Valuing Alternative Wetland Management Strategies using Choice Modelling

Decisions regarding the use of natural resources frequently involve multiple options. Assessing each of the available options can be a time consuming and costly process where non-market environmental values relating to the options are to be estimated. Choice Modelling (CM) offers the potential to provide non-market value estimates for an array of alternative natural resource management options from a single data collection exercise. This cost-saving feature arises because CM enables the estimation of values for outcomes as a function of the attributes that characterise the outcomes as well as the socio-demographic features of those whose values are being estimated. The capacity of the technique is demonstrated in this paper through case study applications involving wetland management in the Upper South East of South Australia and the Murrumbidgee Floodplain in NSW.