Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
improve the quality of agricultural landscape amenities and provide harmonic
landscape. The mean WTP was 620 CZK per person per year in the open-ended
elicitation format.
In theory, the method of benefit transfer can be used to value the agricultural
landscape in the Czech Republic, or in the other new member states. Unfortunately,
however, the transferability of estimates from both Czech studies can be questioned.
In the first contingent valuation study (the White Carpatian PLA) the values relate
to a very specific protected landscape, while in the other study the change in the
quality of landscape seems diffuse and poorly defined (e.g. a scenario was presented
and described as 'harmonic landscape').
This section has particularly focused on studies that (implicitly) equate agricul-
tural landscape values with the monetary value of agro-biodiversity. Other studies
that perform a value assessment of agro-biodiversity are, however, conceivable.
For example, one can think of valuing the effect of eutrophication reversal and
water restoration processes on agricultural ecosystems. And indeed, a number of
studies have applied monetary valuation methods to investigate the public willingness
to pay for water quality improvement (see Ewel
1997
; Garrod and Willis
1999a)
.
However, most of these studies do not distinguish between the sources of pollution
(urban, industrial, agricultural), and therefore it is difficult to isolate the impact
that the improvement in water quality has on agro-biodiversity.
Monetary Valuation and Agricultural Policy
After some examples of valuation studies in the previous section, we now continue
with the potential for valuation studies to be used within policy. Monetary valuation
can be used to provide information when deciding whether to go ahead with specific
agricultural policies (ex-ante) or the evaluation of policies (ex-post). In either case,
the key methodology used has been cost-benefit analysis, which provides a
comparison of social costs and benefits and is based within a utilitarian perspective
focusing on economic efficiency. Through a consideration of the validity of benefits
estimated and the method of the cost-benefit method of aggregation, this section
considers the applicability of monetary valuation within agricultural policy.
Estimating Social Costs and Benefits
Earlier in this chapter, we described a range of methods for the valuation of
non-market benefits occurring due to intervention in the delivery of agricultural
policy. However, the validity of the non-market values which have been estimated
have been the subject of much debate. In terms of the benefits from agricultural
policy, much debate has revolved around the complexities of scenarios and the
relationship between the policy and the data available.
Debate has particularly focused on the challenges of understanding the policy-on
and policy-off scenarios. Any study valuation or otherwise, considering policy
