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Households’ willingness to pay for soil and water conservation practices on communal lands in South Wollo Zone, Ethiopia

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Abstract

In Ethiopia, indigenous soil and water conservation practices are poorly recorded and not considered by soil and water conservation experts and policymakers. Conservation practices have mainly been undertaken in a form of a campaign (top–down approach) and quite often farmers have not been involved in the planning process. For this purpose, the method of Contingent valuation was used to conduct an econometric analysis of willingness to pay using both Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice and open-ended elicitation format question. Both primary and secondary data were collected for analysis using a structured questionnaire. Perception of soil and water conservation and perception of erosion hazard have a positive effect on the households’ willingness to pay for soil and water conservation activities. The result indicates that the value of mean willingness to pay from both Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice and open-ended question were found to be 44.133 and 43.426 Labour Day per household per year, respectively. The paper used the average individual value of willingness-to-pay to calculate the aggregate willingness-to-pay and estimated the aggregate labour day of 6,189,119.07 and 6,090,026.90 labour days per year for the sample districts, respectively. From the result, the laissez-faire approach to communal land soil and water conservation is recommended, since the approach is primarily demand driven, dependable on market forces and voluntary choices of the local communities, and is very likely to induce sufficient investment in soil and water conservation of communal lands.

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Availability of data and materials

The authors want to declare that he can submit the data at whatever time based on your request. The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

CC:

Contingency coefficient

CE:

Choice experiment

CS:

Compensating surplus

CSA:

Central statistical agency

CV:

Contingent valuation

CVM:

Contingent valuation method

DBDC:

Double bounded dichotomous choice

ES:

Equivalent surplus

EV:

Equivalent variation

FAO:

Food and agriculture organization

GDP:

Gross domestic product

NOAA:

National oceanic and atmospheric administration

RCM:

Replacement cost method

SWC:

Soil and water conservation

TLU:

Tropical livestock unit

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Acknowledgements

We extend our profound appreciation to Wollo University to fund this research work and South Wollo Zone Agricultural Department, Districts Agricultural office for giving us important information. We also would like to thank all of the enumerators who assisted us in data collection with patience, commitment and dedication. Last but not least, all participating farmers on the study deserve our deepest appreciation for their unreserved collaboration and for the good working environment during the data collection. Finally, we would like to acknowledge all individuals and organizations that directly or indirectly contributed to the successful completion of this study.

Funding

Wollo University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics, Wollo University, P.O. Box 1145, Dessie, Ethiopia

    Moges Dessale & Yeshi Habteselase

  2. Department of Natural Resource Management, Wollo University, P.O. Box 1145, Dessie, Ethiopia

    Derese Abi

Authors
  1. Moges Dessale
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  2. Yeshi Habteselase
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  3. Derese Abi
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Contributions

MD initiated the research, wrote the research proposal, supervised data collection and did data entry. MD, YH and DA did analysis, writing, reviewing and editing of the research proposal and manuscript. The authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Moges Dessale.

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The author declares that he has no competing interests.

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Not applicable since the study involved conservation activities.

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Dessale, M., Habteselase, Y. & Abi, D. Households’ willingness to pay for soil and water conservation practices on communal lands in South Wollo Zone, Ethiopia. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 8, 111 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-022-00705-1

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