Combining revealed and stated preference data to estimate the nonmarket value of green technologies

Many cities throughout the United States currently face important water management issues. Among the most prominent of these issues is the control of storm water runoff from urban and nearby agricultural areas, which potentially contaminates water bodies and contributes to the risk of property damage from flooding. As an alternative to managing water flow with traditional technologies, civil engineers and urban planners are becoming increasingly interested in “green technologies.” Examples of these technologies, which will both prevent flooding and mediate contamination before runoff enters water bodies, are planting trees in strategic locations and constructing wetlands.; The overall objective of this dissertation is to quantify the nonmarket benefits of green technologies. The dissertation first identifies a conceptual model illustrating how green technologies could be combined with manmade technologies to control urban storm water runoff. Subsequent chapters quantify the external value of green technologies by combining revealed and stated preference data. The last chapter discusses the implications for non-market valuation when economic agents have preferences that are not strictly within the neoclassical (benefits versus costs) decision-making framework, quantifying how ethical attitudes influence a respondent's valuation of environmental attributes in a stated choice survey.; Results suggest that green technologies are a cost effective way to manage urban storm water, but this would not be apparent to city planners unless all benefits of the technologies are taken into account. Unfortunately, most of the benefits are likely to be overlooked because they are intangible services that are not reciprocated by cash payments. The estimated benefits from this research can provide further justification for the public expenditures on green technology projects. Based on the data from Topeka, the visitors to a public space would benefit by {dollar}35 to {dollar}55 per year from a constructed wetland improvement, such as the recent project at Garfield park in the northern part of the city.; Results also suggest that ethical attitudes significantly affected the demand for park visitation. Future research may be directed toward further refinements of the nonmarket approaches in this dissertation, in an effort to account for the different forms of bias inherent in alternative data sources.