The Economic Valuation of Urban Green Parks: The Application of Contingent Valuation Method

This study analyzes the total economic values of urban green areas conserved at Bahir Dar city. Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was employed to obtain estimates of Willingness to Pay (WTP) for improving the endangered and overlooked environmental assets, urban green areas to sustain them & generate benefits to current and future generations. In this contingent valuation survey, the researcher adopted a dichotomous choice with follow-up debriefing questions and scenario description, as well as open-ended follow-up question to model individual’s WTP. The study used purposive sampling method to select the parks under study followed by simple random sampling to select 200 sample respondents. The study result revealed that almost all the respondents have a positive attitude towards the conservation of urban green parks but uncertain about the sustainability of the area’s that leads them not to take care of the areas. Besides, the study results show that the mean monthly WTP of the individuals was between 0.047 -0.16 USD and the Total Economic Value (TEV) of improved urban green areas per month was about 4656.75- 15,704.14 USD calculated from the double bounded elicitation format and open ended elicitation format respectively. Keywords: Bahir Dar, CVM, Logistic Regression, Urban Green Parks, WTP. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-23-01 Publication date: December 31st 2021