Economic valuation of allotment gardens in peri-urban degraded agroecosystems: The role of citizens’ preferences in spatial planning

Abstract

Allotment gardens (AGs), one of the basic types of urban gardening, provide goods and services as recreation and climate regulation to the urban population beyond food supply. Ecosystem services (ES) associated with these spaces and spatial factors, such as distances and the presence of substitutes, are of great importance. These aspects, previously studied in the literature, are rarely focused on the economic valuation, through which benefits are revealed. This paper evaluates the creation of AGs in a peri-urban degraded agroecosystem in Murcia (SE-Spain). The values of ES are quantified economically, so are the influences of the socioeconomic and spatial characteristics. A survey was undertaken, from which the willingness to pay (WTP) for owning an AG and the factors influencing the valuation were determined. The results indicate that provisioning services are the ES valued most highly. The valuation of the project for the whole population is 5.4 €/household/month, with a WTP of 17.2 €/household/month for owning an AG plot. Multivariate analysis showed the importance of ES and spatial factors in this valuation. This WTP spatial study shows the existence of local patterns to be considered in the evaluation of new AGs location alternatives. These results will be useful to urban planners in their decision making.