Willingness to Pay for Groundwater Protection

Proceedings of the 1991 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 19-20, 1991, Athens, Georgia.Increasing chemical use has enhanced agricultural production and helped provide reliable supplies of food and fiber at reasonable costs. However, the same practice represents one of the main non-point sources of groundwater contamination. Yet groundwater is a source of drinking water for almost 50 percent of the US population. Rural Americans obtain over 97 percent of their drinking water from underground sources. In Georgia, over 500,000 private wells are not under federal, state, or local regulations for testing. Of these wells, 25 percent are shallow (less than 75 feet deep) and are at the highest risk for nitrate contamination (EPA, 1986). For these reasons, several agencies are developing strategies to reduce risks to water quality associated with chemical use. Programs to encourage lower chemical use are part of the 1990 farm bill. However, these programs, and potentially lower yields and higher food prices, represent a cost for groundwater protection. An important question is how much the public is willing to pay for improvements in water quality resulting from changes in agricultural practices? This study will explore people's preferences for clean water and attempt to estimate their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for improved water quality resulting from certain agricultural practices.Sponsored by U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.This book was published by the Institute of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 with partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, through the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1984 (P.L. 98242). The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of The University of Georgia or the U.S. Geological Survey or the conference sponsors