Public Willingness to Pay for Interstate Cooperation to Preserve the Ecological Integrity of the Han River Estuary in Korea

Abstract

The Han River Estuary (HRE), Yellow Sea, forms part of the border between South Korea and North Korea, and these two countries are militarily hostile. Since the HRE has quite excellent ecological integrity, the task of preserving it well is emerging as important. Thus, the South Korean Government is attempting to preserve the ecological integrity of the HRE through interstate cooperation. By employing contingent valuation, this study delves into South Korean households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for this preservation. One thousand households nationwide were sampled and surveyed through face-to-face individual interviews. Annual household income tax was selected as the payment vehicle. Dichotomous choice questioning was chosen as the WTP induction method. A spike model was selected as a method for modelling a WTP of zero. The main results showed statistical significance. Annual WTP per household and national WTP were obtained as KRW 4487 (USD 3.92) and KRW 125.75 billion (USD 109.83 million), respectively. When a 10-year payment period and a 4.5% discount rate were adopted, the value was KRW 766.14 billion (USD 669.12 million). South Korean households placed considerable value on the preservation of the ecological integrity of the HRE through interstate cooperation.