Valuing Drinking Water Provision as an Ecosystem Service in the Neuse River Basin
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 136, Issue 4
Abstract
The valuation of ecosystem services such as drinking water provision is of growing national and international interest. The cost of drinking water provision is directly linked to the quality of its raw water input, which is itself affected by upstream land use patterns. This analysis employs the benefit transfer method to quantify the economic benefits of water quality improvements for drinking water production in the Neuse River Basin in North Carolina. Two benefit transfer approaches, value transfer and function transfer, are implemented by combining the results of four previously published studies with data collected from eight Neuse Basin water treatment plants. The mean net present value of the cost reduction estimates for the entire Neuse Basin ranged from $2.7 million to $16.6 million for a 30% improvement in water quality over a 30-year period. The value-transfer approach tended to produce larger expected benefits than the function-transfer approach, but both approaches produced similar results despite the differences in their methodologies, time frames, study sites, and assumptions.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 136 • Issue 4 • July 2010
Pages: 474 - 482
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 3, 2008
Accepted: Nov 4, 2009
Published online: Nov 6, 2009
Published in print: Jul 2010
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