A Choice Experiment for the Estimation of the Economic Value of the River Ecosystem: Management Policies for Sustaining NATURA (2000) species and the Coastal Environment

The valuation method of Choice Experiments (CEs) is often used for the economic valuation of natural areas with several nonmarket features that are either degraded or under-degradation. This method can be used to obtain estimates of Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) for the sustainability of several features of natural ecosystems. In particular, the CE method is a survey-based nonmarket valuation technique which can be used to estimate the total economic value of an environmental good in the form of a stock or a service flow as well as the value of its component attributes. Particularly, the bundle of improvements that have been valued in the Asopos water catchment and presented in this chapter is a mixture of use and non-use values. These include: (a) environmental conditions described in terms of ecological status in all water bodies of the catchment, (b) impact on the local economy in terms of tourism/recreation, demand for local production and cost of living for households and (c) impact on human health described as availability of water with a quality and quantity sufficient for satisfying different local uses. It should be also noted that the survey has been administered in samples of respondents from both the Asopos catchment area (more rural) and the Athens area (more urban), since there is the belief that residents of the Asopos River Basin (RB) are not the only ones who would benefit from the environmental improvements taking place in Asopos area. From a broader policy perspective the goal is to derive estimates of values to inform a cost-effectiveness analysis for the determination of the optimal program of measures as suggested in the content of Article 11 of Water Framework Directive (WFD).