Assessing the impacts and values of agricultural and rural landscapes: an application of nonparametric statistical methods

The effects of agricultural and rural landscapes can be evaluated in a number of ways. This paper reports on the first stage of a project to assess the effects through a hedonic house price model.     

Estimating the Benefits of Environmental Enhancement: A Case Study of the River Darent

The provision of leisure facilities is usually assessed on their value to users. This paper outlines the use of contingent valuation methods in an ex ante appraisal of the costs and benefits of enhancing river flow for recreational purposes in a low flow river. A number of rivers in England and Wales experience low flows, especially during summer months, due to over abstraction of water, creating a trade-off between leisure uses and the demands of water consumers. The sequential benefits of enhanced flows are estimated from those associated with abstraction up to licensed limits: to river flow at 70% of licensed abstraction levels; to flow levels required for an environmentally acceptable flow regime, which would permit leisure activities such as fishing, enhanced scenic walking and wildlife encounters. These benefits are compared to the costs which would be incurred to achieve these enhanced flow regimes. The study illustrates the importance of including non-user benefits in benefit-cost analysis, if leisure provision is to be provided in certain areas.     

Water Companies' Service Performance and Environmental Trade-offs

Water companies have to ensure that supply and demand for water are kept in balance. This can necessitate the development of new sources of supply that may conflict with local wildlife interests. The paper reviews the policy background to this problem in the UK. It then presents an appraisal of a project to artificially recharge an aquifer with river water during the winter period, and abstract the water in the summer to augment shortages during drought conditions. The research investigates the preference trade-offs of water company customers between increasing security of supply and potential environmental impacts on local wetland sites and river flows. A cost-benefit analysis of the project is presented. The study also reveals a disparity between the site-specific valuation and that generated using the Environment Agency's approved benefit transfer guidelines.     

Putting action into biodiversity planning: assessing preferences towards funding

Water companies in England and Wales are responsible for the management of large areas of land. This land is under little pressure for development and is often free from the pollutants associated with conventional agriculture and is therefore a potentially valuable resource for biodiversity conservation. The value of this resource will only be realized if sufficient investment is made in the management of the habitats associated with these sites. This paper reports an exploratory case study based on customers of Southern Water which uses a mixture of questionnaire surveys and focus groups to investigate whether or not consumers are willing to pay higher utility bills to fund such management. In particular, it explores the public's willingness to forgo potential bill reductions in order to fund biodiversity conservation and examines how payment instruments could be designed to maximize and maintain the agreement from consumers. Results suggest that customers are willing to forgo a proportion of a potential bill reduction to pay for biodiversity schemes but are not necessarily willing to face a bill increase for the same public good benefits. Participants in the focus groups suggested that schemes could be made more acceptable to customers by ensuring that the outcomes were both visible and local and that their achievements were well publicized. Similarly, administration of the scheme through a trust fund alleviates some of the concerns of consumers while raising several new ones.     

The impact of measurement assumptions upon individual travel cost estimates of consumer surplus: a GIS analysis

The individual travel cost method is one of the most commonly applied approaches to estimating the recreational value (or `consumer surplus') of open-access sites where the visitor does not have to pay an entrance charge for using the area. This paper presents a simple application of the method conducted using geographical information system (GIS) software. This approach permits analysis of the impact of various, commonly used, assumptions concerning the definition of visitor outset origins and routing to recreation sites. Results suggest that varying these assumptions can lead to substantial impacts upon estimates of consumer surplus to the extent that previously published studies may be subject to substantial error. Received: 24 February 1999 · Accepted: 9 June 1999     

Biodiversity values for alternative management regimes in remote UK coniferous forests: an iterative bidding polychotomous choice approach

The overwhelming majority of commercial forestry in the UK comprises blanket non-native coniferous species with low biodiversity levels. The UK government is committed under the Rio Principles and Helsinki Guidelines to conserve and enhance biodiversity in British forests and woodlands. This paper assesses the passive use value of biodiversity in remote non-visited coniferous forests, and the costs of diversification and restructuring. Focus groups were employed to aid the design and framing of the study. An iterative bidding polychotomous choice format was used to elicit willingness-to-pay values for different biodiversity standards and management options. Whilst, passive use benefits exceeded costs for biodiversity conservation, considerable ambivalence in choice occurred between different levels of biodiversity. The policy relevance of the results are discussed, and compared to the practical implementation measures for biodiversity being adopted by the Forestry Commission.