Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Dachary-Bernard
(2004)
applied CM to value the Monts d'Aree landscape in the
Finistere region in Brittany in France. The aim of the study was to identify the main
attributes of landscape, i.e. moorland, hedged farmland and farmland buildings, and
the levels of each attribute. This analysis was used to elicit the WTP of residents, both
main and second home owners, and tourists, in terms of the additional cost they would
have to pay in order to finance the proposed landscape policies. The payment vehicles
used for these alternative policies were local income tax and tourists tax, respectively.
Different policy scenarios were created, including the status quo, and different choice
sets were constructed. The respondents' choices were recorded, and utility function
estimated for both populations, in order to calculate a monetary measure of welfare
changes arising from landscape transformations. The results show that tourists have
lower WTP than residents, which seems to be due to the fact that WTP depends on the
amount of time respondents spend in the landscape and on the two different payment
vehicles used (with tourist tax usually being much lower than typical local income
taxes; and respondents anchoring on the expected levels of these payment vehicles).
One of the very few valuation studies of agricultural landscape that also tests the
validity of benefit transfer was performed by Santos
(1998)
in the Pennine Dales
Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) in the UK. Many landscape features are
threatened by current changes in farming practice. The Pennine Dales ESA scheme
is a voluntary scheme that offers farmers management agreements aimed at conserving
the landscape attributes of the Dales. A contingent valuation survey of 422 visitors
was undertaken in 1995, in order to estimate visitors' WTP for the ESA scheme.
The value of the most complete policy mix for the average individual is estimated at
£112.19 per household per year. These results were then compared with transferred
estimates from a list of 19 landscape valuation studies, applying different benefit
transfer techniques to test the validity of landscape value transfers. The most accurate
transfer techniques in this case was unit transfer and function transfers from a
meta-analysis of all studies. Transfer error were in these cases as low as 15-22%.
The three studies above studies were all conducted in EU-15 countries. A review
of valuation studies in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary by Melichar and
Ščasný
(2004)
reveals that only two contingent valuation surveys of agricultural
landscape have been performed in these new member states of the European Union.
Both of these were in the Czech Republic. Kubickova
(2004)
applied a in-person
contingent valuation survey to a sample of 480 individuals asking for their WTP to
maintain agricultural activities contributing to landscape preservation to ensure the
conservation of the currently cultivated landscape of the White Carpathians Protected
Landscape Area (PLA). WTP was stated as a contribution to a special fund for this
PLA, and the mean WTP per person per year was 295-340 CZK and 664 CZK in
the open-ended and dichotomous choice elicitation formats, respectively.
5
Krumalova
et al.
(2000)
performed a contingent valuation survey of more than 1,000 individuals
by asking them their WTP in terms of an increase in their annual tax payment to
5
One CZK = €0.06 in terms of Purchasing Power Parities, which are the corrected exchange rates
from GDP per capita in 2004 (for further information about Purchasing Power Parities, see
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