長期的な視点にたった大阪湾沿岸域の水環境管理計画のために, 沿岸域住民のレクリェーションの場の利用・非利用による支払い意思額にもとづいた将来における水質維持および水質改善がもたらす経済的価値の評価を試みた, 沿岸域住民は, 将来にわたる水質維持に比べ, 水質改善に対して大きな期待をもつこと, 将来の利用に対する価値づけや非利用者の価値づけが大きく, 利用者のみの価値づけでは過小評価となることが明らかになった. 水質の維持および改善がもたらす総経済的価値は, それぞれ沿岸域6府県の年間総生産の約0.07% (430億円), 0.11% (630億円) と試算された.

are published by the School of Economics, University of Queensland, 4072, Australia, as follow up to the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research Project 40 of which Professor Clem Tisdell was the Project Leader. Views expressed in these working papers are those of their authors and not necessarily of any of the organisations associated with the Project. They should not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the Project Leader. It is planned to publish contributions to this series over the next few years. Research for ACIAR project 40,

This work introduces a finite-horizon bioeconomic growth model that links the biological evolution of a single species with the capital accumulation dynamics. The model is formulated as a problem of optimal control with non-consumptive objective regarding the biological species. The application of the Pontryagin's maximum principle allows designing a decision policy for short-term optimal planning and converts the optimal control problem to a two-point boundary value problem. The latter is then solved numerically using the MATLAB routine bvp4c. The results of numerical simulations suggest the existence of optimal policies capable to enhance even (initially) scarce species populations within a finite period of time. This supplements previous studies of various scholars where such policies were designed for infinite horizon and required initial abundance of the species.

This paper reports a study regarding households’ willingness to pay for private sector solid waste management services. The data originated from a contingent valuation survey conducted in 224 households in Ilorin in southwest Nigeria and was analysed using tobit and censored least absolute deviations models. The use of a robust and consistent estimator to model zero willingness to pay responses was discussed. The results show that the respondents were willing to pay more than one percent of their household income per year. Their willingness to pay amount was influenced by income, education, activities of sanitary inspectors, house type and occupation. The censored least absolute deviations model outperformed the tobit model. We suggest that government agencies should be actively involved in monitoring activities of private firms regarding provision of waste management services. The findings from this study can help policy-makers in designing a more sustainable waste management strategy in southwest Nigeria, as well as in other developing countries.

This paper measures the benefits of water quality improvements in three coastal ponds on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Use, option, and existence values were elicited from Martha's Vineyard property owners by the contingent valuation method. On average, more than half of the total benefits are attributed to existence value. Results from the Heckman selection model show that the exclusion of protest, as well as missing bids, does not cause significant bias in estimating respondents' willingness-to-pay. Socioeconomic characteristics are found to have distinctively different influences on use, option, and existence values. Different model parameters are likely to be estimated depending on which value categories are measured by a selected valuation technique. These findings emphasize the importance of nonuse values from water quality improvements and of socioeconomic characteristics for measuring different categories of values.

This paper introduces and surveys ecological-economic analysis ofbiodiversity. It seeks to identify the complex linkages betweeneconomic and ecological systems with a view to a solid exploration ofvaluation issues in biodiversity. Against this background the studyoffers a review of key ecological concepts that are essential inbuilding bridges between ecology and economics. Issues discussed hereare ecosystem management principles, biodiversity indices and modernconcepts such as resilience. Particular attention is given to variousmonetary valuation approaches and methods, from the perspective ofconservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. For this purpose,the interrelation between biodiversity, resources, ecosystemfunctions, and human welfare is examined. The use of ecological andvalue indicators in integrated modelling and analysis is alsoaddressed. Finally, several illustrative applications are presentedin order to demonstrate the usefulness of the approaches discussed.Ultimately, this study offers a basis for biodiversity valuationapproaches at the interface of economics and ecology.

This paper explores the way in which the stated willingness to pay for the conservation of Asian elephants in Sri Lanka varies with hypothetical variations in their abundance. To do that, it relies on results from a sample of residents of Colombo. The willingness to pay function is found to be unusual. It increases at an increasing rate for hypothetical reductions in the elephant population compared to its current level (a level that makes the Asian elephant endangered) and also increases at a decreasing rate for increases in this population from its current level. Rational explanations are given for this relationship. The relationship is, however, at odds with relationships suggested in some of the literature for total economic value as a function of the abundance of a wildlife species. It is suggested that willingness to pay for conservation of a species rationally includes a strategic element and may not always measure the total economic value of a species. Nevertheless, willingness to pay is still policy relevant in such cases.

This paper discusses what we believe are the key needs and assets of landscape planning at the close of the century. While landscape ecology and systems approaches have increased our understanding of ecological sustainability, this still fails to constitute a sufficient basis for prescribing overall regional sustainability. If we are to foster strategies that will effectively lead to sustainable regional development, we must, like our predecessors, investigate and advocate for a more critical social ecology of landscapes. While most of us venerate the works of Mumford, McHarg, and Olmstead, we generally forget two facts. First, their real value was in their ability to formulate and articulate socially and ecologically relevant arguments to the problems associated with an aberrant development paradigm. Second, they spoke not of strategy and technique, but of challenging and altering the dominant social theories and practices that have caused the degradation of our landscapes in the first place. Landscape planning is clearly ecologically relevant. Our challenge therefore lies in our social relevance. To become more socially relevant, landscape planners must become aware of, account for, incorporate, and challenge the problems and opportunities that cultural adoptability, economic viability, social equitability, and political relevancy have on the condition of our landscapes. For although natural processes largely determine the ecological condition of our landscapes, social processes will continue to determine the directionality these processes take. Since the fate of our landscapes lies in the hands of humankind, it is imperative that research move beyond traditional descriptions of space, academic divisions, and rational methods. We must also reassert vision, value, and ethic, account for the relationships among the physical, cultural, economic, and political dimensions of space, and finally, better incorporate the knowledges, perceptions, and practices that exist between the places we study and the peoples and communities who call them home.

This paper considers two problems in valuing the benefits of biodiversity protection. These are, firstly, that preferences for biodiversity protection may be lexicographic rather than utilitarian. The more individuals for whom this is true, the less is cost-benefit analysis validated as a means of decision making for biodiversity protection, since lexicographic preferences are incompatible with the Kaldor-Hicks Compensation Test. Secondly, people may be poorly informed about the meaning of biodiversity, complicating the use of contingent valuation as a means of measuring preservation benefits. This paper first discusses the meaning of biodiversity, and trends in diversity over time. We offer some empirical evidence with regard to lexicographic preferences; consider the implications of having poorly-informed consumers; and then report the results of a contingent valuation study of biodiversity protection with varying levels of information. We find that willingness to pay for biodiversity protection increases with the level of information provided.

The willingness to pay (WTP) for a coyote conservation program is estimated using a novel payment-vehicle, based on how many ‚problem’ coyotes respondents would be willing to sponsor for a year. This hypothetical scenario mimics an increasingly popular type of actual market. Data from a phone survey conducted in Prince Edward Island are analyzed using count data models that consider different processes explaining zero responses and the level of positive responses. This is particularly important in the case of coyotes, often regarded as an economic bad. Estimates of WTP per coyote per year around $18–$22 and annual WTP per contributor of about $46–$57 are obtained.

The study examined wetland valuation practice for compensation in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. The primary data used for the study were obtained from questionnaire administered on 120 respondent Estate Surveying and Valuation firms in the study area. Personal and/or telephone interviews were conducted on the Heads of Department of Estate Management of the various Universities offering Estate Management in the Southern part of Nigeria, to ascertain whether environmental valuation is being taught in the affected institutions. Equally, personal/telephone interview was conducted on the officials of Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), to ascertain whether environmental valuation is included in the curriculum for professional examinations. The primary data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 17). Relative importance index and principal component analysis were applied in testing for the most important factors influencing the choice of wetland valuation methods in the study area. Major findings of the study were that Estate Surveyors and Valuers in the Niger Delta adopted open market (56.4%) and cost (27.3%) bases for wetland valuation as against total economic value basis (16.3%) which takes cognisance of non-use value aspects of wetland ecosystems, traditional methods cannot be wholly applied to the valuation of wetland ecosystems because they cannot capture the value of attributes, functions and services which are not traded in the open market, respondents in the study area adopted methods that rely more on market evidence, except contingent valuation, which considers evidences both within and outside of open market, only four factors have major influences on the choice of wetland valuation method adopted in the study area. These are availability of data (RII; 4.16), availability of substitute sites (RII; 3.49), limitations of valuation methods (RII; 3.47) and people’s perception (RII; 3.00). The study also revealed that valuing wetland resources in the study area is fraught with various challenges including lack of data (87.3%, RII; 3.84), complex wetland ecosystems (80.0%, RII; 3.75), inadequate government policy (69.1%, RII; 3.29) and sophisticated survey design (63.6%, RII; 2.35). The study further revealed that only 5.5% of the respondents took any course in environmental valuation during their undergraduate school days. Also environmental valuation has not been included in NIESV Professional valuation curriculum. The study equally revealed that there was no government policy on wetland ecosystems. The study recommends that Estate Surveyors and Valuers should adopt total economic value basis for wetland valuation instead open market value and cost bases and also contemporary methods so as to capture both use and non-use values of wetland resources. NIESV should include environmental valuation in the curriculum for professional examinations and organise mandatory training/workshop/seminar on wetland valuation from time to time to keep members up-to-date with the appropriate techniques available. Also, Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON) should mandate Institutions offering Estate Management programmes to include environmental valuation as a Course, rather than treating it as a topic, as is currently done in most universities.

The central claim made by critics of contingent valuation (CV) is that respondents to a CV survey are inherently unresponsive to the characteristics of the good being valued.1In particular, it is alleged that respondents are not willing to pay more for more of a particular good; in economic jargon, respondents are insensitive to the scope of the good offered in the valuation exercise.2The focus of this debate is not whether CV results showing insensitivity to scope are obtainable, a point readily conceded by CV practitioners, but rather whether this result is generally avoidable with appropriate survey design, pretesting, and administration.

Rational economic decisions regarding theconservation of biodiversity require the considerationof all the benefits generated by this naturalresource. Recently a number of categories of values(inherent value, contributory value, indirect value,infrastructure value, primary value) have beendeveloped, especially in the literature of EcologicalEconomics, which, besides the individual andproductive benefits of biodiversity, also include theutilitarian relevance of the ecological structure andfunctions of biodiversity in the, so-called, totaleconomic value. For the question of including theecological structure and functions of biodiversity inthe total economic value it is of crucial importanceto note, that these categories of values are not onlyterminologically different, but also relate todifferent ecological levels of biodiversity and – mostimportantly – to specific complementary relationships– between species, between elements of ecologicalstructures and between ecological functions and theircontribution to human well-being. This paper analysesthese complementary relationships, discusses theirimplications for the total economic value ofbiodiversity and draws conclusions for decision makingin environmental policy.

Public policies that lead to a reduction in the emissions of air and water pollutants or the protection of sensitive ecosystems presumably increase the well-being of many members of society. Applied welfare economists are accustomed to measuring the welfare effects of policies that invoke price changes. If it is granted that the public good attributes of most dimensions of environmental quality preclude the development of well functioning markets for these service flows, how are the monetary values of changes in environmental quality to be measured? The past twenty to thirty years have seen the rapid development of the economic theory and techniques for measuring the demands for nonmarketed goods, and in this chapter we attempt to sketch out the major results. We review the basic concept of economic welfare and derive measures of welfare change for both changes in prices of market goods and changes in quantities and qualities of nonmarket goods. We then describe the principal economic techniques for estimating the benefits of environmental quality improvements when these improvements either directly affect individuals' well-being or indirectly affect individuals through constraints they face. Perhaps the major class of measurement methods is based on the observation that changes in environmental quality may cause individuals to alter purchases of goods and services that are complements or substitutes for environmental quality in their preference orderings. These revealed preference methods are the primary focus of this chapter. A second major approach to obtaining estimates of the benefits and costs of environmental changes, stated preference methods, are addressed in detail in later chapters. Our treatment of welfare effects places special emphasis on the connection between the underlying economic theory and practical empirical models.

Our analysis melds two traditional approaches to promoting quality. The first is restoring the stock of quality. The second is curbing its flow of deterioration. Although both approaches are widely used in real world settings, analytic models have tended to focus on one strategy or the other. We consider a class of problems, which we call SFQ' problems, in which both stocks and flows can be controlled to promote quality. We develop our results in the context of environmental quality, drawing on real-world examples from atomic wastes to zebra mussels. But the lessons are general, and we show how they apply to promoting the quality of both physical and human capital. We first study optimal policies in the limiting cases when only abatement or restoration is possible. We then focus on the full SFQ world, where both approaches can be used. We show that the optimal policy employs both instruments. Moreover, when combined optimally, neither strategy takes the form it would in the absence of the other.

One of the central themes in the field of environmental economics has been the valuation of environmental amenities, usually within the framework of benefit cost analysis (BCA) or natural resource damage assessment. Much of the research associated with BCA has sought to expand the types of benefits that can be quantified and measured in money terms. The result has been a broadened interpretation of the norms of conventional BCA (i.e. the dual assumptions of individual utility maximization from consumption and the expression of value through market transactions). With these advances, there has been a progressive movement of commodities from the set without measures (usually designated as intangibles) to the set with measures. For example, recreational services associated with water resource projects, were regarded as intangible until the development of the travel cost method (TCM) for estimating the demand for outdoor recreation sites (Clawson and Knetsch, 1966; Desvouges et al., 1983; McConnell, 1985). Currently, attention has been focused on one major category of intangibles in BCA: nonuse values (NUV) associated with natural environmental resources.

Natural resource valuation has always had a fundamental role in the practice of cost-benefit analysis of health, safety, and environmental issues. The authors provide an objective overview of resource valuation techniques and describe their potential role in environmental restoration/waste management (ER/WM) activities at federal facilities. This handbook considers five general classes of valuation techniques: (1) market-based techniques, which rely on historical information on market prices and transactions to determine resource values; (2) nonmarket techniques that rely on indirect estimates of resource values; (3) nonmarket techniques that are based on direct estimates of resource values; (4) cross-cutting valuation techniques, which combine elements of one or more of these methods; and (5) ecological valuation techniques used in the emerging field of ecological economics. The various valuation techniques under consideration are described by highlighting their applicability in environmental management and regulation. The handbook also addresses key unresolved issues in the application of valuation techniques generally, including discounting future values, incorporating environmental equity concerns, and concerns over the uncertainties in the measurement of natural resource values and environmental risk.

Malaysia is facing an increase in the generation of waste and of accompanying problems with the disposal of this waste. In the last two decades, extensive building and infrastructure development projects have led to an increase in the generation of construction waste material. The construction industry has a substantial impact on the environment, and its environmental effects are in direct relation to the quality and quantity of the waste it generates. This paper discusses general characteristics of the construction contractors, the contractors' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved construction waste management, determining factors which affect the amount of their willingness to pay, and suggestions and policy implications in the perspective of construction waste management in Malaysia. The data in this study is based on contractors registered with the construction industry development board (CIDB) of Malaysia. Employing the open ended contingent valuation method, the study assessed the contractors' average maximum WTP for improved construction waste management to be RM69.88 (1US$=3.6 RM) per tonne of waste. The result shows that the average maximum WTP is higher for large contractors than for medium and small contractors. The highest average maximum WTP value is RM88.00 for Group A (large contractors) RM78.25 for Group B (medium-size contractors) and RM55.80 for Group C (small contractors). One of the contributions of this study is to highlight the difference of CIDB registration grade in the WTP for improved construction waste management. It is found that contractors' WTP for improved waste collection and disposal services increases with the increase in contractors' current paid up capital. The identified factors and determinants of the WTP will assist the formulation of appropriate policies in addressing the construction waste problem in Malaysia and indirectly improve the quality of construction in the country.

It is argued that ex antewillingness to pay is appropriately measured as a function of subjective supply and demand probabilities. An exploratory case study of a loggerhead sea turtle protection programme is used to show how estimates of these probabilities can be obtained from a sample survey and how a change in probabilities determines contingent choice. Empirical results confirm that subjective probabilities are important when explaining ex antewillingness to pay. Attempts to estimate the determinants of ex antewillingness to pay without controlling for subjective probabilities will result in specification bias. It is important that subjective probability information is gleaned from contingent valuation survey respondents and included in empirical models of contingent choice.

In keeping with our assignment, this paper will focus on measurement. We will devote far less time to the microeconomic theory of non-use values than many readers might expect. Non-use values are now well entrenched in the theory of the consumer (Krutilla 1967; Randall and Stoll 1983; Madariaga and McConnell 1987; Boyle and Bishop 1987; Smith 1987; Bishop and Welsh 1992; Freeman 1993). We shall want to briefly review the theory as a foundation for what will follow, but need not dwell on it at length. The central focus will instead be on measurement.