Developing a Stated Preference Study of
Water Quality Improvements in the
Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Chris Moore
National Center for Environmental Economics
November 1, 2011
National Center for
Environmental Economics
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Measurement Objectives
• Estimate a comprehensive
measure of changes in
social welfare from
meeting TMDL in the Bay
• Complement revealed
preference data
• Joint estimation with RP
data
National Center for
Environmental Economics
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Added Value of SP Study
• Nonuse value
– Unique and iconic resource
– Johnston (2003) meta-analysis: as a proportion of use value,
the nonuse value for estuaries (especially in the eastern US) is
larger than any other type of water body
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Lack of data on non-fishing recreation
Lack of any recreation data elsewhere in watershed
Non-recreation benefits
TMDL may achieve WQ not observable in RP data
National Center for
Environmental Economics
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(Very) Preliminary Plans for SP study
Sample frame
Stratified national sample
Mixed mode
Mail and web
Response format
Recreation site choice experiment
+ one referendum CV question
Payment vehicle
Distance traveled for choice experiment
+ tax increase for CV question
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Environmental Economics
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Challenges in Study Design (1)
• Large number of endpoints (i.e. attributes)
– Recreation, aesthetics, ecosystem health,
terrestrial benefits, human health(?)…
– In addition to the Bay, water quality in rivers,
streams, lakes, and ponds will be affected
• Combining with revealed preference data
creates potential for double counting
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Environmental Economics
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Challenges in Study Design (2)
• Relatively long time horizon for ecological
changes: 2025 or later
– Valuing interim levels of ecosystem services
– Does this create a credibility problem?
• Policy application limits attributes to those we
can forecast
• Survey will be administered after release of
WIPs and possibly some RP results
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Environmental Economics
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Parting Questions
• What WQ improvements can we expect in lakes and
rivers? Will those benefits be important?
• How to balance large number of endpoints with
cognitive burden and fatigue?
• What is the best way to value the time-path of WQ
improvements?
• Is recreation choice experiment + one CV question
sufficient to capture total economic value?
• What is the best use of SP and RP data?
National Center for
Environmental Economics
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