Abstract
Water plays a key role in the maintenance of energy, agriculture, biodiversity, ecosystems, cultural practices and human health. As a common-pool resource with rivalries, the multiple competing uses of water are often in conflict. Water allocation decisions in Hawai'i today are not based on people's preferences. The objective of this paper is to identify and quantify stakeholder preferences pertaining to water management programmes in order to improve water policy design. This is accomplished through the use of conjoint choice experiment surveys. The survey data were analyzed using Latent Class Analysis to determine latent heterogeneity in respondents' preferences. The relative importance of water management attributes was evaluated and willingness-to-pay values were estimated. Results showed that the majority of respondents weighed preserving stream health and Hawaiian cultural practices in water allocation decisions and were willing to pay $4.53 per month per household to improve stream health to an excellent condition. These results highlight the need to strongly align watershed-level preferences to better balance in-stream and offstream demands to help guide water managers to make more effective water allocation decisions.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: International Journal of Water Resources Development
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
