Environmental amenities and agricultural land values: a hedonic model using geographic information systems data

Remote agricultural lands, which include wildlife habitat, angling opportunities and scenic vistas, command higher prices per hectare in Wyoming than those whose landscape is dominated by agricultural production. Geographic information systems (GIS) data are used to measure recreational and scenic amenities associated with rural land. A hedonic price model is specified with GIS measures. It is used to estimate the impact of amenity and agricultural production land characteristics on price per acre for a sample of Wyoming agricultural parcels. Results indicate that the specification performed well across several functional forms. The sampled land prices are explained by the level of both environmental amenities as well as production attributes. Statistically significant amenity variables included scenic view, elk habitat, sport fishery productivity and distance to town. This analysis permits a better estimation of environmental amenity values from hedonic techniques. Improved estimation of amenity values is vital for policies aimed at open space preservation, using agricultural conservation easements and land use conflict resolution.     

An econometric analysis of willingness-to-pay for sustainable development: A case study of the Vol?ji Potok landscape area

When the market for a certain good is competitive enough, economic activities can be studied by the market pricing mechanism. Because this is usually not feasible in case of environmental goods with embodied natural and cultural heritage, particular methods for economic valuation of such goods have to be applied. The present article represents the economic valuation of the Landscape Development and Protection Area of Vol?ji Potok, which is an important Slovenian cultural landscape area with internationally recognized qualities. For this purpose we combined classical contingent valuation with a closed-version of discrete choice method, where the protest responses have been removed. By using econometric analysis we obtained the value of willingness-to-pay and established its determinants. We also made an attempt to control for different biases that arise in such analyses. At last, we used the adjusted average individual value of willingness-to-pay to calculate the aggregate willingness-to-pay. The present analysis represents one of the very few applications of the method to Central and Eastern European countries.     

Ranking quality of life using subjective well-being data

Indices ranking the quality of life in cities based on climatic, environmental and urban conditions have a long tradition in the hedonic literature. In this paper we propose an alternative set of indices based on subjective well-being (SWB) data linked to regional level amenities. SWB indicators provide a direct, self-reported evaluation of life satisfaction and can be used to rank quality of life among different locations in the absence of data on housing prices and wages. Using SWB data in Ireland, we show how to rank quality of life in regions in three different ways: 1) using a simple unconditional average of SWB across locations, 2) conditionally, controlling for personal characteristics of individuals and the environmental amenities in their area and 3) weighting the environmental endowments in each location by the marginal rate of substitution between income and the amenity. The results show a very high correlation between the three indices and suggest that variation in SWB across locations is not random, but is driven to a large extent by the endowment of location-specific amenities across locations.     

Natural capital, subjective well-being, and the new welfare economics of sustainability: Some evidence from cross-country regressions

The measurement of natural capital and its management during the economic development process are important aspects of the capital approach to sustainable development. However, the assessment of social welfare in terms of genuine savings (or changes in total wealth per capita) is arguably too limited. This paper tries to make a case for the incorporation of subjective well-being measures in debates about sustainable development by exploring the macro-level relationship between subjective well-being and natural capital in a cross-country setting. It is tested whether natural capital per capita is correlated with subjective well-being in a sample of fifty-eight developed and developing countries, using natural capital data from the World Bank's Millennium Capital Assessment. Bivariate regressions indicate that it is. When multiple regression models are estimated that include (a) major country-level determinants of subjective well-being (GNI per capita, social capital, income distribution, unemployment, inflation), and (b) regional dummy variables for ex-Soviet Union and Latin American countries, the positive correlation remains. The role of data outliers is carefully explored, and the sensitivity of the results to the use of alternative subjective well-being measures (i.e. life satisfaction, happiness, and a combined life satisfaction and happiness index) is investigated. This does not change the nature of the results. The findings arguably strengthen the case for a ‘new welfare economics of sustainability’ that takes subjective well-being measures into account.     

Statistical modeling of land-cover changes based on key socio-economic indicators

Landscapes are complex human–environment systems operating at spatio-temporal scales. Time is just as important as space when researching landscape changes. These changes are influenced by both environmental and socio-economic factors. However, correlations between environmental landscape attributes and land-cover patterns/changes are weakened by human activities such as intensification of agriculture eliminating the constraints of water and nutrient availability. Relations between changes in socio-economic organisation and land cover become apparent only over a longer period of time. Thus, in our study, we focused on socio-economic factors and their long-term effects on land cover. We present a method to (i) differentiate types of land-cover changes at district level, (ii) model correlations between socio-economic factors and land cover changes and (iii) identify key socio-economic indicators of land-cover changes between 1945 and 1999 in a German marginal rural landscape.We employed agricultural land-cover data gained from the interpretation of multi-temporal aerial photographs. Based on these data, we differentiated types of land-cover changes, characterising different directions of agricultural land-cover changes in the observation time period. Various socio-economic aspects were considered by introducing data representing factors of demography, employment, economy, infrastructure, agricultural structure and policy. The relations between time series of land-cover data and of socio-economic data were modeled with the help of redundancy analysis. Correlation coefficients were used to identify key socio-economic indicators of land-cover changes. The results showed that a relatively high percentage of variance in land-cover data can be explained by socio-economic factors. The types of land-cover changes can be characterised by combinations of key socio-economic indicators. The indicators can be helpful to reconstruct land-cover changes in other regions. Thus, they provide a basis for the development of sustainable land-cover management systems.     

基于CA-Markov和InVEST模型的土地 利用格局变化对生境的影响研究——以北京 浅山区为例

在城市扩张蔓延和由此引起的生境变化过程中,研 究生境随土地利用/覆被变化(Land Use/Cover Change, LUCC)的适应性时空演变及预测已成为生态学的核心内容。 浅山区作为山区与平原的过渡地带,是天然生态屏障和生态敏 感地区,评估土地利用变化所引起的生境质量时空变化对于 浅山生态规划意义重大。以北京市浅山区为例,基于1999、 2017年的Landsat TM/ETM+遥感数据进行ENVI解译,并 采用CA-Markov模型模拟北京浅山区2035年自然增长情景 下的景观格局发展趋势。后结合InVest模型,评价3个时间下 的生境质量和退化度,以及1999—2017、2017—2035年 时间段下的生境稀缺度。结果表明：1999—2017年,浅山 区的景观空间愈加趋于碎片化,农田和建设用地趋于向浅山内 部扩张,预测2017—2035年仍将沿袭这一趋势,但变化速 度有所减缓。     

盘锦市土地利用景观格局及其生态环境效应分析

基于2007年的土地利用图形数据,选用斑块分离度、景观多样性指数、优势度指数、均匀度指数、生态环境指数等景观特征指数,从斑块和景观两个尺度定量分析盘锦市的土地利用空间格局,并揭示其对区域生态环境的影响。结果表明:(1)盘锦市的优势景观类型为水田,面积最大,广布于中部和东部地区;其次为沼泽地,分布于西部以及西南沿海地区;城乡用地、水域和旱地的面积亦较大。区域景观格局基本上呈现出人工湿地和自然湿地镶嵌分布的特征。(2)城乡用地景观的斑块数最多,为1 002,水域和水田的斑块数也较多,分别为131和98;滩涂景观斑块分离度最小,为0.06,其次为水田景观,为0.18;未利用土地的斑块分离度最大,为111.51。(3)盘锦市生态环境效应指数为0.42,低于邻近城市营口的0.51,而高于锦州的0.38,在生态环境质量上没有太大的优越性。     

On measuring the benefits of lower transport costs

Despite large amounts invested in rural roads in developing countries, little is known about their benefits. This paper derives an expression for the willingness-to-pay for a reduction in transport costs from the canonical agricultural household model and uses it to estimate the benefits of a hypothetical road project. Estimation is based on novel cross-sectional data collected in a small region of Madagascar with enormous, yet plausibly exogenous, variation in transport cost. A road that essentially eliminated transport costs in the study area would boost the incomes of the remotest households – those facing transport costs of about $75/ton – by nearly half, mostly by raising non-farm earnings. This benefit estimate is contrasted to one based on a hedonic approach.     

Implementation of land and ecosystem accounts at the European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency has started the implementation of a programme of land use and ecosystem accounts, following the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) guidelines of the United Nations. The purpose is to integrate information across the various ecosystem components and to support further assessments and modelling of these components and their interactions with economic and social developments. This programme reflects the increasing demand for environmental policy integration in Europe, both vertically through thematic policies as well as horizontally across policies in those sectors that contribute most to environmental impacts. The construction of land and ecosystem accounts is now feasible due to continuous improvements in monitoring, collecting and processing data and progress with the development of statistical methods that facilitate data assimilation and integration. The accounts are based on explicit spatial patterns provided by comprehensive land cover accounts that can be scaled up and down using a 1 km² grid to any type of administrative region or ecosystem zone (e.g., river basin catchments, coastal zones or bio-geographic areas). Land cover accounts have been produced for 24 countries in Europe and first results published in the European Environment State and Outlook2005 report of the EEA.¹     

Information policy in road transport with elastic demand: Some welfare economic considerations

This paper analyses the welfare impacts of providing different types of information to a group of potential road users. Two groups of drivers are considered: informed and uninformed ones and three kinds of information are dealt with: perfect, imperfect and no information. The link travel cost functions are assumed to be stochastic and the information concerns these random fluctuations. The analysis is limited to a one and two link network and it is further assumed that the actors in the model base their decision-making on rational expectations.Under the assumptions that demand and link travel cost functions are linear and that the population of travellers consists of a homogeneous group except for their respective willingness-to-pay for making a trip, it is found that both the provision of perfect and imperfect information leads to a strict Pareto improvement. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the more perfect the information, the more efficient the use of the transport network. Finally, the analysis concerning the two link network (two routes running in parallel) shows that beneficial route split effects only exist when (1) the number of informed drivers is relatively small and (2) the stochastic shocks in the link travel cost function are relatively large. In these cases, the benefits to informed drivers are substantially larger than when only mode split effects take place.     

Renewable Resource Use and Nonseparable Amenity Benefits

We incorporate amenity benefits into an overlapping generations model with a renewable resource as a factor of production, source of amenity benefits and store of value. Unlike the conventional renewable resource problems studied under the assumption of additive consumption and amenity benefits, we let amenity benefits affect the utility of consumers in a nonseparable fashion. We examine the role that weights given to consumption and amenities have for harvesting and the resource stock. We characterize dynamics and stability of steady state equilibria with a logistic resource growth function. We demonstrate in parametric and numerical models that the weights given to consumption and amenities in the utility function matter substantially for the steady state equilibrium stock and its stability and dynamics. Both conventional saddle point equilibria and indeterminacy with infinite number of equilibria and saddle-node bifurcation is possible depending on the weights given to consumption and amenities. In addition, we show that for each inefficient equilibrium stock, there is a unique subsidy rate that can move the economy from an inefficient equilibrium to an efficient one. The presence of indeterminacy provides a challenge to resource policies, because the system becomes unpredictable. Therefore, expectations and market psychology may play an important role in resource utilization and provision of amenities.     

Use of Contingent Valuation to Elicit Willingness-to-Pay for the Benefits of Developmental Health Risk Reductions

We report the results of several contingent valuation (CV) surveys to elicit willingness-to-pay values from the general public for risk reductions associated with decreases in exposure to a chemical, PCBs, in the environment. We also develop Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) from the survey using both standard gamble and time-tradeoff elicitation methods to explore the relationship between QALYs and willingness-to-pay (WTP), and to develop QALY weights for subtle developmental effects. The results of the CV surveys are designed for incorporation into a case study of an integrated risk model to monetize the benefits of predicted risk reductions. Respondents showed a nearly proportional, positive relationship between decreasing the risk of a 6-point reduction in IQ (a standard measure of “intelligence”) and WTP, but showed a negative relationship between risk reduction and WTP for reading comprehension as an outcome. The range of mortality risks that respondents would accept on behalf of their (hypothetical) 10-year-old child is 2 in 10,000 to 9 in 1,000 per IQ point, and WTP per IQ point is $466 ($380, $520). QALY weights elicited via time tradeoff (reduction in life expectancy) were significantly different from QALY weights elicited via a standard gamble (p = 0.001). Respondents who answered questions about ecological endpoints first were willing to pay a small additional amount when asked about human health effects, but those respondents who answered questions about human health endpoints first were not willing to pay any additional amount when subsequently asked about ecological effects. This paper has not been submitted elsewhere in identical or similar form, nor will it be during the first three months after its submission to the Publisher.     

地表温度与城市空间分布结构的关系及其 预测模型

就城市尺度级别下的热环境进行评价,为了能够落 实影响绿地规划的具体空间区域,并提供可以指导绿地布局的 方法,以西安为例,量化植被、建设用地空间分布与地表温度 的关系,确定绿地降温的具体区域;通过卷积计算,以温度变 化为0作为界限,细化冷区和热区,提取城市微更新下绿地布 局待调整的位置;基于机器学习的回归算法,由绿地、建设用 地和水体分布预测作为热环境指示因子的地表温度,从而为规 划的合理性提供参考。通过对研究结果的评价,以及与已有方 法的比较,利用地表温度和地表覆盖变化,量化城市空间分布 结构,为绿地规划提供可以落实的具体空间区域。     

The role of natural capital in supporting national income and social welfare

Using life satisfaction as a proxy for social welfare, this study contributes to the extant literature by empirically demonstrating that natural capital contributes to social welfare, functioning in part through increasing national income and in part through its direct effect on life satisfaction; the direct effect is approximately 40% greater than the indirect effect. This suggests that the true welfare benefits of natural capital may not be adequately reflected in conventional economic data and, therefore, studies seeking to evaluate the contribution of natural capital to human well-being should consider employing data sets that capture subjective elements of welfare. The magnitudes of the reported marginal effects of natural capital on social welfare, however, are small. This is perhaps due to the fact that (1) there are shortcomings in the measure of natural capital; (2) life satisfaction effects are unlikely to reflect the poorly understood benefits that natural capital provides; and (3) keystone species (such as mosquitoes) and integral ecosystems (such as wetlands) may be negatively associated with life satisfaction, even though such components of natural capital are vitally important to sustaining ecosystems and human life     

Casting light on energy efficiency: evidence on consumer inattention and imperfect information

We investigate consumer inattention and imperfect information regarding the financial benefits of energy-efficient lighting using a randomized controlled trial with 1084 observations. Results suggest that subjects generally know about cost savings of light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs – the central lighting technology of the future – but largely underestimate the magnitude of these savings. As a result, stated willingness-to-pay for an LED bulb increases on average by 2.53€ through the provision of information on expected lifetime costs. Additional evidence hints at further consumer confusion about attribute differences between lighting technologies.     

Do environmental benefits matter? Evidence from a choice experiment among house owners in Germany

Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO₂ emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not covered by the EU ETS. We conducted a choice experiment concerning energy retrofits for existing houses in Germany. In the experiment, the approximately 400 sampled house owners could either choose a modern heating system or an improved thermal insulation for their home. We used standard and mixed logit specifications to analyse the choice data. We found environmental benefits to have a significant impact on choices of heating systems. However, they played no role in terms of insulation choices. Based on the estimated mixed logit model, we further obtained willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures for CO₂ savings.     

Integrating public demands into model-based design for multifunctional agriculture: An application to intensive Dutch dairy landscapes

The contribution of agriculture to the welfare of society is determined by its economic, social and environmental performance. Although theoretical discussions can be found in the literature, few reports exist that integrate the social demand for multifunctional agriculture in the evaluation of the sustainability and the global welfare of society. This paper presents a methodology that combines economic valuation, integrated modelling, stakeholder analysis, and multi-criteria evaluation. It consists of three steps to determine: (1) social demands for multifunctional agriculture; (2) feasible technical alternatives available from the supply part of the market; (3) the net utility of alternatives for society measured as the change in social net benefit, i.e. the sum of changes compared to the current situation expressed in utility of market and non-market net benefits. Market net benefits are represented by their monetary value. Quality Function Deployment combined with Analytic Network Process (QFD/ANP) were used to estimate the non-market net benefits. The methodology is applied to the case study of a dairy-farming based agricultural landscape in the Northern Friesian Woodlands, The Netherlands. Social net benefit depended on land use, i.e. pasture management regimes on each of the agricultural fields and on presence or absence of hedgerows around the fields. Changes in market net utility were expressed in terms of changes for farmers, consumers and government. Changes in non-market net utility were expressed in terms of changes in landscape quality, nature value and environmental health for Dutch society as a whole, as estimated from European public surveys (Eurobarometer). The complete solution space defined by the market and non-market net benefits of landscapes with alternative patterns of land use was estimated to offer insight in the trade-off between market and non-market performance and enable selection of ‘icon’ landscapes to target or avoid. Improvement of the current landscape towards the social optimum would involve changes in pasture management resulting in higher gross margin for farmers, slightly relaxing current environmental restrictions, which could be reached at lower levels of subsidies in agri-environmental programs. In addition to such overall optimum the results demonstrate the trade-off between market and non-market benefits and the characteristics of current, utopian and dystopian landscapes. The approach provides an alternative to current economic valuation methods which focus on assessment of economic value as an input to analysis. Here, economic value emerges as the trade-off between market and non-market functions which is an output of the analysis.     

城市土地整理的长效运作制度创新

市地整理是对城市原有的土地利用方式的一种改变与提高,从而有助于提升市地的经济自然环境以及景观美感的多目标体系的综合效益.以科学发展观为指导,建立健全科学的市地整理长效运作制度,有利于处理好城市发展与城市用地总量与结构平衡,实现城市土地整理区城内的社会经济协调发展.     

Too poor to be green consumers? A field experiment on revealed preferences for firewood in rural Guatemala

The paper reports on a field experiment that investigates whether households in Guatemala are willing to surrender a small material gain in order to buy legal rather than illegal firewood. Given the ineffectiveness of command-and-control policies to curb the problem of illegal logging in Guatemala, the experiment assesses the potential viability of market-oriented solutions. Local consumers in developing countries are generally believed to be too poor to pay a premium for green/ethical products. Therefore, little information has been gathered on willingness-to-pay (WTP) for such products and its determinants in non-affluent consumer markets. While our experiment on firewood consumption in central Guatemala only implies a weak and indirect test of WTP for green products, the results indicate that it is premature, if not unwarranted, to assume that the poor are not ready to make pro-ethical choices in the marketplace. Moreover, we find that information on the legal procedures for firewood extraction significantly affects consumer choice between legal and illegal firewood.     

Assessing the total economic value of threatened livestock breeds in Italy: Implications for conservation policy

The total economic value (TEV) of two threatened Italian cattle breeds (Modicana and Maremmana) was investigated using a choice experiment survey. Most respondents (85%) support breed conservation, their stated willingness-to-pay easily justifying EU support. The high landscape maintenance, existence and future option values of both breeds (around 80% of their TEVs) suggest that incentives mechanisms are indeed needed in order to allow farmers to capture some of these public good values and hence motivate them to undertake conservation-related activities. The positive direct use values of both breeds (around 20% of their TEVs) imply that niche product markets aimed at enhancing the private good values associated with conservation could also form elements of a conservation and use strategy for these breeds.