Journal
OCEAN & COASTAL MANAGEMENT
Volume 103, Issue -, Pages 1-8Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.10.016
Keywords
Willingness to pay; Open oceans; Ecosystem services; Marine management; Conjoint analysis; Conditional logit model
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan [24121009, 24121010]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [24121010, 24121009] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Today, greater attention has never been dedicated to the challenges of a changing climate and efforts to explore and utilize the open ocean. A range of different valuation data are needed in order to accurately assess the tradeoffs of different management regimes. Nevertheless, many aspects of the open ocean remain unstudied, and few case studies have been conducted on the valuation of the open ocean. This study explores the monetary value of open ocean ecosystem service (OPES) using conjoint analysis. A choice experiment with 814 Japanese respondents was conducted to elicit the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) of respondents for three main OPES: fish production, carbon dioxide absorption, and water purification. The case study in Japan found a 1% marginal WTP for fish production, carbon dioxide absorption, and water purification of open oceans with respective average per capita values of USD .06, .19 and .16 per year. We also found variation across different prefecture in WTP trends for the three OPES, implying the influence of traditional food culture, mass media and natural hazards. Differences in WTP trends were also found to depend on income level and gender. The case study included respondents across five income levels. Positive correlations can be observed between marginal WTP and income levels for each of the three OPES. In addition, female respondents were found to have a higher WTP than male respondents for improving each of the three OPES. Therefore, when formulating ecosystem-based management policies related to the open oceans, it is necessary to consider differences in WTP based on region, income, gender and other relative specific factors. This will aide in consensus-building and maximizing cost-benefit outcomes. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available