Valuing Protected Area Tourism Ecosystem Services Using Big Data.

Economic value from protected areas informs decisions for biodiversity conservation and visitor benefits. Calculating these benefits assists governments to allocate limited budget resources. This study estimated tourism ecosystem service expenditure values for a regional protected area network in South Australia (57 parks) using direct transactional data, travel costs and economic multipliers. The big dataset came from a comprehensive booking system, which helped overcome common limitations associated with survey data (e.g., key areas rather than full network and high zero-value observations). Protected areas returned AU$373.8 million in the 2018-19 base year to the South Australian economy. The results indicate that combined estimation methods coupled to big data sets provide information on baseline expenditure to engage with critical conservation and tourism sites (e.g., Kangaroo Island). In this case they offer a unique full area network expenditure estimate which is an improvement on typical survey approaches, highlighting the advantage of protected area managers investing in big data. Finally, as South Australian protected areas exceed that in many other contexts the study offers important inputs to funding narratives and protected area expansion in line with global assessment targets.

Perceptions and responses to rising salinity intrusion in the Mekong River Delta: What drives a long-term community-based strategy?

This study analyses data on perceptions of the adverse impacts of salinity intrusion on rice farming in the Mekong River Delta. Collected via interviews with the head of 441households and several focus group meetings, the data is used to provide an understanding of current adaptation or coping strategies and, from the insights gained, make recommendations for the management of this increasing challenge. We find that most households are concerned about the impact of salinity intrusion on their livelihood and their capacity to cope in the future. Some strategies are already failing and many farmers will struggle to adapt in the medium-term. Censored generalised Poisson regression and negative binomial regression models are used to identify and test the effectiveness of alternative management strategies. The results suggest that farmers have a preference for the construction of dykes as a means to prevent salinity intrusion. We conclude that farmer willingness to support the construction and improvement of dykes can be improved by providing more information and training.

Inferred valuation versus conventional contingent valuation: A salinity intrusion case study.

People's willingness-to-pay values may be inflated by a variety of influences (e.g. hypothetical bias), which means that stated preference validity tests remain relevant. Recently developed inferred valuation approaches may serve to identify and/or reduce inflated stated preference values. However, economic applications of inferred valuation approaches are relatively limited in the literature, and the evidence remains mixed. This paper examines farmers' willingness-to-pay for salinity intrusion mitigation programs in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam using both conventional contingent and inferred valuation approaches. Inferred valuation estimates were as much as 31 per cent lower than conventional estimates of willingness-to-pay, and averaged about 24 per cent lower across the groups. We discuss these findings, and the role that commitment costs and provision point mechanism payment vehicles may play. Public policy implications for any future salinity intrusion mitigation program are also outlined.