Improvisation of indigenous environmental benefit transfer and valuation for cleaner environment: Choice experiment across northwest China

Abstract

Valuation of environmental goods and services offers valuable information for environmental management, where there exists heterogeneity in household’s taste and preferences. The current study evaluated the willingness to pay for ecosystem services with regard to assess benefit transfer among sub-basins of Wei River. In order to achieve an improved environmental status in Wei River basin, a choice experiment survey was conducted with the perception regarding valuation of ecosystem services in the upper, middle and lower basin. A total of 900 households sampled respondents were interviewed in the entire river basin. Seven ecological attributes were selected in an arrangement with improvements in ecological conditions in choice a set. Welfare estimates were measured through conditional logit (CL) and random parameter logit (RPL) models. Outcomes of our study validated the diversity in the public preferences regarding valuation of selected ecological attributes in all three basins. Like, water quality level was relatively highly valued (i.e. 109.3 Yuan) by those who live in lower basin followed by inhabitants of middle basin (81.57 Yuan). With the addition of heterogeneity in tastes and preferences, relatively lower transfer errors were estimated in RPL model as compared to CL model. While transferring benefits from lower to upper basin, the estimated transfer errors were 35.37% and 7.06% of transfer errors were estimated from upper to middle basin and 19.30% were estimated from middle to lower basin in RPL model. While for the same conditions, the estimated transfer errors in CL model were 44.49%, 9.49% and 29.37% respectively. In the light of current outcomes, there are sufficient evidences to claim for transferability of benefits between upper, middle and lower basins. The conclusive empirical outcomes of the current study thus help in proper management of ecosystem services and allow for benefit transfer from one basin to the other basins of Wei River.