Willingness to pay for the urban river ecosystem restoration in Hangzhou and Nanjing, China
by Sheng Li; Yifei Zhang; Yaoqi Zhang; Lei Zhang; Li Wang
World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development (WRSTSD), Vol. 11, No. 1, 2014

Abstract: Continuing degradation of river ecosystems and environmental disruption are widespread in Chinese metropolitan areas. The study on the residents' preference for river ecosystem restoration is an essential part of assessing the environmental benefit and cost for policies implementation. A contingent valuation method is applied to estimate the public demand for urban river restoration in Hangzhou and Nanjing of the Yangtze River Delta, China. By employing an interval model, it was estimated the average individual's willingness to pay (WTP) for urban river restoration is about 42.4 Yuan for two cities, 52.4 Yuan in Hangzhou and 35.7 Yuan in Nanjing respectively with total sample size of 1,518. It is also found that elders and households that have child or pets are willing to pay a higher amount, while households registered in locally and residents living a longer time around the river are willing to pay less. Although the public's preferences represented differences in regions since a gap exists in natural endowments, social environment, and the relationship between people action and river (or water), the analysis indicated that some factors influencing the WTP in those two cities are similar. The results suggested that there is strong public demand for environmental improvement on urban rivers.

Online publication date: Sat, 05-Jul-2014

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development (WRSTSD):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com