Avalanche protection by forests — A choice experiment in the Swiss Alps

Roland Olschewski, Peter Bebi, Michaela Teich, Ulrike Wissen Hayek and Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

Forest Policy and Economics, 2012, vol. 17, issue C, 19-24

Abstract: Forests provide a variety of ecosystem goods and services to society, which often have the typical characteristics of a public good: non-excludability and non-rivalry. One of these services is avalanche protection of forests. A monetary valuation of this service would be helpful to provide efficient and effective protection to the local population. We present the results of a case study from the Swiss Alps, where we determined the willingness to pay for avalanche protection based on a choice experiment combined with virtual reality visualizations. Furthermore, we compare these results with the costs of alternative technical measures for natural hazard mitigation as well as with the results of a risk-based evaluation. We conclude that the willingness to pay for avalanche protection of forests is about the same range as the collective risk related to a 300-years avalanche event and within a range similar to the per-household costs of alternative measures. However, willingness to pay is substantially higher than the costs of silvicultural measures to maintain protection forest.

Keywords: Cost–benefit analysis; Environmental services; Public goods; Natural hazards; Risk; Visualization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:17:y:2012:i:c:p:19-24

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2012.02.016

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