The Economic Valuation of Landscape Change

The increase in landscape degradation in the last decades has resulted in a growing public concern for policies to conserve the countryside. This book presents theories of valuation and economic welfare which are applied to policies to conserve the landscape.The book discusses the criteria for landscape conservation decision making and places particular emphasis on the multi-dimensional nature of landscape change and the selection of an optimal policy mix for conservation. The author examines the economic theory and methods used to analyse changes in the landscape, and then applies theory and methods to conservation schemes. These empirical case studies provide rich information on the economics of landscape conservation under quite different policy contexts. Special emphasis is placed on contingent valuation methods to assess the willingness-to-pay for landscape conservation and use is made of cost-benefit analysis to select the optimal policy mix for landscape conservation, taking into account the practical problem of limited information. Environmental, agricultural and ecological economists will be interested in this book as will geographers and those involved in planning and countryside management.