How much do people value the environment?

Abstract

The selection and evaluation of road schemes through the Leitch framework is based on a combination of cost-benefit analysis and environmental impact assessment. Both techniques involve the definition and valuation of a number of costs and benefits. These costs and benefits are defined and valued in isolation to each other so that we know virtually nothing about the relative valuation that people assign to different types of costs and benefits which might affect them directly or indirectly. This paper outlines the development of a method which allows people to conceptualise the costs and benefits of a road scheme in their own terms and then to rank schemes in relation to those costs and benefits. This method is based upon an interview process involving the use of repertory grid technique. The information from the repertory grid technique is used as a sound basis for determining trade-offs between attributes and for attempting to obtain monetary valuations of different project attributes. A number of exploratory interviews are reported which outline some of the difficulties with a number of the survey features including the choice of case-study, interviewer and information biases and sample and non-response biases. Various ways of dealing with these difficulties are discussed.