Optimal location of new forests in a suburban region

Ellen Moons, Bert Saveyn, Stef Proost and Martin Hermy

Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven

Abstract: This paper looks at the optimal location of new forests in a suburban region under area constraints. The GIS-based methodology takes into account use benefits such as timber, hunting, carbon sequestration and recreation, non-use benefits (both bequest and existence values), opportunity costs of converting agricultural land, as well as planting and management costs of the new forest. The recreation benefits of new forest sites are estimated using function transfer techniques. We show that the net social benefit of the total afforestation project may vary up to a factor 6, depending on the forest sites that are selected. We show that the recreation value of a forest site varies considerably with the available substitutes.

Keywords: Benefit transfer; travel cost analysis; cost-benefit analysis; forest recreation; Geographical Information Systems (GIS) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q23 Q24 Q26 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-geo, nep-tur and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal location of new forests in a suburban region (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces0612

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