Supply, demand and the economic effectiveness of urine-diverting technologies and products: A systematic literature review.

The broader adoption of urine-diverting technologies (UDTs) and related products has been proposed as a strategy for moving towards a more circular economy. While some studies have explored the performance of UDTs, the interconnected factors involving supply, demand, and economic feasibility of UDTs remain under-researched. Our systematic review addresses this gap. Our search identified only 64 relevant, peer-reviewed studies, 71 % of which addressed the supply side (primarily the technical aspect of UDTs) and 58 % of which addressed the demand side (focusing on consumers' perceptions). Approximately one-third (18) of these studies delved into the economic feasibility of UDTs, with only 9 employing a cost benefit analysis (CBA) framework. However, none of these studies have analysed the economic performance of UDTs that have been fully deployed, indicating a significant knowledge gap. Our review suggests that overcoming challenges in scaling up UDTs can be achieved by engaging those stakeholders driving the uptake, developing business cases that offer an overall understanding of both market and non-market benefits of UDTs, addressing technological constraints by optimising urine treatment options for efficiency and economic viability, and enhancing stakeholders' acceptance of UDTs.

Valuing the improvement of a decommissioned heritage site to a multifunctional water sensitive greenspace.

In this paper, we assess residents' preferences for different options of large-scale water sensitive urban improvement of a heritage site in Melbourne, the Main Outfall Sewer (MOS) reserve. We use a hedonic pricing analysis and a discrete choice experiment to understand the benefits associated with improving the MOS reserve. We find that there are significant non-market benefits associated with various options, both in terms of the potential to reflect increases in house value and in terms of people's willingness to pay for improvements in amenity and environmental quality. This information will contribute to determining investment options for this important heritage site. Importantly, we demonstrate the combination of the hedonic and stated choice willingness to pay estimates to provide an aggregate estimate of welfare, revealing a useful approach for greenspace valuation applications where multiple non-market values should be considered.

Making waves: Creating water sensitive cities in Australia.

Creating water sensitive cities is a stated goal of Australia's National Water Initiative; however, most Australian cities have made only limited progress toward this goal. This paper summarises an in-depth collaborative research project that sought to understand what is holding back investment in water sensitive cities and identify a road map to address the constraints. The project involved research academics, industry participants, and economic regulation agencies from all major Australian jurisdictions. The reforms identified that will move Australia towards a nation of water sensitive cities are: (i) strengthening government policy support for water sensitive urban design to ensure it has equal standing with other policy objectives; (ii) increased government investment for outcomes valued by the community (funded through general taxation or broad-based charges), accompanied by charges for those services used and valued by water utility customers; (iii) improvements to system-level accountability to ensure objectives are met; (iv) changes to the regulatory incentives faced by water utilities to ensure the services valued by customers and community are delivered; (v) removal of barriers to private sector participation in service delivery; and (vi) improved information systems and analytical capabilities to ensure appropriate water sensitive solutions are identified and delivered efficiently.

Non-market value of Singapore's ABC Waters Program.

Water sensitive urban design is being promoted in many countries. In Singapore, the Active, Beautiful, Clean (ABC) Waters Programme is a long-term strategic initiative of PUB, Singapore's National Water Agency, to improve the quality of water and urban liveability. While there are some estimates of the bio-physical and ecological benefits of the ABC Waters Programme, information on its social or non-market values is lacking. Using choice experiment datasets this study explores whether people express preferences for ABC Waters features. It also examines whether there is any difference in preferences between respondents living in developments with and without ABC Waters certification, and between respondents living in public and private housing. It is found that respondents living in private housing have substantially higher willingness to pay for ABC Waters features compared to the respondents in public housing. The differences between respondents from certified and non-certified projects were found to be mixed. Such information would be useful to tailor the design of the ABC Waters program. Finally, the potential impact of using a virtual reality tool to present information in a choice experiment towards people's preferences is explored. Application of a virtual reality tool has reduced the proportion of protest voters and increased people's willingness to pay for ABC Waters projects. Thus, this paper contributes to the growing literature on the implications of providing information visually in non-market valuation surveys.

How economics can further the success of ecological restoration.

Restoration scientists and practitioners have recently begun to include economic and social aspects in the design and investment decisions for restoration projects. With few exceptions, ecological restoration studies that include economics focus solely on evaluating costs of restoration projects. However, economic principles, tools, and instruments can be applied to a range of other factors that affect project success. We considered the relevance of applying economics to address 4 key challenges of ecological restoration: assessing social and economic benefits, estimating overall costs, project prioritization and selection, and long-term financing of restoration programs. We found it is uncommon to consider all types of benefits (such as nonmarket values) and costs (such as transaction costs) in restoration programs. Total benefit of a restoration project can be estimated using market prices and various nonmarket valuation techniques. Total cost of a project can be estimated using methods based on property or land-sale prices, such as hedonic pricing method and organizational surveys. Securing continuous (or long-term) funding is also vital to accomplishing restoration goals and can be achieved by establishing synergy with existing programs, public-private partnerships, and financing through taxation.