A stated preference experiment to value access to quiet areas and other local environmental factors

Abigail Bristow , Mark Wardman , Jeremy Shires , Phani Chintakayala , John Nellthorp

The local environment influences people’s perceptions of their quality of life and their overall well-being in many different ways. Whilst there are a wide range of local environmental factors that can impact on individuals’ well-being, there is relatively little empirical evidence on this subject. In particular, there is a dearth of knowledge on their economic valuation, commonly expressed in terms of how much money individuals are prepared to pay for improved conditions. The aim of this study was to estimate how much individuals would be prepared to pay, in terms of council tax, to obtain improvements or to avoid deteriorations in a wide range of local environmental factors. These include: urban quiet areas; fly-tipping; litter; fly-posting; graffiti; dog-fouling; discarded chewing gum; trees; light pollution (obscuring the stars); light intrusion (into the home) and odour. This study provides what we believe to be the first value for quiet areas and also indicates how important quiet areas are relative to a range of other local environmental factors.

Mots clés: quiet; value; stated preference

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Abigail Bristow, Mark Wardman, Jeremy Shires, Phani Chintakayala, John Nellthorp. A stated preference experiment to value access to quiet areas and other local environmental factors. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00810789⟩