Abstract
Forests protect water quality by reducing soil erosion, sedimentation, and pollution; yet there is little information about the economic value of conserving forests for water quality protection in much of the United States. To assess this value, we conducted a meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay (WTP) for protecting unimpaired waters, and econometrically determined several significant drivers of WTP: type of conservation instrument (tool), aquatic resource type, geographic context, spatial scale, time, and household income. Using a benefit transfer to two highly forested sites, we illustrate the importance of these factors on WTP for water quality protection programs, forest conservation and policy design.
Highlights
Water quality remains a serious public policy challenge in the United States (US)
We found that WTP is negatively influenced by the open-ended contingent valuation (CV) method, while response weighting—a proxy for survey quality—has a positive influence on WTP
This study presented a meta-analysis to estimate systematic components of WTP to protect water quality in unimpaired aquatic systems, which can be used to infer the value of conserving forests for water quality protection
Summary
Water quality remains a serious public policy challenge in the United States (US). In 2012, 54%of rivers and streams and 69% of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds assessed in the US were identified as having threatened or impaired water quality [1]. Anthropogenic non-point source nutrient pollution, for example from intensively managed land uses and urban development, is a leading cause of water impairment in the US [2] These increasing land use changes and loss of forests and other ecosystems are expected to lead to further impairment of water quality without significant policy intervention [3,4]. Conserving forests (e.g., public land acquisition, conservation easements, and landowner incentives or assistance programs) and improving forest management practices can protect water quality by reducing sedimentation and nutrient pollution input to water bodies [6,7] Replacing these forest ecosystem services with engineered infrastructure can be extremely expensive.
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