded DC design, which in addition includes an initial non-monetary question on whether an individual accepts, in principle, a WTP some unspecified amount. The theoretical basis of the multilevel model used is described, and some of the possibilities of this powerful and versatile technique are discussed. The practical operation of the multilevel model is demonstrated using data from a contingent valuation study conducted in the Norfolk Broads, England, an internationally important wetland resource. -Authors