Non market valuation in New Zealand: 1974 through 2005

Non-market valuation (NMV) is recognized as an essential tool in policy decision making worldwide. In this paper, we investigate the history of NMV, specifically in relation to New Zealand (NZ), by compiling and analyzing all available published studies. Results show a significant increase in the number of studies, specifically those requested by government agencies, following the passage of the NZ Resource Management Act of 1991. Studies were found to be concentrated in three major areas: outdoor recreation, environmental conservation/management, and travel time savings. These three areas covered eight environmental commodities, the value of which totaled NZ$72 billion, or 50% of NZ GDP, with the highest valued commodity being biodiversity services. While our analysis yielded many positive results, we did discover, however, a severe lack of studies in many areas including pest control, water resources and outdoor recreation

When the Tide is High: Estimating the Welfare Impact of Coastal Erosion Management

A choice experiment was undertaken at Buffalo beach, Whitianga, in order to investigate beach visitors’ preferences for various coastal erosion management options. Constructing rock seawalls is a common response to coastal erosion but seawalls can negatively affect visual amenity, biodiversity and recreational values. The choice experiment results from this study show that the average visitor would be willing to pay $20 per year to remove an existing rock wall at either end of Buffalo beach. Visitors place high value on useable sandy beaches and reserve areas behind the beach. A latent class analysis reveals there are distinct sub-groups with varying preferences for beach characteristics. This paper presents a model with separate classes for residents and visitors and the compensating variation estimates to calculate the overall welfare effect for three coastal management scenarios.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Transport appraisal revisited

Cost-benefit analysis has become a widely used and well developed tool for evaluation of suggested transport projects. This paper presents our view of the role and position of CBA in a transport planning process, partly based on a survey of a number of countries where CBA plays a formalised role in decision making. The survey shows that methodologies, valuations and areas of application are broadly similar across countries. All countries place the CBA results in a comprehensive assessment framework that also includes various types of non-monetised benefits. An important advantage with using CBA is that it is a way to overcome cognitive, structural and process-related limitations and biases in decision making. Some of the main challenges to CBA and to quantitative assessment in general lie in the institutional and political context. There is often a risk that CBA enters the planning process too late to play any meaningful role. This risk seems to increase when planning processes are centred around a perceived "problem". If the problem is perceived as important enough, even inefficient solutions may be viewed as better than nothing, despite that the definition of what constitutes a "problem" is often arbitrary

Analysis of multibeam sonar data for benthic habitat characterization of the Port of Tauranga, New Zealand.

Tauranga Harbour is a mesotidal lagoon located within the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, and is subject to an ongoing maintenance dredging program to remove mud deposits coming from various sources in the catchment. At the southern end of the commercial port, the Tauranga Bridge Marina was built adjacent to the bridge causeway, with 500 floating concrete berths, enclosed by concrete floating breakwaters. It is proposed to convert these floating breakwaters into solid ones to stop waves entering the marina. This is expected to influence tidal circulation around the Tauranga bridge causeway, and potentially affect sedimentation and marine habitats. The region is an important source of "kai moana" (seafood) for local iwi, and is a source of juvenile shellfish for the large beds located on the flood tidal delta and surrounding channels. This study investigates the impact of the successive harbour constructions on the local sedimentology. The overall goal of the mapping part of this project is to identify and locate the different seabed facies and features within the study site, which may be affected by the sediment transport potentially resulting from the past and future harbour developments. To investigate the impacts of the harbour modifications, a habitat-mapping survey using acoustic mapping techniques was undertaken in July and August 2011. The hydrographic survey was simultaneously performed using a multibeam echosounder (Kongsberg-Simrad EM3000) and a Starfish 452F sidescan sonar. The backscatter/imagery data from both systems was then used for habitat mapping, using a combination of Angular Response Analysis and image-based segmentation. An underwater camera survey and seabed sampling were also performed to ground-truth the morphologies identified from the acoustic backscatter analysis. The most recent habitat map was then compared to the previous studies to identify changes in response to the different modifications of the estuary

Conservation of transport fuel in New Zealand: A review and research recommendations for the Liquid Fuels Trust Board

Blank pages omitted from the scanned digital copyEnergy conservation should be regarded as an energy resource. If a device can be retrofitted to a car to improve its internal combustion, then the nation's cars can be regarded as an oil field and, therefore, a valid drilling site. We have a transport system which "leaks oil"; we do not need to use 115 Petajoules of liquid fuel for transport each year. This report seeks to identify "oil fields" on the demand side of the transport sector. The report comprises five sections. The first two are concerned with the transport of people, the third and fourth with the transport of goods, and the last touches briefly on some long term options

Social implications of rapid industrialisation: A bibliography of New Zealand experiences

Material included in this bibliography has been identified during our review of New Zealand experiences of social change arising from rapid industrialisation and "boom'' population growth in rural areas. The review is being partially funded by a grant from the Social Science Research Fund committee. Further support has been provided by the Department of Labour Project Employment Programme. Overall, the review reflects our concern that social implications of major projects and resource developments, and particularly local and regional implications, should be incorporated into decision making and planning. It is apparent from the many references. in this bibliography that New Zealand has considerable experience and social science research to draw from when planning new resource uses

Working while travelling: what are implications for the value of travel time savings in the economic appraisal of transport projects?

In the current practice of the economic appraisal of transport projects, the value of travel time savings (VTTS) for business trips is derived from the Cost Saving Approach (CSA) whereby travel time savings were valued at the Marginal Product of Labour (MPL), defined as the average wages plus on costs. This approach has been adopted nationally by Austroads and Transport for NSW, and internationally by UK and other European countries. It assumes that business travellers do not undertake any productive activities while travelling and that all travel time savings will be used for business and not leisure. Supported by portable computing devices, there is a view that an increasing proportion of business travellers and commuters work while travelling. On the other hand, a significant proportion of business travel time savings has been used for leisure instead of work. This paper uses the Hensher Equation developed in the 1970s to obtain an alternative valuation of contemporary business travel time savings by introducing two productivity foregone corrections for (1) the productive use of travel time, and (2) unproductive use of business travel time savings. The purpose of this paper is to translate recent research on the valuation of business travel time savings into practical tools for incorporation in economic appraisal methods

Leisure and recreation in New Zealand: A research register (1974-1991)

In March 1990 the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism at Lincoln University was commissioned and funded, in part, by the Hillary Commission for Recreation and Sport (now Sport, Fitness and Leisure) to compile a comprehensive register of research into leisure and recreation in New Zealand. The financial support of the Hillary Commission and Lincoln University must be recognised.A register of research on leisure and recreation is important to researchers, practitioners and students as well as to the generral public. The value of such a register is enhanced when it is assembled in concise format for easy reference and when it is an extension of similar projects from previous years. This register builds usefully on, and complements the earlier bibliographies of Jorgensen (1974), Neave (1977) and Middleton (1981), all of which are referenced in the present publication. The major aim of this project is to make available to researchers, and others interested in research, a listing of much of the research which has been conducted on this topic since 1974. The volume will assist researchers to locate reports or papers of interest and for their work. It provides a reasonably comprehensive picture of recreation research activity in New Zealand. Leisure and recreation research in New Zealand has been undertaken by a wide range of individuals and organisations, with much of this research not being readily accessible. Access to this infonnation was gained by researchers and practitioners drawing our attention to people and organisations involved in relevant research which otherwise might have been neglected. In addition the papers and reports held by libraries, unpublished material and research in progress is included in this volume. It is envisaged that the register, and in particular the researcher/practitioner listing, will have the useful outcome of putting researchers in touch with each other. Experience suggests that direct discourse between researchers is often as valuable as reading formal research reports. Leisure and recreation has been defined in the broadest terms. embracing recreational tourism and travel, sport and physical education, arts and cultural activities, outdoor recreation, home-based leisure, non-formal learning, and including those activities and experiences not always recognised as recreational, such as drinking, gambling and vandalism. Similarly, the settings and situations are many and varied, including leisure centres, sports fields, libraries, urban sub-divisions, rivers, ski-fields, national parks, beaches, hotels, restaurants, botanical gardens, zoos and shopping centres to name but a few. The disciplinary focus includes research relating to the social, natural and medical sciences, as well as the practical application of these. The nature of research has been interpreted widely, and includes not only empirical research, but also work which is conceptual and has a policy focus

The social & economic implications of alternative land uses involving pastoral farming and forestry in Northland : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Natural Resource and Environmental Economics at Massey University

This thesis is a scenario study which examines the social and economic impacts of different types of forestry being established in an area of pastoral farmland in Northland, New Zealand. Detailed production, income, expenditure, employment and demographic data was collected from 57 of the 59 farms in the study area. This included expenditure direction data. Those businesses and schools which supported, and were in turn supported by, the study area farms were interviewed to find out the importance of these farms to their continued operation. This pastoral farming scenario is then compared with four forestry scenarios - two conventional forestry scenarios, plus a woodlot and finally an agroforestry scenario. In the first conventional forestry scenario all the study area farms (15,000 hectares) are planted in exotics and in the second about 3,000 hectares are planted. With the two farm forestry scenarios about 1,000 hectares are planted. In the first conventional forestry scenario forestry replaces pastoral farming, while in the second and the farm forestry scenarios pastoral farming and forestry are integrated. Variable results resulted from the comparison, with expenditure comparisons very sensitive to the time harvesting commences, the amount cut and the time span of the scenarios. (Thirty-five years.) These comparisons were also sensitive to the locality in which farming and forestry expenditure were being compared. Forestry expenditure would be markedly higher than farming expenditure once harvesting commenced. But farming has higher backward linkage multipliers and unless forestry processing plants are established, the conventional forestry developments in the scenarios imply a relative decline in regional incomes and employment. If forestry processing plants are established, an increase in regional incomes and employment is implied. Woodlot and agroforestry generally imply an increase in expenditure and employment without the drop in agricultural spending associated with conventional forestry activities on former pastoral farmland. Conventional forestry would result in disruption to the existing social structure. It may result in a long term population decline, but it is likely many ex-farm houses would be re-occupied. Woodlot and agroforestry would strengthen the existing social and economic structure. It is concluded that the Northland United Council's interest and concern about the afforestation of pastoral farmland is justified. However, the rural decline, the corporatisation of government departments, plus the impacts of forestry harvesting and wood processing are considered to be of more importance in the establishment of regional planning priorities

The social & economic implications of alternative land uses involving pastoral farming and forestry in Northland : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Natural Resource and Environmental Economics at Massey University

This thesis is a scenario study which examines the social and economic impacts of different types of forestry being established in an area of pastoral farmland in Northland, New Zealand. Detailed production, income, expenditure, employment and demographic data was collected from 57 of the 59 farms in the study area. This included expenditure direction data. Those businesses and schools which supported, and were in turn supported by, the study area farms were interviewed to find out the importance of these farms to their continued operation. This pastoral farming scenario is then compared with four forestry scenarios - two conventional forestry scenarios, plus a woodlot and finally an agroforestry scenario. In the first conventional forestry scenario all the study area farms (15,000 hectares) are planted in exotics and in the second about 3,000 hectares are planted. With the two farm forestry scenarios about 1,000 hectares are planted. In the first conventional forestry scenario forestry replaces pastoral farming, while in the second and the farm forestry scenarios pastoral farming and forestry are integrated. Variable results resulted from the comparison, with expenditure comparisons very sensitive to the time harvesting commences, the amount cut and the time span of the scenarios. (Thirty-five years.) These comparisons were also sensitive to the locality in which farming and forestry expenditure were being compared. Forestry expenditure would be markedly higher than farming expenditure once harvesting commenced. But farming has higher backward linkage multipliers and unless forestry processing plants are established, the conventional forestry developments in the scenarios imply a relative decline in regional incomes and employment. If forestry processing plants are established, an increase in regional incomes and employment is implied. Woodlot and agroforestry generally imply an increase in expenditure and employment without the drop in agricultural spending associated with conventional forestry activities on former pastoral farmland. Conventional forestry would result in disruption to the existing social structure. It may result in a long term population decline, but it is likely many ex-farm houses would be re-occupied. Woodlot and agroforestry would strengthen the existing social and economic structure. It is concluded that the Northland United Council's interest and concern about the afforestation of pastoral farmland is justified. However, the rural decline, the corporatisation of government departments, plus the impacts of forestry harvesting and wood processing are considered to be of more importance in the establishment of regional planning priorities