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

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.

Differences between Decision and Experienced Utility: An Investigation using the Choice Experiment method

Recent work by Kahneman and others has led to a new focus in economics on a wellbeing-based approach to utility. This suggests that ‘experienced utility’ is an alternative and more appropriate basis for the measurement of economic value compared with ‘decision utility’. In this paper, we apply the choice experiment technique to the valuation of changes in upland landscapes in the UK, in order to identify if experience in the moment or in memory impacts on the value associated with changes in ecosystem services under different management regimes. Four treatments are employed to measure decision utility, experienced utility, and remembered utility at two different time intervals. We show that our experienced utility treatment generates very different estimates of preferences than any of the other treatments. Whilst measurement of experienced utility is rife with difficulties, the approach taken allowed the identification of experiential impacts on utility and may have implications for the future use of experienced utility as a basis for the valuation of public goods

Valuing improvements to coastal waters using choice experiments: an application to revisions of the EU Bathing Waters Directive

Planned changes to the European Union’s Bathing Waters Directive (2006/7 EC) will force member states to produce improvements in a number of parameters of coastal water quality. This study uses the choice experiment method to estimate the economic benefits attached to such improvements, based on a sample of recreationalists on beaches in Ireland. The analysis indicates that improvements in all of the bathing water related attributes studied result in positive willingness to pay, and also show evidence of scope effects. Using random parameters and latent class modelling techniques, potential heterogeneity in preferences is then investigated and shown to be present to a significant degree. One observable determinant of this preference heterogeneity is the degree of exposure of individuals to health risks relating to water quality, as proxied by the type of recreational activity they undertake

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

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

Transferring the Benefits of Water Quality Enhancements in Small Catchments

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) sets targets of "Good Ecological Status" for water bodies across the EU. Environmental regulatory authorities must undertake economic analysis of all water bodies as part of the process of drawing up catchment management plans. In this paper, we test the transferability of benefit estimates across the kinds of smaller catchments where original benefits estimation is unlikely to be undertaken on grounds of costs. This is done in a context where agricultural-source nonpoint pollution and irrigation water abstraction are the main threats to ecological status.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,