Economic valuation of cultural ecosystem service changes to a landscape in the Swiss Alps

- With a choice experiment, economic preferences for cultural ecosystem services (CES) were documented.
- An ecosystem services approach including iterative stakeholder involvement was used for identifying CES indicators.
- Neither conceptual nor empirical reasons were found to exclude CES from properly conducted economic valuation studies.

Traditionally managed agrarian landscapes provide several cultural ecosystem services (CES). Still, CES are often not adequately considered in decision-making - partly because of challenges in their quantification and economic valuation. We show that a state-of-the-art application of an economic valuation method to CES can generate meaningful data for supporting real-world, regional decision-making processes. After qualitative pre-studies (semi-structured interviews, stakeholder workshop) and a pilot study (n = 117), a discrete choice experiment (n = 252 respondents) was administered to a random sample of citizens in the Visp region of the Central Swiss Alps, a site with traditional agrarian landscapes. The design of the choice experiment followed an ecosystem services approach, and uses visualizations to support valuation of aesthetic landscape changes. A response rate of 43% was achieved. Citizen support was expressed for agricultural heritage (P < 0.001) and biodiversity-rich dry grasslands (P < 0.001). Aesthetic impacts of settlement extension (P < 0.001) and of grassland intensification (P < 0.001) reduced the economic value of development options impacting the Visp landscape. Estimated marginal willingness-to-pay ranged from 410 CHF (1 CHF approx. 0.8 EUR in 2013)/person/year for 60 additional ha of dry grassland to −833 CHF for the visual impact of settlement expansion (by changes of the tax bill).