<p>This study focuses on valuation of natural resources and particularly valuation of the quality of a natural resource. The aim is to value an improvement of water quality, measured as sight depth, in the bay Himmerfjärden in the Stockholm archipelago. It is desirable to attain a value of a one metre sight depth improvement in Himmerfjärden and to analyse how a sight depth improvement affects the demand for travelling to Himmerfjärden. A condtional logit model is applied to obtain these values from survey data. The benefits of a one metre sight depth improvement in Himmerfjärden, will yield 162 260-1 599 420 SEK per year, adjusted to the price level of 2007. The estimated value depends on how travel time is treated and whether a commute variable is included or not. Furthermore will a one per cent sight depth improvement in Himmerfjärden increase the demand for travelling to Himmerfjärden with approximately 0.13-0.18 trips on a given choice occasion. These results indicate that there are values attained to the quality of a natural resource.</p>

This study focuses on valuation of natural resources and particularly valuation of the quality of a natural resource. The aim is to value an improvement of water quality, measured as sight depth, in the bay Himmerfjärden in the Stockholm archipelago. It is desirable to attain a value of a one metre sight depth improvement in Himmerfjärden and to analyse how a sight depth improvement affects the demand for travelling to Himmerfjärden. A condtional logit model is applied to obtain these values from survey data. The benefits of a one metre sight depth improvement in Himmerfjärden, will yield 162 260-1 599 420 SEK per year, adjusted to the price level of 2007. The estimated value depends on how travel time is treated and whether a commute variable is included or not. Furthermore will a one per cent sight depth improvement in Himmerfjärden increase the demand for travelling to Himmerfjärden with approximately 0.13-0.18 trips on a given choice occasion. These results indicate that there are values attained to the quality of a natural resource.

Motivated by the increasing popularity of wildlife viewing and a growing emphasis on management for nontimber outputs, wildlife viewing demand was assessed. Specific objectives included determining factors affecting participation and frequency of use, and furthermore, deriving 2006 nationwide wildlife viewing consumer surplus estimates. With the travel cost method as the theoretical basis, the empirical estimation method employed was a two-step sample selection model that included a probit first step and a negative binomial second step. Consumer surplus per trip estimates ranged from $215.23 to $739.07 while aggregate national estimates ranged from $44.5 billion to $185.1 billion. Results reveal that age, race, and urban residence affect participation and frequency similarly. This research can help policymakers in particular better understand determinants of wildlife viewing participation and frequency. The value of wildlife viewing access can be used to justify funding initiatives aimed at protecting or managing for this use.

This thesis uses zonal travel cost method (ZTCM) to estimate consumer surplus of Peace &amp; Love festival in Borlänge, Sweden. The study defines counties as zones of origin of the visitors. Visiting rates from each zone are estimated based on survey data. The study is novel due to the fact that mostly TCM has been applied in the environmental and recreational sector, not for short term events, like P&amp;L festival. The analysis shows that travel cost has a significantly negative effect on visiting rate as expected. Even though income has previously shown to be significant in similar studies, it turns out to be insignificant in this study. A point estimate for the total consumer surplus of P&amp;L festival is 35.6 million Swedish kronor. However, this point estimate is associated with high uncertainty since a 95 % confidence interval for it is (17.9, 53.2). It is also important to note that the estimated value only represents one part of the total economic value, the other values of the festival's totaleconomic value have not been estimated in this thesis.

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Coastlines are particularly susceptible to the necessary trade-offs which occur between different ecosystem services. Should the areas be managed for biodiversity or for people? Where sandy beaches are found there is usually a management decision to be made between managing for recreation or for biodiversity. Many popular tourist beaches (particularly those with a Beach Award) are often groomed with mechanical equipment to remove any stranded seaweed and associated litter which can get entangled in the wrack. This is likely to be having a negative impact on coastal biodiversity, with wide ranging implications for the entire habitat, including the intertidal zone, sand dunes and shorebirds. Beached wrack should be allowed to naturally decompose providing a habitat for numerous species of macro-invertebrates. These macro-invertebrate communities not only include many endemic species found exclusively along the strandline but they also provide a very rich source of food for shorebirds. The re-mineralised nutrients resulting from the decomposed macrophytes should then become available to provide a rich source of nutrients to dune, strandline and marine ecosystems populations of the strandline. In previous studies grooming has been shown to have a negative impact on the invertebrates of the strandline and this study reveals that tidal range has an effect on the impacts of grooming with a higher tidal range having a more negative impact on the invertebrates. A study to observe the impacts of grooming on both adult plant and seed bank communities of the sand dunes found that grooming is having a negative impact on these populations. Grooming is predominantly driven by beach managers who aspire to gain Beach Awards in order to attract tourists to their beaches. Using non-market valuation in the form of a stated preference choice experiment and a travel cost model, it was observed that Beach Awards are not valued by beach goers but are instead influenced to visit a particular beach by good bathing water quality, high levels of biodiversity and low levels of litter. It was also shown that stranded seaweed on the beach does not deter visitors. Future management suggestions include attempting to reduce the confusion arising from the presence of multiple beach awards by either removing them altogether or by making their criteria more clear and direct with consistency in their design and designation. Bathing water quality should be completely removed from the Beach Award system and real-time information in the form of electronic signage and a publicly available App should replace it.

This thesis explores the theoretical basis of non-market valuation techniques; discusses in detail, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) and the Travel Cost Method (TCM); highlights the advantages and disadvantages of various non-market valuation techniques and their suitability under different conditions; and identifies the Contingent Valuation Method as the most appropriate non-market valuation technique to apply to Pekapeka Swamp, the case study site. The overall objective of the study is to apply the most appropriate non-market valuation technique to estimate the total economic value (TEV) of the restoration and preservation of Pekapeka Swamp and to test Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s (HBRC) restoration programme for the Pekapeka Swamp using economic efficiency criteria. An appropriate contingent valuation mail survey questionnaire was designed to elicit responses to the dichotomous choice (DC) and open-ended valuation questions, and to collect socio-economic data and information on households’ attitude towards the environment. Responses to the survey questionnaire were analysed (using ordinary least squares regression for the open ended question, and logistic regression, for the DC question) to identify the factors that influence households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the restoration and preservation of the Pekapeka Swamp and to estimate TEV. A number of functional forms of the logit and open-ended WTP models were fitted from which WTP functions were estimated. Households were asked a DC question followed by an open-ended question regarding the value they placed on the restoration and preservation of Pekapeka Swamp. Out of an initial mail-out of 958 questionnaires, an overall response rate of 46.13% was achieved after two follow-ups. Results from the final usable sample of 231, after removing protests and inconsistent responses, indicate that households in the Hawke’s Bay region would pay, on average, between NZ$30.00 and NZ$76.89 per annum for five years. Unit value ranges between NZ$17,898 and NZ$45,866 per hectare per year; and net present values for the restoration and preservation programme for Pekapeka Swamp based on our ‘best estimates’ range between NZ$5.05 million and NZ$18.20 million depending on the model and discount rate used.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:55:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DeborahQC_DISSERT.pdf: 1429454 bytes, checksum: a0c0f19a1e2b4dce92a5d361e8bb5d9a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-18 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / Esta disserta??o teve como objetivo estimar os valores de uso, n?o-uso e o valor econ?mico total de unidades de conserva??o que protegem o ecossistema de dunas, atrav?s dos m?todos de Valora??o Contingente e do Custo de Viagem. O m?todo de Valora??o Contingente ? capaz de estimar o valor de n?o-uso de um recurso natural atrav?s da utiliza??o de um mercado hipot?tico que consiste em um cen?rio ambiental fict?cio em que o bem ambiental sofre varia??es em suas quantidades e os indiv?duos expressam suas prefer?ncias declarando quanto estariam dispostos a pagar (ou aceitar) para garantir a continuidade (ou a perda) da provis?o do bem. Neste estudo, foram aplicadas duas formas de pagamento para o mercado hipot?tico da t?cnica de Disposi??o a Pagar (coletiva/obrigat?ria e individual/volunt?ria) com o objetivo de identificar a demanda da popula??o por investimentos p?blicos nas unidades de conserva??o costeiras urbanas, para testar a efici?ncia de ambas formas de pagamento e para captar os votos de protesto dos entrevistados, na tentativa incorporar nas an?lises a verdadeira disposi??o a pagar dos entrevistados pela a manuten??o e conserva??o das unidades de conserva??o. Os resultados mostraram maiores lances de disposi??o a pagar para a forma de pagamento coletiva e obrigat?ria, pois em pa?ses em desenvolvimento as pessoas atribuem ao governo o financiamento da conserva??o de paisagens naturais. A diferen?a entre os valores de n?o-uso estimados pelas duas formas de pagamento foi de R$8,2 milh?es (3.5 milh?es) e isso representa a demanda da popula??o local por investimentos p?blicos na conserva??o das ?reas costeiras. O M?todo do Custo de Viagem foi utilizado para estimar o valor de uso das dunas, obtido a partir dos gastos incorridos pelos visitantes ao visitar as ?reas de dunas e o somat?rio deste valor ao valor de n?o-uso representa o valor econ?mico total agregado pela paisagem de parques dunares. Paisagens dunares geram anualmente um montante de R$ 800.428,46 por hectare (US$ 339,049.67). A maior contribui??o para esse montante econ?mico ? do parque visitado por turistas, em que o valor agregado pela recrea??o ? 53 vezes maior que o parque visitado por moradores. Embora turistas e moradores reconhe?am os benef?cios de alguns servi?os proporcionados por este ecossistema, ambos atribuem maior valor ? contempla??o da paisagem natural e ? recrea??o ao ar livre. A estimativa desse valor para os diferentes tipos de p?blico oferece ? gestores um justificativa econ?mica para direcionar uso e conserva??o de ?reas de dunas, subsidia na tomada de decis?o atrav?s de an?lises de custo benef?cio no processo de formula??o, acompanhamento e avalia??o de pol?ticas p?blicas e auxilia a investigar como os benef?cios variam de acordo com os tipos de visitantes. Portanto, o uso de estimativas do valor do meio ambiente nesta disserta??o, identificou o valor econ?mico intr?nseco das ?reas de dunas ?s ?reas naturais e o valor agregado pela sua exist?ncia e, portanto, permite que se dimensione a import?ncia dos investimentos em sua conserva??o e restaura??o, podendo ser utilizada como indicador para direcionar pol?ticas e distribui??o de investimentos para a conserva??o dos mesmos. Outro aspecto importante na aplicabilidade de metodologias de valora??o ambiental ? a contribui??o que o uso desse instrumento traz para o debate cient?fico sobre os problemas t?cnicos existentes nas metodologias

K. Kaprová (2019): Revealed preferences for outdoor recreation in natural areas - Czech and European perspective Abstract of the Doctoral Dissertation The dissertation thesis focuses on the investigation and synthesis of recreation welfare benefits associated with natural areas in the Czech Republic and in Europe. The dissertation thesis consists of five case studies. These represent various geographic levels of analysis: the level of one single recreation locality, the national level that takes into account large natural recreation sites in the Czech Republic (including protected areas), and a synthesis of results of studies on the European level. The methodological approach is based on the theory of environmental economics and employs non-market valuation techniques based on methods of revealed preferences, namely the hedonic pricing method and two types of travel cost modelling. In Study I, we examine how the presence and characteristics of urban greenery affect property prices in Prague. The results confirm that proximity to greenery and its area are important determinants of housing prices in Prague, which means that residents realize the positive values provided by urban greenery, including recreational ecosystem service. Benefits to residents differ with the type of greenery. Urban forests have the...