Valuing environmental impacts of large dam construction in Korea: An application of choice experiments

This paper measures economic value of multiple environmental impacts of large dam construction as a case study of Korea, using a choice experiment approach. The choice works which consider trade-offs between price and environmental attributes for selecting a preferred option were within respondents' ability, and the marginal willingness-to-pay estimates across the two models were statistically significant. Especially, adding covariates does not significantly change the marginal willingness-to-pay estimates for each attribute. Monthly willingness-to-pay of the typical household for mitigating environmental impacts by large dam construction from the status quo to the highest attribute level is calculated as about 2542 Korean Won (US $ 2.12) and the total willingness-to-pay for the entire population of the study area is annually about 209.9 billion Korean Won (US $ 174.9 million). This study allows us to provide policy-makers with quantitative information that can be useful in the cost–benefit analysis related to large dam construction projects.