Traditional beliefs and willingness to pay for improving a mining-polluted river in Ghana.

Pollution of water resources is a widespread challenge across the globe which requires effective policy measures. However, in many instances, state institutions are weak in addressing these problems. One then wonders what alternative management regimes can be used in place of public policies. This study examined the willingness to pay (WTP) for the improvement of the Ankobra River, a mining-polluted river in the Western Region of Ghana, using the contingent valuation method. Primary data was collected from 611 respondents from 8 communities in the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipality and were analysed using probit and interval regression models. The findings suggest that respondents were concerned about the current polluted state of the Ankobra River and traditional beliefs regarding the spiritual value of the river were still very relevant to them. Consequently, respondents with the belief that the river is an abode of gods as well as natives who believe that Ankobra River is a god were more likely to pay for the improvement of its water quality. Surprisingly, respondents who believed that the river is a god had a lower WTP. Income, natives, existence value, secondary and tertiary education also had positive significant association with WTP, older respondents were less likely to pay while respondents with bigger household sizes, and the divorced had lower WTP. The estimated mean WTP for water quality improvement of the Ankobra River is GHC 51.52 ($6.62) per annum. Local community involvement in policy decision-making regarding water resources is key.

Gender differences in spending on information and communication technology and transport fuel intensity: Evidence from Ghana.

This study estimated the effects of spending on information and communication technology (ICT) on transport fuel intensity and examined how the effects of gender on transport fuel intensity depend on spending on ICT in expanding economies. It applied restricted dependent binary logistic regression to the Ghana Living Standards Survey of 14,009 households disaggregated into 4366 women's and 9643 men's households, respectively. The main findings were that ICT expenditures complement fuel intensity in transportation and that spending on ICT has a greater impact on the fuel intensity of transportation in urban households headed by women than in those headed by men. Additionally, the study revealed that households headed by men or women consume less fuel as their income increases, age has an effect on the fuel intensity of the male and full households but not the female households, and the fuel efficiency of female-headed households improved as family size increased. Finally, only female-headed households exhibit a significant correlation between transportation fuel intensity and job status. The original value of this paper is to show that reducing spending on ICT is much more desirable for reducing the intensity of transport fuel in a gender context in expanding urban economies.

Costs and benefits of automated high-frequency environmental monitoring - The case of lake water management.

Freshwater lakes are dynamic ecosystems and provide multiple ecosystem services to humans. Sudden changes in lake environmental conditions such as cyanobacterial blooms can negatively impact lake usage. Automated high-frequency monitoring (AHFM) systems allow the detection of short-lived extreme and unpredictable events and enable lake managers to take mitigation actions earlier than if basing decisions on conventional monitoring programmes. In this study a cost-benefit approach was used to compare the costs of implementing and running an AHFM system with its potential benefits for three case study lakes. It was shown that AHFM can help avoid human health impacts, lost recreation opportunities, and revenue losses for livestock, aquaculture and agriculture as well as reputational damages for drinking water treatment. Our results showed that the largest benefits of AHFM can be expected in prevention of human health impacts and reputational damages. The potential benefits of AHFM, however, do not always outweigh installation and operation costs. While for Lake Kinneret (Israel) over a 10-year period, the depreciated total benefits are higher than the depreciated total costs, this is not the case for Lough Gara (Ireland). For Lake Mälaren in Sweden it would depend on the configuration of the AHFM system, as well as on how the benefits are calculated. In general, the higher the frequency and severity of changes in lake environmental conditions associated with detrimental consequences for humans and the higher the number of lake users, the more likely it is that the application of an AHFM system is financially viable.