An expanding literature addresses spatial dimensions related to the elicitation, estimation, interpretation and aggregation of stated preference (SP) welfare measures. Recognizing the relevance of ...spatial dimensions for SP welfare analysis and the breadth of associated scholarly work, this article reviews the primary methods, findings, controversies and frontiers in this important area of contemporary research. This review is grounded in a typology that characterizes analytical methods based on theoretical foundations and the type of statistical modelling applied. The resulting interpretive appraisal seeks to (1) summarize and contrast different theoretical arguments and points of departure within the spatial SP literature, (2) synthesize findings, insights and methods from the literature to promote a more holistic perspective on the treatment of spatial dimensions within SP welfare analysis, (3) evaluate and reconcile divergent approaches in terms of theoretical grounding, ability to identify relevant empirical effects, and relevance for SP valuation, and (4) discuss outstanding questions and research frontiers.
Europe recently experienced a large influx of refugees, spurring much public debate about the admission and integration of refugees and migrants into society. Previous research based on ...cross-sectional data found that European citizens generally favour asylum seekers with high employability, severe vulnerabilities, and Christians over Muslims. These preferences and attitudes were found to be homogeneous across countries and socio-demographic groups. Here, we do not study the general acceptance of asylum seekers, but the acceptance of refugee and migrant homes in citizens' vicinity and how it changes over time. Based on a repeated stated choice experiment on preferences for refugee and migrant homes, we show that the initially promoted "welcome culture" towards refugees in Germany was not reflected in the views of a majority of a sample of German citizens who rather disapproved refugee homes in their vicinity. Their preferences have not changed between November 2015, the peak of "welcome culture," and November 2016, after political debates, media reporting and public discourse had shifted towards limiting admission of immigrants. A minority of one fifth of the sample population, who were initially rather approving of refugee and migrant homes being established in their vicinity, were more likely to change their preferences towards a rather disapproving position in 2016. Experience of contact with refugees and migrants, higher education, and general pro-immigration attitudes explain acceptance of refugee and migrant homes as well as preference stability over time. Country of origin and religion of refugees and migrants are considered less important than decent housing conditions and whether refugee and migrants arrive as families or single persons. In this respect our results highlight the importance of humanitarian aspects of sheltering and integration of refugees and other migrants into society.
Ecosystems degradation represents one of the major global challenges at the present time, threating people's livelihoods and well-being worldwide. Ecosystem restoration therefore seems no longer an ...option, but an imperative. Restoration challenges are such that a dialogue has begun on the need to re-shape restoration as a science. A critical aspect of that reshaping process is the acceptance that restoration science and practice needs to be coupled with socio-economic research and public engagement. This inescapably means conveying complex ecosystem's information in a way that is accessible to the wider public. In this paper we take up this challenge with the ultimate aim of contributing to making a step change in science's contribution to ecosystems restoration practice. Using peatlands as a paradigmatically complex ecosystem, we put in place a transdisciplinary process to articulate a description of the processes and outcomes of restoration that can be understood widely by the public. We provide evidence of the usefulness of the process and tools in addressing four key challenges relevant to restoration of any complex ecosystem: (1) how to represent restoration outcomes; (2) how to establish a restoration reference; (3) how to cope with varying restoration time-lags and (4) how to define spatial units for restoration. This evidence includes the way the process resulted in the creation of materials that are now being used by restoration practitioners for communication with the public and in other research contexts. Our main contribution is of an epistemological nature: while ecosystem services-based approaches have enhanced the integration of academic disciplines and non-specialist knowledge, this has so far only followed one direction (from the biophysical underpinning to the description of ecosystem services and their appreciation by the public). We propose that it is the mix of approaches and epistemological directions (including from the public to the biophysical parameters) what will make a definitive contribution to restoration practice.
Physical cage aquaculture structure can attract native fish species in marine and freshwater ecosystems. Most studies on the effects of cage farms on native fish distribution have been undertaken in ...marine environments and outside of Asia as the main freshwater cage aquaculture producing region. Many studies have emphasised connections between native fish distribution and feeding time. Previous research also has shown the necessity to use modelling to monitor this effect to reduce data collection costs. Here we analyse the distribution of an endemic fish species, Rasbora maninjau, and a native fish, Gobiopterus sp., associated with tilapia cage aquaculture occurrence using a Maximum Entropy Model (MaxEnt). We find that the application of the MaxEnt model can produce reliable and accurate information on the impacts of cage aquaculture on the native fish species distribution aligning with the more expensive count data method. Our results also suggest that the species-specific interaction between the native fish and cage farms is mainly arising from an interaction between the ecological behaviour of the native fish with dimensions of the environmental condition such as turbidity. Our study therefore highlights the importance for improved appraisal of the ecology of native fish in the cage aquaculture risk assessment.
Afforestation is a stated goal in European Union policy and several member states have already implemented schemes to extend forest cover. However, little is known about the magnitude of non-market ...benefits of afforestation and how these benefits spatially differ. In this article, we propose a novel method to spatially explicitly predict marginal willingness to pay for afforestation. The approach is illustrated with data from a discrete choice experiment on local land use changes in Germany. GIS data on the respondent's place of residence allows inferring their current endowment with forest, which enters the utility specification of each respondent's status quo alternative. Marginal willingness to pay estimates therefore represent the value of changes in local forest cover relative to the observed status quo. This relationship can be utilized to predict willingness to pay at the county level. We find that marginal willingness to pay decreases as the current endowment with forest increases. The estimated optimal share of forest based on the average respondent's preferences is between 50 and 60%. The associated county level predictions of marginal and total willingness to pay can be used to inform national, regional and local policies that aim to increase forest cover.
•We propose a novel approach to model spatially explicit willingness to pay•Discrete choice experiment data on local land use changes from Germany•WTP depends on current endowment of forest and the average income of the respondent's county•WTP is between −3 and 11 Euros per person and year for a 1% increase in forest share•Total WTP is highest in urban centers, especially in the North of Germany.
The identification and treatment of protest responses in stated preference surveys has long been subject to debate. We analyse protest responses while investigating ecosystem services providers’ ...preferences for incentive‐based schemes. We use a choice experiment for olive farmers’ preferences for agri‐environmental scheme participation in southern Spain. Our two main objectives are: first, to identify and discuss a range of possible motives for protest responses that emerge in a WTA context; second, we analyse the impact on WTA estimates of censoring serial non‐participation linked to protest or high compensation requirements (very high takers). Using a random parameter logit model in WTA space, we find that the inclusion or exclusion of serial non‐participants in the analysis can have a significant impact on marginal and total WTA estimates. Based on the findings, the paper makes recommendations on how to reduce the incidence of protest responses through survey design, regarding the identification of protesters as opposed to very high takers, and regarding the treatment of both groups of respondents for WTA estimation.
A Bayesian Belief Network, validated using past observational data, is applied to conceptualize the ecological response of Lake Maninjau, a tropical lake ecosystem in Indonesia, to tilapia cage farms ...operating on the lake and to quantify its impacts to assist decision making. The model captures ecosystem services trade-offs between cage farming and native fish loss. It is used to appraise options for lake management related to the minimization of the impacts of the cage farms. The constructed model overcomes difficulties with limited data availability to illustrate the complex physical and biogeochemical interactions contributing to triggering mass fish kills due to upwelling and the loss in the production of native fish related to the operation of cage farming. The model highlights existing information gaps in the research related to the management of the farms in the study area, which is applicable to other tropical lakes in general. Model results suggest that internal phosphorous loading (IPL) should be recognized as one of the primary targets of the deep eutrophic tropical lake restoration efforts. Theoretical and practical contributions of the model and model expansions are discussed. Short- and longer-term actions to contribute to a more sustainable management are recommended and include epilimnion aeration and sediment capping.
This study investigates the substitution and complementary effects for beef mince attributes drawing on data from large choice experiments conducted in the UK and Spain. In both countries, consumers ...were found to be willing to pay a price premium for the individual use of the labels "Low Fat" (UK: €3.41, Spain: €1.94), "Moderate Fat" (UK: €2.23, Spain: €1.57), "Local" (UK: €1.54, Spain: €1.61), "National" (UK: €1.33, Spain: €1.37), "Organic" (UK: €1.02, Spain: €1.09) and "Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG)" (UK: €2.05, Spain: €0.96). The results showed that consumers in both countries do not treat desirable food attributes as unrelated. In particular, consumers in Spain are willing to pay a price premium for the use of the labels "Local", "Organic" and "Low GHG" on beef mince that is also labelled as having low or moderate fat content. By contrast, consumers in the UK were found to discount the coexistence of the labels "Low Fat" and "Organic", "Low Fat" and "Low GHG" and "Moderate Fat" and "Low GHG". The results, however, suggest that in the UK the demand for beef mince with moderate (low) fat content can be increased if it is also labelled as "Organic" or "Low GHG" ("Local").
Fertilizer use is environmentally unsustainable in South Asia. Ideally, farmers would follow optimal fertilization rates for crops based on scientific recommendations. However, there is ample ...evidence on why farmers under-fertilize or over-fertilize their crops. Important amongst them is that farmers' attitude to risk influences decisions on fertilizer use. This paper reviews studies on the effects of risk attitude on fertilizer use, the timing of application, and application intensity. We observe that the use of fertilizer is affected by perceptions of fertilizer as a risk-enhancing or risk-reducing input. In order to influence the future fertilizer decisions of farmers, several policy measures are suggested. Among these, gradual withdrawal of fertilizer subsidies, repurposing subsides toward improved technologies that increase productivity, improves nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and reduce emission, providing enhanced-efficiency fertilizers and eliminating the fraudulent practice of fertilizer adulteration may be the most appropriate in a South Asian context.
Despite the fact that sustainable agricultural technologies and practices have been developed and introduced to farmers in both developed and developing countries, there are concerns about low levels ...of adoption. Empirical evidence of the past 40 years shows that adoption of new practices can be hindered by a wide range of factors, from financial to attitudinal, from personal to social, from agronomic to regulatory. Conclusions that can be generalised across different contexts could help in moving the institutional and policy environment in a direction that strengthens the move towards a more sustainable food production. This is particularly important regarding hotspots of environmental pollution, for example, the release of reactive nitrogen compounds in South Asia. This paper followed the PRISMA protocol and systematically reviewed the adoption literature in South Asia to identify factors that affect farmers' decisions to adopt sustainable agricultural technologies and practices. We found that education, extension and training, soil quality, irrigation, income and credit are significant drivers of farmers' adoption decisions. Consequently, efforts to promote the adoption of sustainable nitrogen management technologies will have to be tailored to consider these factors. We conclude that the variables that explain adoption in the studies reviewed could provide a foundation invaluable to research and policies that facilitate the adoption of sustainable nitrogen management technologies and practices in South Asia.
Despite the fact that sustainable agricultural technologies and practices have been developed and introduced to farmers in both developed and developing countries, there are concerns about low levels of adoption. Empirical evidence of the past 40 years shows that adoption of new practices can be hindered by a wide range of factors, from financial to attitudinal, from personal to social, from agronomic to regulatory. Conclusions that can be generalised across different contexts could help in moving the institutional and policy environment in a direction that strengthens the move towards a more sustainable food production.
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