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Capturing and Explaining Preference Heterogeneity for Wetland Management Options in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania

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Abstract

Wetland degradation has recently received considerable research attention. Although wetlands are valuable ecosystems, their actual value is difficult to measure because the services they provide often do not have market values. The current study seeks to investigate the preferences for wetland management options in the Kilombero Valley, central Tanzania using choice modeling. The results show that both respondents from the Kilombero Valley and Morogoro Municipality desire improvements in the condition of the wetlands. This indicates that the ongoing degradation is not socially optimal. A second finding is that the preferences for wetland conservation are heterogeneous and can be linked to livelihood characteristics. Communities living in the area, for example, are highly dependent on the wetland for their livelihood and would be impacted by conservation measures. Therefore, in order to reduce the pressure on wetlands, it is necessary and imperative to explore the options for alternative income-generating activities or to focus, for example, on technologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness in crop production.

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Notes

  1. The number of options that can be created from five attributes, four with three levels and one with four levels, is 41*34 = 324.

  2. A first macro suggests reasonable sizes for the experimental design given the number of attributes and their levels. In our case, 27 runs were appropriate. A second macro then creates a set of candidate alternatives. The final macro uses these alternatives to find an efficient experimental design for the choice experiment.

  3. It has to be noted that this would lead to further degradation of the status of the wetlands.

  4. 100 Halton draws were taken.

  5. For comparison the conditional logit model is also presented in Table 4, but is not further discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Belgian Technical Cooperation for the PhD scholarship of Felister Mombo and for the Funds for data collection. Stijn Speelman would like to thank Research Foundation Flanders for his post-doc Grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Stijn Speelman, Felister Mombo, Valerie Vandermeulen & Guido Van Huylenbroeck

  2. Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania

    Felister Mombo & Damas Phillip

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  1. Stijn Speelman
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  2. Felister Mombo
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  3. Valerie Vandermeulen
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  4. Damas Phillip
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Correspondence to Stijn Speelman.

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Speelman, S., Mombo, F., Vandermeulen, V. et al. Capturing and Explaining Preference Heterogeneity for Wetland Management Options in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. Environmental Management 55, 100–112 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0403-y

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