Pacific Southwest Research Station

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Research Paper

Title: Measuring the Economic Benefit of Maintaining the Ecological Integrity of the Río Mameyes in Puerto Rico

Author: González-Cabán, Armando; Loomis, John.

Date: 1999

Source: Res. Paper PSW-RP-240. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 61 p

Station ID: RP-PSW-240

Description: A contingent valuation in-person survey of Puerto Rican households was performed from April to August 1995 to estimate their willingness-to-pay for preserving instream flows in the Río Mameyes and avoiding a dam on the Río Fajardo. Annual willingness-to-pay was $21 for each river. When expanded to the 1 million households in Puerto Rico for the 5-year period households were asked to pay, this amount increased to $110 million for the Río s Mameyes and Fajardo. Visitors to the Río Mameyes indicated they would reduce trips by 93 percent if 10 million gallons daily were withdrawn from the river, resulting in a loss of $250,000 in annual recreation benefits. Both the household and recreation values can be compared to the costs of repairing water lines and in-home water conservation measures to determine if there are more net benefits to these alternative sources of water than withdrawals from the Rio Mameyes.

Key Words: benefit cost analysis, contingent valuation method, logit regression, recreation benefits, travel cost method, willingness-to-pay

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Citation

González-Cabán, Armando; Loomis, John.  1999.  Measuring the economic benefit of maintaining the ecological integrity of the Río Mameyes in Puerto Rico.  Res. Paper PSW-RP-240. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 61 p.