Upland Landscapes: What do people want, who wants it and can they have it all?

Abstract The objective of this thesis is to investigate the preferences of individuals for the management of upland landscapes in the UK. Environmental valuation techniques are becoming an increasingly important tool in the development of environmental management policy, however, they are not without their detractors. In particular a school of thought, developed from the work of Bentham, takes issue with the behavioural foundations of the dominant welfare economic doctrine which underpins many of the valuation techniques commonly adopted. They identify that heuristic rules, experience and memory can all play a role in the development of ‘value’ for a good. This thesis aims to investigate the roles of these, along with the role of association with an environmental good, in the development of value for upland landscapes using the Peak District National Park as a case study. This objective is developed in three parts. Part I introduces the topic, identifies the background of research against which this thesis is presented and introduces the case study. This part also attempts to identify how well the complex economy – ecology interactions in this landscape are understood by stakeholders. It shows that, given the complexities of the systems, there are key omissions in stakeholder knowledge and understanding. Part II uses Discrete Choice Experiments to analyse the impact on value of experience, memory, heuristics and association. A series of experiments are applied to the same landscape characteristics in order to achieve this. The results show that value can be impacted in a number of ways with implications for the development of future valuation studies. This thesis concludes with a discussion of the policy implications, limitations and future work associated with this research

Moonlight

Moonlight is a 6x8 inch acrylic painting depicting a forest at night. The color scheme is overall a monochromatic of shades of blue except for the stark black of the forest trees

Public Preferences towards Future Energy Policy in the UK: A Choice Experiment Approach.

The key focus of this dissertation is to produce research upon energy and climate change issues in the UK in a policy relevant and theoretically sound way. It aims to inform industry and policy makers to allow politically palatable, successful and effective future energy and climate change policy to be developed by identifying the preferences of the public for different policy scenarios. The Choice Experiment method was employed throughout this dissertation as the consistent methodological approach allowed for greater comparability of the results in addition to allowing the method’s robustness and reliability to be tested. The first part of this research (Chapter 3) is concerned with investigating attitudes and willingness to pay for future generation portfolio of Scotland by investigating household preferences for various energy generating options, such as wind, nuclear and biomass compared to the current generation mix. We identified the Scottish public have positive and significant preference towards wind and nuclear power over the current energy mix. We also found heterogeneity in public preferences depending on where respondents live which is reflected in their preferences towards specific attributes. Presence of non-compensatory behaviour in our sample is another element which was investigated in this part. Chapters 4 and 5 contain analyses of two independent choice experiments which were run in parallel. They take a UK-wide approach and investigate public preferences for more general areas of future energy and climate change policy, such as: carbon reduction targets, focus on energy efficiency improvements and attitudes to micro-generation versus large scale renewable generation. In addition the preferences for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change are investigated. Micro-generation is not often considered by energy companies when it comes to planning their generation strategies and was therefore of particular relevance to this research. As such Chapter 6 identifies the importance that the public places on this particular energy option and how it compares with their preferences towards other key energy and climate change policies of the UK. To analyse reliability of the results and to contribute to the theoretical field of stated preference valuation, each of the experiments contained two overlapping attributes, i.e. increase in level of micro-generation and an increase in total cost to a household, comparison of which was also carried out in Chapter 6. Finally in Chapter 7 the results found in the sections described above are discussed with reference to the policy background in the UK and Scotland. Also issues with the research and areas for further study are identified

Augmented Sustainability Measures for Scotland

We estimate and compare two empirical measures of the weak sustainability of an economy for the first time: the change in augmented green net national product (GNNP), and the interest on augmented genuine savings (GS). Yearly calculations are given for each measure for Scotland during 1992-99. Augmentation means including, using projections to 2020, production possibilities enabled by exogenous technical progress or changing terms of trade. In passing, we clarify the treatment of environmental expenditures in green accounting. The change in augmented GNNP and interest on augmented GS are both always positive, showing no sustainability problem for Scotland; but the former greatly exceeds the latter, showing an unresolved problem with the theory.

Augmented Sustainability Measures for Scotland

We estimate and compare two empirical measures of the weak sustainability of an economy for the first time: the change in augmented green net national product (GNNP), and the interest on augmented genuine savings (GS). Yearly calculations are given for each measure for Scotland during 1992-99. Augmentation means including, using projections to 2020, changed production possibilities enabled by exogenous technical progress or changing oil prices. The change in augmented GNNP and interest on augmented GS are both always positive, showing no sustainability problem for Scotland then, according to the assumptions underlying our weak sustainability calculations. However, the former greatly exceeds the latter, a mismatch which poses an unresolved problem with the theory. Resolving it may require respecifying the utility functions used in mainstream growth theory.sustainability, Scotland, genuine savings, green NNP, augmentation

Augmented Sustainability Measures for Scotland

We estimate and compare two empirical measures of the weak sustainability of an economy for the first time: the change in augmented green net national product (GNNP), and the interest on augmented genuine savings (GS). Yearly calculations are given for each measure for Scotland during 1992-99. Augmentation means including, using projections to 2020, production possibilities enabled by exogenous technical progress or changing terms of trade. In passing, we clarify the treatment of environmental expenditures in green accounting. The change in augmented GNNP and interest on augmented GS are both always positive, showing no sustainability problem for Scotland; but the former greatly exceeds the latter, showing an unresolved problem with the theorysustainability, Scotland, genuine savings, green NNP, augmentation