Land use trade-offs for flood protection: A choice experiment with visualizations

Abstract

Hydrological processes respond to changes in land use. Thus, hydrological ecosystem services can be affected by land use trade-offs and need to be considered in both land use management and water management. In this paper we present a choice experiment study from a medium-sized mountainous catchment area in Switzerland investigating individual preferences for long-term land use changes. The study focuses on trade-offs concerning reforestation, settlement development, and river management and on resulting effects on flow regulation and flood protection ecosystem services. Furthermore, the study investigates the influence of political choice recommendations on individual choice behavior.We report three major results: (1) Respondents showed clear but heterogeneous preferences for long-term land use changes. (2) Respondents were willing to trade off extensive agricultural land for flood protection ecosystem services, namely through reforestation and widening of the riverine zone. (3) Choice recommendations by political parties and interest groups did influence individual choice behavior in Discrete Choice Experiments but did not, as expected, decrease implicit benefit estimates.