Open AccessWillingness to Pay for Soil Information Derived by Digital Maps: A Choice Experiment Approach
Author(s) -
Diafas Iason,
Panagos Panos,
Montanarella Luca
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
vadose zone journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.036
H-Index - 81
ISSN - 1539-1663
DOI - 10.2136/vzj2012.0198
Subject(s) - soil survey , willingness to pay , valuation (finance) , contingent valuation , soil science , digital soil mapping , soil map , environmental science , digital mapping , environmental resource management , soil water , remote sensing , geography , economics , finance , microeconomics
Soil surveys and the information they provide are commonly believed to be good investment, with significant benefits accrued to their users. To date, the empirical evidence for this comes from studies that have shown how enhanced soil information can alter agricultural practices to yield higher returns. This study attempts to estimate the economic value of soil information generated by a host of new proximal and in situ geophysical methods for the assessment of the following soil properties: carbon content, water content, clay content, bulk density, and soil depth. The study also adopts a novel approach to the economic valuation of soil information by employing for the first time a choice experiment to estimate the willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) of potential users of the digital maps and their features. The choice experiment took the form of an online survey, administered to about a thousand individuals from the wider soil community. The results reveal significant WTP for maps of high resolution and accuracy that offer map interpretation in addition to a number of soil properties.