Assessing the social benefits from a small-scale biomass stove program : A CBA case study in Guizhou, China

This thesis uses a cost-benefit analysis to compare the benefits and costs generated from the implementation of new biomass project in rural of Guizhou. The benefited population is mainly the user of traditional and old improved stoves. Base on the epidemiologic studies, the results of the simulation demonstrated that for these two types of users, there is significant reduction of the excess mortality risk from Cardiopulmonary Diseases (CPD). This health improvement is even larger for the traditional stove users. From the results of the cost-benefit analysis, there are positive net benefits for both cases which mean the stove project is advisable. Consistent with the health improvement, users of the traditional stoves will be benefited more from this intervention compared with the households using old improved stoves. These results support the approval of the stove project for mitigating the indoor air pollution. The results of the sensitivity test also demonstrate that the emphasis should be put on the standardization of the stove production and setting up the criteria of new biomass stove. Since the implementation of the intervention will be more beneficial with the efficient and suitable biomass stoves