Figure - available from: Environment Development and Sustainability
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Source publication
Understanding the soil’s economic value is essential in promoting stakeholder participation for its sustainable use and efficient management. However, its less tangible ecological functions have not been measured by conventional market-based valuation approaches. From the decision-making perspective, indirect-use value provides a robust apparatus f...
Citations
... A DCE is a sequence of multinomial choice questions that respondent is asked to make a discrete choice between two or more discrete alternatives in a choice set. Evidence shows that this method obtains a better understanding of the choices made by the respondents (Dimal & Jetten, 2020;Häfner et al., 2018). In addition, it does not have the concerns related to response bias in open-ended questions and the incremental numerical rating scale (Van Dongen & Timmermans, 2019). ...
... In the DCE, individuals choose an alternative from various alternatives, and Perceived Visual Complexity Preference Fig. 1 Theoretical model choosing one alternative over other alternatives. Results indicate that the chosen alternative has the highest utility (Dimal & Jetten, 2020;Häfner et al., 2018;Kuper, 2017). In this study, utility refers to the scene inside the image, not the image itself, and participants are asked to choose the environment inside the image. ...
Complexity has been known as a crucial psychological factor influencing the evaluation of the building facades preferences. However, little is known about the role of physical attributes of preferred building facades on perceived visual complexity. The objective of this study is to assess perceived visual complexity of urban building facades in terms of physical attribute in different levels. Discrete choice experiments were used to study the perceived visual complexity of preferred building facades. A sample of 213 students from Golestan University evaluated preference and perceived visual complexity of 36 pairs of images based on ten physical attributes of building facades in different levels (material (brick, stone), the contrast of materials (absent, present), color (absent, present), ornament (high, low), curve (straight, curved), vegetation (plants, no plants), windows orientations (vertical, horizontal), fenestration (large, small), articulation (side recesses, flat) and architectural style (modern, classic, traditional). The results revealed that all physical attributes of preferred building facades were found significant on perceived visual complexity expect for three attributes: architectural style, color and window to wall size. Thus, participant preferred a high-ornament facade with curved lines, vegetation, classical style, articulation, contrast between materials, as well as vertical windows. The articulation and ornament attributes were the most significant on perceived visual complexity. The results of this study can help city planners, architects, and designers to design facades with more general preferences and reduce the visual pollution of the cities.
... The majority of existing stated preference valuation studies of soils had a rather narrow focus with respect to soil-based ecosystem services (Bartkowski et al., 2020), particularly on climate regulation (Glenk and Colombo, 2011;Rodríguez-Entrena et al., 2012) and erosion control (Almansa et al., 2012;Colombo et al., 2006Colombo et al., , 2005. Recent exceptions are Dimal and Jetten (2020), who included three soil-based ecosystem services (water storage capacity, erosion and sediment yield control, carbon sequestration capacity) in their discrete choice experiment, and Eusse-Villa et al. (2021) and Franceschinis et al. (2022), who incorporated four soil-based ecosystem services (carbon sequestration, earthworm density, rainfall water infiltration, nitrogen in groundwater) in theirs. ...
Soils provide multiple benefits for human well-being, which are largely invisible to most beneficiaries. Here, we present the results of a discrete choice experiment into the preferences of Germans for soil-based ecosystem services. To tackle complexity and unfamiliarity of soils, we express soil-based ecosystem service attributes relative to the site-specific potential of soils to provide them. We investigate how knowledge about soils, awareness of their contributions to human well-being and experience with droughts and floods affect the preferences. We find substantial yet heterogeneous preferences for soil-based ecosystem services. Only some measures of familiarity exhibit significant effects on preferences.
... river condition and trigger their attention to this attribute. This finding echoes the empirical evidence found in a DCE study in Philippine that firsthand experience of soil erosion could significantly influence residents' perception regarding the importance of soil ecosystem services (Dimal and Jetten, 2020). It is interesting to find that none of socioeconomic variables are associated with the attendance levels stated by Brussels respondents, while in Guangzhou elder respondents are likely to pay more attention to recreational facilities and better educated respondents tend to attend more to water quality. ...
Attribute non-attendance (ANA) in discrete choice experiment (DCE) exercises has attracted increasing, yet limited, scholarly attention. This paper attempts to investigate ANA in a comparative case study, with a focus on its patterns and their association with socioeconomic, behavioral and perceptual factors, as well as its impacts on willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates. We deploy a four-level polytomous scale (always, often, seldom, and never considered) for respondents to state their various degrees of attribute attendance (SANA) in an identical DCE questionnaire about urban river restoration initiatives in two global cities with contrast socioeconomic contexts, yet similar request for restoring polluted and modified urban rivers, Guangzhou (south China) and Brussels (Belgium). The survey results reveal the existence of large proportions of partial attendance in two sampled cities. We use an extended mixed logit model, which incorporates separate parameters delineating each attribute's different attendance groups, to estimate respondents' average WTP values. We find that accounting for SANA could improve the goodness-of-fit of the model and affect the magnitude of mean WTP estimates. Respondents' attribute attendance level pertaining to various attributes is mainly associated with their perceived importance of urban rivers' ecosystem services, but may not be necessarily correlated with the strength of their preference for corresponding attributes as indicated by the mean WTP estimates. Whether this discontinuity between respondents' stated ANA levels and WTP estimates within Guangzhou sample questions the ability of DCEs to generate unbiased welfare estimation and policy guidance in developing countries calls for further studies.
... Villanueva et al. (2017aVillanueva et al. ( , 2017b explain the heterogeneity of farmers' preferences in agrienvironmental practices by (i) ecosystem services produced on the farm and how they are produced in conjunction with the farm's usual products; (ii) socio-economic factors of the farm and farmer; and (iii) extrinsic factors related to the agricultural market, public policies, and social norms in this field. Dimal and Jetten (2018) found that the heterogeneity of farmers' preferences was influenced by spatial dimensions such as environmental risks and proximity to amenities, and respondents' socio-demographic characteristics such as their level of education, income level and environmental awareness. Respondents can be expected to be very familiar with the attributes of the contract offered, which is not always the case and therefore generates a bias in studies on revealed preferences (Schläpfer and Fischhoff, 2012). ...
This study presents a meta-analysis of contract attributes for the adoption of agrienvironmental practices. We use a data set of 290 observations drawn from 79 studies reported in empirical studies using the Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) method. The present meta-analysis explores the impact of methodological choices related to the timing of the DCE (design stage, implementation stage, and analysis stage) on farmers' contract preferences regarding the adoption of agrienvironmental practices. We first highlight the possibility of simplifying the contract attributes to propose two representative clauses: commitments and incentives. Several biases were found related to designing, implementing, and analyzing a DCE. We show that these results are relevant for two specific clauses (Duration and Quality). Finally, our contribution provides guidance for mitigating potential biases that can affect the results when DCE is implemented.
... Reviewed literature Ensure productivity (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Zeiss, 2000;Glanz, 1995;Granatstein and Bezdicek, 1992;Gruver and Weil, 2007;Karlen, 2005;Lal, 2016;Lima et al., 2011;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Stavi et al., 2016;Valujeva et al., 2016) Generation and support of microorganisms useful for agricultural cultures (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Briones, 2014;Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Safley, 1997;Glanz, 1995;Karlen et al., 1997;Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Support for biodiversity (gene pool) (Blum, 2005;McBratney et al., 2014;Robinson et al., 2009;Vogel et al., 2019) Climate-regulative (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Lal, 2016;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Techen and Helming, 2017;Valujeva et al., 2016;Vogel et al., 2019) Water quantity regulation (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Gruver and Weil, 2007;Rabot et al., 2018;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Stavi et al., 2016) Buffer for pollution control (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Liu et al., 2006;Robinson et al., 2009;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Techen and Helming, 2017) Water quality maintenance and enhancement (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Safley, 1997;Karlen et al., 1997;Valujeva et al., 2016) Storage (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Warkentin, 1995) Living space (Haslmayr et al., 2016;Karlen et al., 1997) Geogenic and cultural heritage (Blum, 2005;Duru et al., 2015;FAO, 2015b;Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Connective space function for community members (Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Support of plant, animal and human health (Doran and Safley, 1997;Doran and Zeiss, 2000;Karlen et al., 1997;Oliver and Gregory, 2015;Wall et al., 2015) manuscripts and documents were retrieved and they were selected based on several criteria: English language and peer-reviewed journals, journals with an IF higher than 0.1 or present in Scopus, books, reports, and normative acts. Searches were conducted in electronic databases (e.g., Cambridge Journals, Emerald Management Journals 200, Scien-ceDirect Freedom Collection-Elsevier, Scopus-Elsevier, SpringerLink Journals, Springer, Web of Science-Core Collection, Wiley Journals) downloaded from Anelis plus platform (Enformation portal). ...
... Reviewed literature Ensure productivity (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Zeiss, 2000;Glanz, 1995;Granatstein and Bezdicek, 1992;Gruver and Weil, 2007;Karlen, 2005;Lal, 2016;Lima et al., 2011;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Stavi et al., 2016;Valujeva et al., 2016) Generation and support of microorganisms useful for agricultural cultures (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Briones, 2014;Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Safley, 1997;Glanz, 1995;Karlen et al., 1997;Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Support for biodiversity (gene pool) (Blum, 2005;McBratney et al., 2014;Robinson et al., 2009;Vogel et al., 2019) Climate-regulative (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Lal, 2016;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Techen and Helming, 2017;Valujeva et al., 2016;Vogel et al., 2019) Water quantity regulation (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Gruver and Weil, 2007;Rabot et al., 2018;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Stavi et al., 2016) Buffer for pollution control (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Liu et al., 2006;Robinson et al., 2009;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Techen and Helming, 2017) Water quality maintenance and enhancement (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Safley, 1997;Karlen et al., 1997;Valujeva et al., 2016) Storage (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Warkentin, 1995) Living space (Haslmayr et al., 2016;Karlen et al., 1997) Geogenic and cultural heritage (Blum, 2005;Duru et al., 2015;FAO, 2015b;Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Connective space function for community members (Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Support of plant, animal and human health (Doran and Safley, 1997;Doran and Zeiss, 2000;Karlen et al., 1997;Oliver and Gregory, 2015;Wall et al., 2015) manuscripts and documents were retrieved and they were selected based on several criteria: English language and peer-reviewed journals, journals with an IF higher than 0.1 or present in Scopus, books, reports, and normative acts. Searches were conducted in electronic databases (e.g., Cambridge Journals, Emerald Management Journals 200, Scien-ceDirect Freedom Collection-Elsevier, Scopus-Elsevier, SpringerLink Journals, Springer, Web of Science-Core Collection, Wiley Journals) downloaded from Anelis plus platform (Enformation portal). ...
... Reviewed literature Ensure productivity (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Zeiss, 2000;Glanz, 1995;Granatstein and Bezdicek, 1992;Gruver and Weil, 2007;Karlen, 2005;Lal, 2016;Lima et al., 2011;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Stavi et al., 2016;Valujeva et al., 2016) Generation and support of microorganisms useful for agricultural cultures (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Briones, 2014;Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Safley, 1997;Glanz, 1995;Karlen et al., 1997;Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Support for biodiversity (gene pool) (Blum, 2005;McBratney et al., 2014;Robinson et al., 2009;Vogel et al., 2019) Climate-regulative (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Lal, 2016;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Techen and Helming, 2017;Valujeva et al., 2016;Vogel et al., 2019) Water quantity regulation (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Gruver and Weil, 2007;Rabot et al., 2018;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Stavi et al., 2016) Buffer for pollution control (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Liu et al., 2006;Robinson et al., 2009;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Techen and Helming, 2017) Water quality maintenance and enhancement (Acton and Gregorich, 1995;Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Doran and Safley, 1997;Karlen et al., 1997;Valujeva et al., 2016) Storage (Dimal and Jetten, 2018;Sombroek and Sims, 1995;Warkentin, 1995) Living space (Haslmayr et al., 2016;Karlen et al., 1997) Geogenic and cultural heritage (Blum, 2005;Duru et al., 2015;FAO, 2015b;Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Connective space function for community members (Sombroek and Sims, 1995) Support of plant, animal and human health (Doran and Safley, 1997;Doran and Zeiss, 2000;Karlen et al., 1997;Oliver and Gregory, 2015;Wall et al., 2015) manuscripts and documents were retrieved and they were selected based on several criteria: English language and peer-reviewed journals, journals with an IF higher than 0.1 or present in Scopus, books, reports, and normative acts. Searches were conducted in electronic databases (e.g., Cambridge Journals, Emerald Management Journals 200, Scien-ceDirect Freedom Collection-Elsevier, Scopus-Elsevier, SpringerLink Journals, Springer, Web of Science-Core Collection, Wiley Journals) downloaded from Anelis plus platform (Enformation portal). ...
Agriculture is a key player in the conservation of natural resources and cultural landscapes and one of the most prominent interfaces between human activity and soil. The present paper reveals a social perspective on soil functions. In this context, it was assumed that perceptions of soil functions could transform themselves into components of agro-ecosystems and influence the whole decision-making process. Therefore, it is indispensable to look at farmers when approaching soil functions. The objective of this study was twofold. Firstly, Romanian farmers’ perception of the importance of soil functions was investigated. Secondly, it was revealed how well farmers’ perception of soil functions importance and socio-economic variables could predict the “Use of compost”. Soil functions were selected based on an extensive literature review. Farmers’ perceptions of soil functions and the use of compost as a measure taken to improve soil productivity were studied through a questionnaire applied to a sample of 278 Romanian farmers randomly selected from sixteen villages. Binary logistic regression revealed that the perceived importance of two soil functions could predict the use of compost – “Water quantity regulation” and “Water quality maintenance and enhancement”. The study concluded that strengthening the importance of the “Water quantity regulation” function in farmers’ minds can stimulate the use of compost. It was also inferred that because younger farmers are more prone to composting, they will be more receptive to marketing actions related to compost use, such as the acquisitions of materials and instruments useful for compost production and use. In a context where a real dialogue to elaborate well-grounded environmental policies is still elusive because of differences between farmers and policy-makers’ views, investigation of farmers’ perceptions can bring a significant contribution towards a bottom-up approach for sustainable soil management.
... However, many stated preference studies fail to assimilate spatial components despite their explicit role in value aggregation (Schaafsma, Brouwer, & Rose, 2012). In recent years, numerous valuation studies have shown the benefits of incorporating spatial data and physical models in econometric studies, demonstrating the contributions of spatial features and environmental risk attributes in the formation of stakeholder cognition (Dimal & Jetten, 2018). Yao et al. (2014) found socio-demographics and spatial attributes to have significantly affect the WTP for biodiversity enhancement. ...
The integration of soil value in agronomic micro‐level decision‐making and macro‐scale policy development has grown immensely in recent years. Major threats to soil resources and their impact on human well‐being require a comprehensive estimation of soil’s economic worth, highlighting the need for sustainable and pragmatic conservation strategies. However, the absence of formal markets for numerous soil amenities, coupled with the heterogeneity of stakeholder cognition and spatio‐environmental factors, obfuscates the valuation process for soil and similar public goods. This paper aims to address such concerns by evaluating stakeholders’ willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for soil conservation as a proxy indicator for its explicit value. Two contingent valuation method (CVM) formats, the payment card (PC) and the dichotomous choice (DC), were used to analyze WTP in Norzagaray, Philippines. Results suggest farmers’ income, education, land tenure type, level of environmental consciousness, and proximity to amenities influence their inclination to spend on soil conservation measures. Econometric analyzes indicate a compensating surplus corresponding to the mean WTP estimate of ₱79.98 (PC‐CVM) and a Turnbull WTP estimate of ₱99.47 (DC‐CVM). Estimated WTP values can be used in future benefit‐transfer studies, and the findings of the econometric models can be used in developing strategies that would promote greater stakeholder acceptance and participation. The approach presented here provides another step towards a more comprehensive characterization of soil value that integrates environmental valuation and econometric modeling with geospatial data.
Effectively assessing public preferences for air quality improvement policies is extremely important to environmental policy formulation, but developing policies that cater to public tastes is a great challenge. Although the random parameters logit (RPL) model in the choice experiment is widely used in relevant studies, it remains limited in revealing additional preference heterogeneity. Given this, the study applies two extended models in exploring public preference heterogeneity for air quality policies. An RPL model with heterogeneity in means and variances (RPL-HMV) and an RPL model with correlated random parameters (RPL-CRP) are used to provide more beneficial insights for policy analysis. The study shows that better-educated groups are more willing to pay for increasing urban green coverage, and income increases the randomness of such preferences’ distribution among groups. From the perspective of preferences, reducing heavy pollution days is positively associated with decreasing morbidity of respiratory diseases caused by outdoor air pollution and negatively correlated with improving urban green coverage. In addition, compared to the RPL-CRP model, the willingness to pay in the RPL model is overestimated by 14.72%. The study further clarifies public preferences for air quality policies, and the extra information revealed by extended models provides more valuable references for policy-making.
Soils provides multiple benefits for human well-being, which are largely invisible to most beneficiaries. Here, we present the results of a discrete choice experiment into the preferences of Germans for soil-based ecosystem services. In an attempt to reduce complexity for respondents, we express soil-based ecosystem service attributes relative to the site-specific potential of soils to provide them. We investigate how knowledge about soils, awareness of their contributions to human well-being and experience with droughts and floods affect the preferences. We find substantial yet heterogeneous preferences for soil-based ecosystem services. Only some measures of familiarity exhibit significant effects on preferences.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the first economic valuation of four environmental attributes of the Yanachaga–Chemillén National Park (PNYCH – Parque Nacional Yanachaga-Chemillén) in Peru.
Design/methodology/approach
This study included households in three cities adjacent to the PNYCH and assessed the willingness to pay (WTP) for preservation efforts of these natural services to avoid the predicted loss in forest area by 2030 (currently 143,425 hectares per year).
Findings
The results showed that the average WTP was US$0.695 (2.3197 soles) per household annually. Added to all households in Peru (9 million), this is equivalent to approximately 6.255 million dollars annually.
Practical implications
The economic valuation of these attributes is complementary to the contingent valuation and can have a significant impact, as this data influences decision-making and public policies focused on conserving forests and biodiversity.
Social implications
Upon using the choice experiment (CE) model, the attributes that have the most significant impact on inhabitants’ well-being were economic benefits. The flora and fauna coverage attributes were beneficial for the inhabitants of the place because they valued the proposed recovery and conservation program in a positive and differential way.
Originality/value
From the collection of valuable economic data, the novelty lies in using the CE method, which has not yet been applied in valuations of natural ecosystem services in Peru.
