Abstract
Conservation and efficient management of water resources is an essential ingredient for achieving sustainable development. River basins in Southern Europe are suffering from high water stress, while leakages in some areas far surpass recommended levels. This study uses the contingent valuation method in order to assess willingness to pay (WTP) by consumers in the Guadalquivir River basin in Spain for improving urban water supply infrastructure and reducing leakages. On average, individuals would be willing to pay an extra charge on their water bill ranging from €8.23 to €9.65. In addition to the expected positive effect of income on WTP, respondents with negative perceptions of their drinking water quality as well as those most affected by the economic crisis have a lower WTP. Conversely, WTP is higher for men and respondents showing greater commitment to the environment. These results provide policymakers with information that might help them to improve water-pricing policies in a context of severe water scarcity, especially considering the principle of cost recovery introduced by the EU Water Framework Directive in pricing water services.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The full questionnaire is available on request.
References
AEAS, Asociación Española de Abastecimientos de Agua y Saneamiento (2014) XIII Encuesta de Suministro de Agua Potable y Saneamiento en España. Madrid
Akram AA, Olmstead SM (2011) The value of household water service quality in Lahore, Pakistan. Environ Resour Econ 49(2):173–198
Arrow K, Solow R, Portney PP et al (1993) Report of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Panel on contingent valuation. Fed Regist 58:4602–4614
Bartus T (2005) Estimation of marginal effects using margeff. Stata J 5:309–329
Bilgic A (2010) Measuring willingness to pay to improve municipal water in southeast Anatolia, Turkey. Water Resour Res 46(12), W12545
Bishop RC, Heberlein TA (1979) Measuring values of extra-market goods: are indirect measures biased? Am J Agric Econ 61:926–930
Calia P, Strazzera E (2001) A sample selection model for protest votes in contingent valuation analysis. Statistica 61:473–485
Carson RT (1997) Contingent valuation: theoretical advances and empirical tests since the NOAA panel. Am J Agric Econ 79:1501–1507
Carson RT (2011) Contingent valuation: a comprehensive bibliography and history. Edward Elgar, Northampton
del Saz-Salazar S, Hernández-Sancho F, Sala-Garrido R (2009) The social benefits of restoring water quality in the context of the Water Framework Directive: a comparison of willingness to pay and willingness to accept. Sci Total Environ 407:4574–4583
del Saz-Salazar S, González-Gómez F, Guardiola J (2015) Willingness to pay to improve urban water supply: the case of Sucre, Bolivia. Water Policy 17(1):112–125
Diekmann A, Preseindörfer P (2003) Green and greenback: the behavioural effects of environmental attitudes in low-cost and high-cost situations. Ration Soc 15:441–472
Dziegielewska DA, Mendelshon R (2007) Does ‘No’ mean ‘No’? A protest methodology. Environ Resour Econ 38:71–87
EC, European Commission (2012a) A blueprint to safeguard Europe’s water resources. Commission staff working document executive summary of the impact assessment accompanying the document Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. SWD (2012) 381 final
EC, European Commission (2012b) Report on the review of the European water scarcity and droughts policy. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. COM(2012) 672 final
EC, European Community (2006) Water scarcity management in the context of Water Framework Directive. European Community, Brussels
EEA, European Environment Agency (2005) Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in Europe. EEA Technical Report No 7/2005. Copenhagen, Denmark
EEA, European Environmental Agency (2013). Assessment of cost recovery through water pricing. EEA Technical Report No 16/2013. Copenhagen, Denmark
EEA, European Environmental Agency (2009) EEA signals 2009. Key environmental issues facing Europe. Copenhagen, Denmark
EU, European Union (2000) Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy, Official Journal of the European Union, L 327, 22 December
FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization (2012) Aquastat, global information system on water and agriculture 2008–2012. www.fao.org/nr/water/aquast at/main/in-dex.stm. Access December 26, 2014
Fielding KS, Russell S, Spinks A et al (2012) Determinants of household water conservation: the role of demographic, infrastructure, behavior, and psychosocial variables. Water Resour Res 48(10), W10510
Garrote L, Iglesias A, Granados A et al (2015) Quantitative assessment of climate change vulnerability of irrigation demands in Mediterranean Europe. Water Resour Manag 29(2):325–338
Genius M, Hatzaki E, Kouromichelaki EM et al (2008) Evaluating consumers’ willingness to pay for improved potable water quality and quantity. Water Resour Manag 22(12):1825–1834
González-Gómez F, García-Rubio MA, Guardiola J (2011) Why is non-revenue water so high in so many cities? Int J Water Resour Dev 27(2):345–360
González-Gómez F, Martínez-Espiñeira R, García-Valiñas MA, García-Rubio MA (2012) Explanatory factors of urban water leakage rates in Southern Spain. Util Policy 22(1):22–30
GWI, Global Water Intelligence (2010) Global water market 2011. Meeting the world’s water and wastewater needs until 2016. Volume II: Europe and Africa. Media Analytics, Oxford
Haab TC (1999) Nonparticipation or misspecification? The impacts of nonparticipation on dichotomous choice contingent valuation. Environ Resour Econ 14:443–461
Hamilton LC (1983) Saving water a causal model of household conservation. Sociol Perspect 26(4):355–374
Hanemann WM (1984) Welfare evaluations in contingent valuation experiments with discrete responses. Am J Agric Econ 67:332–341
Hanemann WM, Kanninen B (1999) The statistical analysis of discrete-response CV data. In: Bateman IJ, Willis KG (eds) Valuing environmental preferences: theory and practice of the contingent valuation method in the US, EU, and developing countries. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 302–441
Hanley N, Barbier EB (2009) Pricing nature. Cost-benefit analysis and environmental policy. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham
Hole AR (2007) A comparison of approaches to estimating confidence intervals for willingness to pay measures. Health Econ, 16(8):827--840
INE, Instituto Nacional de Estadística (2013). Encuestas sobre el suministro y saneamiento del agua 2008–2012. Madrid. http://www.ine.es/. Access December 25, 2014
Jorgensen BS, Syme GJ (2000) Protest responses and willingness to pay: attitude toward paying for stormwater pollution abatement. Ecol Econ 33:251–265
Kriström B (1990) A non-parametric approach to the estimation of welfare measures in discrete-response contingent valuation studies. Land Econ 66:135–139
Kriström B (1997) Spike models in contingent valuation. Am J Agric Econ 79:1013–1023
Martínez-Espiñeira R, García-Valiñas MA, Nauges C (2014) Households’ pro-environmental habits and investments in water and energy consumption: determinants and relationships. J Environ Manag 133:174–183
Mitchell RC, Carson RT (1989) Using surveys to value public goods: the contingent valuation method. Resources for the future, Washington DC
Mugabi J, Kayaga S (2010) Attitudinal and socio-demographic effects on willingness to pay for water services and actual payment behaviour. Urban Water J 7(5):287–300
Mutikanga HE, Sharma SK, Vairavamoorthy K (2011) Multi-criteria decision analysis: a strategic planning tool for water loss management. Water Resour Manag 25(14):3947–3969
Nazif S, Karamouz M, Tabesh M et al (2010) Pressure management model for urban water distribution networks. Water Resour Manag 24(3):437–458
OECD (2011) Greening household behaviour: the role of public policy. OECD Publishing, Paris
Petersen T, Klauer B, Manstetten R (2009) The environment as a challenge for governmental responsibility—The case of the European Water Framework Directive. Ecol Econ 68(7):2058–2065
Poe GL, Vossler CA (2011) Consequentiality and contingent values: an emerging paradigm. In: Bennett J (ed) The international handbook on non-market environmental valuation. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Cheltenham
Ramajo-Hernández J, del Saz-Salazar S (2012) Estimating the non-market benefits of water quality improvement for a case study in Spain: a contingent valuation approach. Environ Sci Pol 22:47–59
Sáez-Fernández J, González-Gómez F, Picazo-Tadeo AJ (2011) Opportunity costs of ensuring sustainability of urban water services. Int J Water Resour Dev 27(4):693–708
Söderberg M, Barton DN (2014) Marginal WTP and distance decay: the role of ‘protest’ and ‘true zero’ responses in the economic valuation of recreational water quality. Environ Resour Econ 59(3):389–405
Thornton J, Sturm R, Kunkel G (2008) Water loss control, 2onth edn. McGraw-Hill, New York
Tynan N, Kingdom B (2002) A water scoreboard: setting performance targets for water utilities. Public Policy for the Private Sector Note, 242. The World Bank, Washington DC
Unnerstall H (2007) The principle of full cost recovery in the EU-water framework directive—genesis and content. J Environ Law 19(1):29–42
Wang H, Xie J, Li H (2010) Water pricing with household surveys: a study of acceptability and willingness to pay in Chongqing, China. China Econ Rev 21(1):136–149
Whitehead JC (2006) A practitioner’s primer on contingent valuation. In: Alberini A, Kahn J (eds) Contingent valuation handbook. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham
Willis RM, Stewart RA, Panuwatwanich K et al (2011) Quantifying the influence of environmental and water conservation attitudes on household end use water consumption. J Environ Manag 92(8):1996–2009
Xu Q, Chen Q, Ma J et al (2014) Water saving and energy reduction through pressure management in urban water distribution networks. Water Resour Manag 28(11):3715–3726
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ECO2012-32189), the Regional Government of Valencia (PROMETEO II/2014/053), and the Regional Government of Andalusia (P11-SEJ-7039; P11-SEJ-7294).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
del Saz-Salazar, S., García-Rubio, M.A., González-Gómez, F. et al. Managing Water Resources Under Conditions of Scarcity: On Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Improving Water Supply Infrastructure. Water Resour Manage 30, 1723–1738 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1247-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1247-4