RESUMO
We use data from a survey of 2439 farmers in 5 countries around the Baltic Sea (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland and Sweden) to investigate their preferences for adopting agricultural practices aimed at reducing nutrient leaching and greenhouse gas emissions. The measures considered are set-aside, catch crops and reduced fertilization. Contracts vary with respect to the area enrolled, contract length, possibility of premature termination, availability of professional advice and compensation. We quantitatively describe farmers' preferences in terms of their willingness-to-accept compensation for specific attributes of these contracts, if implemented. The results vary substantially between farm types (farmers' characteristics) and between the 5 countries, and support differentiation of contract obligations and payments to improve the uptake of Agri-Environmental Schemes. The results can be readily used to improve the design of country-specific nutrient reduction policies, in accordance with the next Common Agricultural Policy.
Assuntos
Fazendeiros , Nutrientes , Agricultura , Países Bálticos , Clima , Dinamarca , Estônia , Finlândia , Humanos , Polônia , SuéciaRESUMO
Many marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure from multiple stressors. In the Baltic Sea, these stressors include oil and chemical spills from shipping, nutrient run-off from land and the introduction of non-indigenous species. All of these pressures have been growing over recent years. Increasing pressures lead to reductions in environmental quality, which produce negative effects on human well-being. In this paper, the choice experiment method is used to estimate the benefits to people in Estonia resulting from reductions in pressure from multiple stressors in the Baltic Sea. The main results show that, firstly, respondents have a positive, statistically-significant willingness to pay to reduce each of the three stressors analysed. Secondly, the average willingness to pay for the improvement in the quality of all Estonian marine waters to achieve Good Environmental Status is around 65 euro per household per year, with a 95% confidence interval of 48-77 euro. Thirdly, the greatest share of value of this total economic benefit is derived from the willingness to pay for reductions in the risk of large scale oil and chemical spills.
Assuntos
Conservação dos Recursos Naturais/economia , Monitoramento Ambiental/métodos , Poluição Química da Água/estatística & dados numéricos , Países Bálticos , Ecossistema , Estônia , Eutrofização , Navios , Poluentes Químicos da Água/análiseRESUMO
The Baltic Sea provides benefits to all of the nine nations along its coastline, with some 85 million people living within the catchment area. Achieving improvements in water quality requires international cooperation. The likelihood of effective cooperation is known to depend on the distribution across countries of the benefits and costs of actions needed to improve water quality. In this paper, we estimate the benefits associated with recreational use of the Baltic Sea in current environmental conditions using a travel cost approach, based on data from a large, standardized survey of households in each of the 9 Baltic Sea states. Both the probability of engaging in recreation (participation) and the number of visits people make are modeled. A large variation in the number of trips and the extent of participation is found, along with large differences in current annual economic benefits from Baltic Sea recreation. The total annual recreation benefits are close to 15 billion EUR. Under a water quality improvement scenario, the proportional increases in benefits range from 7 to 18% of the current annual benefits across countries. Depending on how the costs of actions are distributed, this could imply difficulties in achieving more international cooperation to achieve such improvements.