Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-29T22:06:47.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are citizens' juries a useful tool for assessing environmental value?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

JACKIE ROBINSON ,
BETH CLOUSTON ,
JUNGHO SUH  and
MILANI CHALOUPKA
JACKIE ROBINSON*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia
BETH CLOUSTON
Affiliation:
Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone and Waterways Management, Meiers Road, Indooroopilly 4067, Australia
JUNGHO SUH
Affiliation:
School of Natural and Rural Systems Management, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia
MILANI CHALOUPKA
Affiliation:
Ecological Modelling Services P/L, PO Box 6510, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4067, Australia
*
*Correspondence: Dr J. Robinson Tel: +61 7 33656349 Fax: +61 7 33667290 e-mail: j.robinson@economics.uq.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Stated preference valuation surveys, such as choice modelling, are the preferred choice for environmental valuation of water quality improvements. Such willingness to pay (WTP) surveys commonly rely on face-to-face interviews or mail-out questionnaires on a relatively large representative sample of the target population. There is increasing concern that survey respondents may have insufficient information and limited opportunity to deliberate prior to stating their preferences about their WTP. Citizens' juries have been proposed as a novel way to overcome these limitations, providing information from expert witnesses and facilitating informed discussion within the jury, which is composed of members of the affected community. A choice modelling survey, using a 23-person citizens' jury, was conducted to estimate WTP for improvements in water quality in the Bremer River, one of the most polluted waterways in south-east Queensland, Australia. The choice modelling survey conducted pre- and post-exposure of the jurors to expert information about water quality in the Bremer River evaluated the usefulness of the jury process. A significant improvement in juror understanding was found in their responses to the survey. Importantly, following exposure to information from expert witnesses, jurors' educational background ceased to be important in determining their WTP. These findings suggest that citizens' juries could be valuable in overcoming the information problems associated with standard WTP surveys.

Keywords

Australiachoice modellingcitizens' jurywater qualitywillingness to pay
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 351 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldred, J. & Jacobs, M. (2000) Citizens and wetlands: evaluating the ELY citizens' jury. Ecological Economics 34: 217–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Álvarez-Farizo, B. & Hanley, N. (2006) Combining citizens' juries with choice modelling. Land Economics 82: 465–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Álvarez-Farizo, B., Hanley, N., Barberán, R. & Lázaro, A. (2007) Choice modelling at the ‘market stall’: individual versus collective interest in environmental valuation. Ecological Economics 60: 743–751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ABS (2003) Census of population and housing. Selected education and labour force characteristics. ABS catalogue Report no. 2017.0, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
Bateman, I.J., Carson, R.T., Day, B., Hanemann, M., Hanley, N., Hett, T., Jones-Lee, M., Loomes, G., Mourato, S., Ozdemiroglu, E., Pearce, D.W., Sugden, R. & Swanson, J. (2002) Economic Valuation with Stated Preference Techniques: A Manual. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blamey, R.K., James, R.F., Smith, R. & Niemeyer, S. (2000) Citizens' juries and environmental value assessment. Citizens' Juries for Environmental Management Report No. 1, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, M., Robinson, J. & Asafu-Adjaye, J. (2001) Addressing water quality problems through the integration of ecological and economic modelling. In: MODSIM 2001 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation Proceedings, ed. Ghassemi, F., Post, D.A., Sivapalan, M. & Vertessy, R., pp. 1031–1035. Canberra, Australia: Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.Google Scholar
Christie, M., Hanley, N., Warren, J., Murphy, K., Wright, R. & Hyde, T. (2006) Valuing the diversity of biodiversity. Ecological Economics 58: 304–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochran, W.G. & Cox, G.M. (1957) Experimental Designs, Second edition. New York, USA: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Davis, J. & Whittington, D. (1998) ‘Participatory’ research for development projects: a comparison of the community meeting and household survey techniques. Economic Development and Cultural Change 47: 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Department of Local Government & Planning (2001) Population Trends and Prospects. Brisbane, Australia: Office of Economic and Statistical Research (OESR), Queensland Government.Google Scholar
Fischer, A. & Hanley, N. (2007) Analysing decision behaviour in stated preference surveys: a consumer psychological approach. Ecological Economics 61: 303–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanemann, W.M. (1984) Welfare evaluations in contingent valuation experiments with discrete responses. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 66: 332–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanley, N., Wright, R.E. & Álvarez-Farizo, B. (2006) Estimating the economic value of improvements to river ecology using choice experiments: an application to the water framework directive. Journal of Environmental Management 78: 183–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howarth, R.B. & Wilson, M.A. (2006) A theoretical approach to deliberative valuation: aggregation by mutual consent. Land Economics 82: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, M. (1997) Environmental valuation, deliberative democracy and public decision making institutions. In: Valuing Nature? Economic Ethics and Environment, ed. Foster, J., pp. 211–231. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kenyon, W., Hanley, N. & Nevin, C. (2001) Citizens' juries: an aid to environmental valuation? Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 19: 557–566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazari, A.G. & Anderson, D.A. (1993) Design of discrete choice set experiments for estimating both attribute and availability cross effects. Journal of Marketing Research 31: 375–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniels, T., Gregory, R., Arvai, J. & Cheunpagdee, R. (2003) Decision structuring to alleviate embedding in environmental valuation. Ecological Economics 46: 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFadden, D. (1986) The choice theory approach to market research. Marketing Science 5: 275–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacMillan, D., Hanley, N. & Lienhoop, N. (2005) Contingent valuation: environmental polling or preference engine? Ecological Economics 60: 299–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacMillan, D., Philip, L., Hanley, N. & Álvarez-Farizo, B. (2002) Valuing the non-market benefits of wild goose conservation: a comparison of interview and group based approaches. Ecological Economics 43: 49–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, M., Bennett, J., Blamey, R.K. & Louviere, J. (2002) Choice modelling and tests of benefit transfer. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 84: 161–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, M., Bennett, J. & Blamey, R.K. (1999) Valuing improved wetland quality using choice modelling. Water Resources Research 35: 2805–2814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NRW (1997) State of the Rivers Report: Bremer. Aquatic Ecosystems, Natural Resource Sciences, NRW, Brisbane, Australia.Google Scholar
Niemeyer, S. & Spash, C.L. (2001) Environmental valuation analysis, public deliberation, and their pragmatic syntheses: a critical appraisal. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 19: 567–585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, J.J. & Mangan, J. (2007) Construction of input-output transaction databases for SEQld, 2001–2026. LSUM Working Paper, University of Queensland Social Research Centre (UQSRC), Brisbane, Australia.Google Scholar
Robinson, J.J. (2001) Environmental value transfer: an application for the southeast Queensland waterways. Water, Science and Technology 45: 91–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rolfe, J., Bennett, J. & Louviere, J. (2002) Stated values and reminders of substitute goods: testing or framing effects with choice modelling. The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 46: 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sagoff, M. (1998) Aggregation and deliberation in valuing environmental public goods: a look beyond contingent pricing. Ecological Economics 24: 213–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership (2007) SEQ Healthy Waterways Strategy. Healthy Waterways, Brisbane, Australia.Google Scholar
Swait, J. & Louviere, J. (1993) The role of the scale parameter in the estimation and comparison of multinomial logit models. Journal of Marketing Research 30: 305–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, M.A. & Howarth, R.B. (2002) Discourse-based valuation of ecosystem services: establishing fair outcomes through group deliberation. Ecological Economics 41: 431–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar