The recreational services value of the nearby periurban forest versus the regional forest environment

Most previous valuation studies of forest recreational services using hedonic methods have focused on the direct proximity of housing to nearby forests while treating recreational services as homogeneous. However, households in urban and periurban areas may prefer diverse forest areas in their neighborhoods. The main objective of this study is to estimate and compare the impacts of proximity to forest recreational services based on the nearby forest and the regional forest environment, which includes spatially heterogeneous recreational quality. The regional forest environment is computed based on forest recreational services with respect to the travel time to housing. The empirical results show that differences exist between the forest valuations and their recreational services depending on which forest environment is considered. The size of the nearby forest is the only characteristic with a positive and significant impact on housing prices. Conversely, the regional forest environment positively influences housing prices based on certain parameters, such as large forest size, absence of protected areas and the existence of hiking and biking paths, which imply public access and maintenance.