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An important challenge in managing renewable resources is to understand why owners and managers sometimes make decisions that deplete resources and future earnings, such as when graziers allow pastures and land condition to be degraded. In this paper, we test two potential reasons for unsustainable management practices, myopia and salience, with each explaining why resource managers may exhibit impatience in harvest decisions. Myopia is associated with decision makers placing lower weight on future outcomes than would be implied by their pure time preference. Salience is associated with overweighting of consumption ‘now’, implying inconsistency in time preferences. To test for these effects on renewable resource management, an incentivised, dynamic field experiment was carried out with rangeland grazing enterprise owners in northeastern Australia that related management choices with uncertain rainfall events to both profits and land condition over time. Results demonstrate that respondents exhibiting myopia/salience in their choices tended to achieve lower cumulative scores in the experiment, as well as lower land conditions on their properties as measured with remote sensing data. Our results explain why there may be persistent optimisation failures by resource owners that reduce both profits and environmental outcomes.

Industrial harbours are a complex interface between environmental, economic and social systems. Trying to manage the social and economic needs of the community while maintaining the integrity of environmental ecosystems is complicated, as is the identification and evaluation of the various factors that underpin the drivers of economic, community and resource condition. An increasingly popular strategy to deal with the identification and evaluation challenges in complex human-environmental systems is to use a report card system which can be used as a summary assessment tool to monitor the health of aquatic ecosystems. The use of environmental report cards has become increasingly common but reporting has principally focused on environmental indicators. It is only very recently that attempts are being made to include social, cultural and economic indicators. There has been limited consensus in the selection of social and economic indicators applied in different aquatic report cards but as recreation is such an important activity, typically some measure of recreation benefit is included. However, there has been no commonality in the measures applied to assess its performance as an economic indicator. This paper is focused on the assessment of recreational benefits as an indicator of economic value in the report card for Gladstone Harbour in Queensland, Australia. It is the first aquatic health report card to include an assessment of the nonmarket value of recreation which makes it a more comprehensive indicator of economic value compared to estimates in other report cards based on measures of employment, participation or expenditure. There have now been three consecutive years of reporting (2014-2016) of the Gladstone Harbour report card, and the results indicate that the recreation index appears to be effectively monitoring changes over time.

The mining boom in Australia since 2003 has produced significant economic benefits for regional, State and National economies, creating new job opportunities and revenue flows. Despite the contribution of the resources sector to economic growth, questions are frequently raised about the concomitant negative social, economic and environmental impacts. The Surat Basin in southern Queensland is a traditional agricultural region with a small but growing coal mining sector and a rapidly developing liquefied natural gas industry (mainly associated with extracting coal seam gas). In this paper, the preferences of residents in Brisbane, the State capital, are explored in relation to the relative importance of social, economic and environmental impacts of the resource boom in the Surat Basin. A choice modelling experiment was conducted to assess the trade-offs Brisbane residents would make (in monetary terms) between the economic benefits and the associated costs of increased mining activity on local communities. The results identify the strength of concerns about community and environmental impacts and can potentially be used to help evaluate the net benefits of resource development.

Assessing the value of ecosystem services in a particular area helps provide information about the economic benefits these services provide to the community. In many situations, to avoid the full cost of primary data collection, value estimates may be applied from secondary sources in a process known as benefit transfer. However, in many countries, including Australia, the stock of economic value estimates for ecosystem services is limited and this restricts the application of benefit transfer. In this paper, the non-market values of three ecosystems (native vegetation, waterways, and wetlands) in a coastal peri-urban town are assessed using benefit transfer. Ecosystems in a peri-urban environment are generally fragmented and in a degraded condition, but can have very high values within the residential urban area. Three main limiting factors are identified. First, there is a general paucity of relevant source study estimates. Second, there is a need for scale adjustment factors so that source study estimates which are often assessed at a catchment or regional level can be adjusted to a small local council jurisdiction. Third, there is a need for some level of scope adjustment to account for the very high values of very small patch sizes, with low ecological value, within an urban area.

The focus of the research reported in this paper has been to estimate recreation values for beaches over approximately 1400 kilometres of coastline along the Queensland coast. The study is notable at an international level because it assesses recreation values to a general type of recreation asset rather than to a specific site, and because it focuses on the values of the local resident population. Negative binomial models have been used to estimate both the visit rate and recreation values associated with beach visits in different regional areas. The value of a single beach visit was estimated per person at $35.09, which extrapolates to $450 million in beach recreation values per annum. These values are likely to be conservative because opportunity costs incurred to live closer to the beach (e.g. housing premiums) have not been assessed. Contingent behaviour models were used to estimate the values of potential declines in water quality, with marginal effects assessed at $1.30 per recreation trip to avoid each 1% decline in water quality.

The focus of this report is to report choice modelling experiments that have tested the consistency of values across differently scoped dimensions of an environmental asset. The case study involved the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia, where a key policy question is to identify if protection values for one part of the reef can be transferred to different sections and scaled from local case studies to the whole reef area without adjustment. The study involved 12 split-samples in three CM experiments to assess values for the whole GBR, a regional section of the GBR and a local reef area while controlling for variations across populations, the scope of the choice tasks, and survey formats. The results demonstrate that issues of geographic scope and scale remain challenging in CM experiments. Contrary to expectations, the proportional values for different regions of the GBR remained consistent when geographic scope and scale increased, while absolute values declined. This was despite substantial efforts in designing and presenting the surveys to define the amenity of interest to respondents. The results indicate that it is difficult to identify single unit values for an environmental amenity that can be easily transferred and extrapolated across geographic regions and scales. However, there may be good theoretical reasons why marginal values for specific areas of interest in the GBR have much higher protection values, which then decline as larger and more general areas are considered.

Although agriculture generates a significant portion of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, it also has the potential to sequester large quantities of emissions through changed land use management such as agroforestry. Whilst there is an extensive amount of agroforestry literature, little has been written on the economic consequences of adopting silvopastoral systems in northern Australia. This paper reports the economic feasibility of adopting complimentary agroforestry systems in the low rainfall region of northern Australia. The analysis incorporates the dynamic tradeoffs between tree and pasture growth, carbon sequestration, cleared regrowth decomposition rates and livestock methane emissions in a bioeconomic model. The results suggest there are financial benefits for landholders who integrate complimentary agroforestry activities into existing grazing operations depending on the rules of the carbon accounting framework used.

In this paper the results of a choice modelling experiment to value increased protection of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is reported. There are very few previous studies that identify protection values for the Great Barrier Reef, making it difficult to evaluate whether the community benefits from future additional protection measures are larger than the costs involved. The valuation experiment that has been conducted is novel in two important ways. First, different management policies to increase protection have been included as labels in the choice experiment to test if the mechanisms to achieve improvements are important to respondents. Second, the level of certainty associated with predicted reef health has been included as an attribute in the choice profiles, helping to distinguish between outcomes of different management policies. The results show that protection values vary with the policy scope of the improvements being considered. Values are sensitive to whether protection will be generated by improving water quality entering the reef, increasing conservation zones or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the level of certainty of outcomes. The average household willingness to pay for five years for each additional 1% of protection is approximately $26.37 when the broad management options to generate improvements were included in the choice sets. These results can be extrapolated to a total value held by Queensland households of $132.8M to $171.5M per 1% improvement, depending on the assumptions used about the discount rate.

The focus of this report is to report choice modelling experiments that have tested the consistency of values across differently scoped dimensions of an environmental asset. The case study involved the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia, where a key policy question is to identify if protection values for one part of the reef can be transferred to different sections and scaled from local case studies to the whole reef area without adjustment. The study involved 12 split-samples in three CM experiments to assess values for the whole GBR, a regional section of the GBR and a local reef area while controlling for variations across populations, the scope of the choice tasks, and survey formats. The results demonstrate that issues of geographic scope and scale remain challenging in CM experiments. Contrary to expectations, the proportional values for different regions of the GBR remained consistent when geographic scope and scale increased, while absolute values declined. This was despite substantial efforts in designing and presenting the surveys to define the amenity of interest to respondents. The results indicate that it is difficult to identify single unit values for an environmental amenity that can be easily transferred and extrapolated across geographic regions and scales. However, there may be good theoretical reasons why marginal values for specific areas of interest in the GBR have much higher protection values, which then decline as larger and more general areas are considered.

The main objective of the study outlined in this paper was to examine how the inclusion of an additional labelled alternative, to provide respondents with more choice in a stated preference survey, impacted on choice complexity. The valuation context was to elicit preferences for improvements in the future condition of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. A split sample experiment was implemented where one survey included four labelled alternatives: a status quo option and three specific policy management options (restricted choice). The other survey provided respondents with an unrestricted choice set by including a fifth alternative choice, labelled as “a combination of management options”. While the additional option improved opportunities to find an attractive choice profile, adding an extra alternative increased the complexity of the survey. The tradeoff between choice flexibility and complexity is examined in terms of changes in respondents’ choice behaviour and the performance of the different models. The results provide some evidence that adding a combination policy alternative did change the ways that respondents viewed tradeoffs, but that choice behaviour and subsequent value estimates were consistent across the two survey formats.

The focus of this report is to test if protection values at a particular GBR site may be easily transferred to other case studies of interest in the region. The research involved valuing three local case studies in the GBR and testing how values were consistent across site and population characteristics. The sites were chosen to reflect substantial heterogeneity in extent, ecological composition and condition, while values were assessed for both local and distant populations. The results are encouraging, indicating that although significant heterogeneity was identified with the mixed logit models, values were robust to various site and population differences. No significant difference in protection values between the three local case studies could be identified, and there was no significant difference in values between the local population and the Brisbane population. However, some evidence for distance effects was identified for the Brisbane population, with closer sites valued more highly. As well, potential losses were valued more highly (in absolute terms) than potential gains. The implication of these results is that protection values are likely to be higher for closer reef areas with risks of losses than these with opportunities for improvements.

A number of studies have examined the effects of distance decay and the influence it might have on both use and non-use values. However, the relationship between environmental values and distance effects is less clear cut when iconic or special assets are involved. In this report, the effects of distance decay on protection values of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia are explored using two split sample choice experiments. The results suggest that the Townsville (local) population had larger use values than the Brisbane (distant) population. However, for iconic resources, where perceptions of responsibility, substitutes and information are reasonably consistent across population groups, non-use values remain constant across spatially different population groups.

Metrics for evaluating environmental trade-offs can be developed with varying levels of consistency across case study sites. A key issue is whether standard evaluation experiments can be conducted over multiple sites, or whether experiments have to be tailored to each case study application. To test how useful a consistent approach is, choice modelling (CM) has been used in a number of countries. Choice modelling assess the trade-offs households are prepared to make between water use restrictions, maintaining environmental conditions in waterways, and increased water costs. This research paper reports the results of the Queensland survey. The results show that it is not possible to downplay case study framing issues and that it is not appropriate to standardise applications across case studies that have different characteristics.

Policy makers are often interested in transferring non-market estimates of environmental values from a ‘source’ study to predict economic values at a ‘target’ site. While most applications of the benefit transfer process involve an opportunistic search for suitable source studies, there are some examples available of more systematic approaches to developing a framework of values for benefit transfer processes. A key issue in developing such a framework is to deal with adjustment factors, where value estimates might vary systematically according to the context of the trade-offs. Previous research has identified that large differences in scope, such as between national and regional contexts, do affect values and hence benefit transfer. The research reported in this paper indicates that such differences are not significant for smaller scope variations, such as between state and regional contexts. These results provide some promise that systematic databases for benefit transfer can be developed.

In Australia significant resources are invested into Regional NRM arrangements where some authority and decision-making responsibilities are devolved to Regional NRM groups. However, little empirical evidence is available to guide policymakers in determining whether investments in such a governance regime will yield optimal outcomes. In this paper, we focus on exploring whether the Regional NRM model may result in a reduction in net transaction costs by generating social capital. By improving levels of trust and cooperation, and minimising levels of conflict between various stakeholders involved in NRM activities, costs such as those associated with monitoring and compliance can potentially be reduced. Evidence from a survey of landholders involved with NRM programs run by the Regional NRM group in the Central Queensland region suggests that social capital is generated under the Regional NRM governance model.

In Australia significant resources are invested into Regional NRM arrangements where some authority and decision-making responsibilities are devolved to Regional NRM groups. However, little empirical evidence is available to guide policymakers in determining whether investments in such a governance regime will yield optimal outcomes. In this paper, we focus on exploring whether the Regional NRM model may result in a reduction in net transaction costs by generating social capital. By improving levels of trust and cooperation, and minimising levels of conflict between various stakeholders involved in NRM activities, costs such as those associated with monitoring and compliance can potentially be reduced. Evidence from a survey of landholders involved with NRM programs run by the Regional NRM group in the Central Queensland region suggests that social capital is generated under the Regional NRM governance model.

Conservation auctions such as the Conservation Reserve Program in the United States and the BushTender Program in Australia have been used to identify landholders who can provide on-farm conservation and biodiversity protection actions at lowest cost. These conservation auctions are typically framed as closed, discriminatory, single round, first-price auctions, and are based on the assumption that landholders will offer bids determined by their 'independent private values'. However bid values may also be influenced by other factors such as concerns about 'winner's curse', a desire to capture economic rent, and premiums for risk and uncertainty factors. Sealed, single round auctions may exacerbate information gaps and uncertainty factors because of the limited information flows compared to traditional market exchanges and open, ascending auctions. In this paper, the cost-efficiencies of a multiple round auction for landholder management actions are explored with the use of field experiments. Results suggest that multiple round auctions may be associated with efficiency gains, particularly in initial rounds. However, multiple round auctions can also involve higher transaction and administration costs, so the net advantages need to be assessed on a case by case basis before these are used to purchase environmental services.

Conservation auctions such as the Conservation Reserve Program in the United States and the BushTender Program in Australia have been used to identify landholders who can provide on-farm conservation and biodiversity protection actions at lowest cost. These conservation auctions are typically framed as closed, discriminatory, single round, first-price auctions, and are based on the assumption that landholders will offer bids determined by their 'independent private values'. However bid values may also be influenced by other factors such as concerns about 'winner's curse', a desire to capture economic rent, and premiums for risk and uncertainty factors. Sealed, single round auctions may exacerbate information gaps and uncertainty factors because of the limited information flows compared to traditional market exchanges and open, ascending auctions. In this paper, the cost-efficiencies of a multiple round auction for landholder management actions are explored with the use of field experiments. Results suggest that multiple round auctions may be associated with efficiency gains, particularly in initial rounds. However, multiple round auctions can also involve higher transaction and administration costs, so the net advantages need to be assessed on a case by case basis before these are used to purchase environmental services.

The Fitzroy basin in central Queensland is the largest basin in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. The large quantities of sediment and nutrient export are of concern and come predominantly from diffuse sources in the grazing industry. The focus of the research reported in this paper was on the potential supply of mitigation actions from this group. This potential supply is very difficult to establish ex ante. However, such information may be crucial to the design of a quantity-based mechanism that requires supply of mitigation actions. In this study, the use of a stated preference technique called “choice modelling” and an experimental economics technique termed “experimental auctions” were applied to ascertain potential supply relationships.

In this paper, estimates of value for recreational fishing are reported for three major freshwater impoundments in Queensland, Australia, using both travel cost and contingent valuation methods. The research results that are reported have two key methodological distinctions from previous studies of values associated with recreational fishing. The first is that different forms of the travel cost model have been used to estimate separate consumer surpluses associated with two key sub-groups of recreational anglers: those who were repeat anglers at a dam, and those who were single visitors (tourists). The second is that a contingent valuation study has been used to estimate the marginal values associated with a potential improvement in fishing experience, which can be compared with average values for existing trips estimated with the travel cost method. The results of the travel cost analysis provide strong evidence that recreational values vary between different groups of anglers and across sites, indicating that the transfer of recreational fishing values between population groups and sites may be complex. As well, the contingent valuation estimates for additional marginal benefits of recreational angling were conservative in relation to the values obtained from the travel cost models. This suggests that there is diminishing marginal utility associated with catching additional fish.

The potential supply of water quality mitigation actions from diffuse sources is difficult to assess, although important for designing policies to encourage such actions. In this paper the design and results of a Choice Modelling(CM) valuation to assess the potential supply of rural mitigation actions from altered grazing management are reported. The valuation was focused on the supply of mitigating services (specified riparian management standards), the total cost of provision, and the extent to which these costs varied between landholders. CM has traditionally been applied to environmental valuation issues, but there is increasing use of the method to design agricultural markets. This study extends that application to markets for environmental actions.

Option values may be an important component of non-use values when development options for environmental assets are considered. These are values that the community might hold for maintaining options to make future choices about allocating resources. However, option values are very difficult to define, at both theoretical and practical levels, and there has been a retreat over the past decade to the more inclusive concept of option prices. In the present paper, estimates of option values are reported for retaining unallocated water in reserve rather than using it for current development. The use of option values rather than option prices is justified on the basis that the focus is on nonuse values, and demand and supply uncertainties have been minimised. These values have been assessed through a series of nine choice modelling surveys that have been conducted over a 3-year period in the Fitzroy River Basin in central Queensland. The results are then extrapolated to the case study areas within the basin to assess whether unallocated water should be held in reserve or used for development.

Irrigation underpins approximately one-third of the value of Queensland’s agricultural production. There are calls for further development of water infrastructure in northern Queensland to enhance the production of sugar cane, horticulture, aquaculture and other crops. One of the steps in assessing potential new developments is to establish which groups have demands for additional water, and how sensitive they are to price. Surveys are one mechanism that can be used to gauge this information. Various surveys to assess water demands have been carried out in the Mackay, Burdekin and Atherton Tablelands regions and the results are reported in this paper.

The Daintree Rainforest is a prime attraction for Tropical North Queensland as a tourist destination. Visitation of the rainforest, specifically the Cape Tribulation section, has increased rapidly as impediments to self-drive access have been removed. This paper examines the potential for the local council to manage the volume of self-drive access to the Cape Tribulation region by price mechanisms. The assessment is based on estimates of willingness to pay from a contingent valuation survey of self-drive tourists to the region, from which estimates of consumer surplus and demand elasticity are derived. A comprehensive discussion of the social and economic implications and transaction costs of price-based mechanisms is offered.

Policy makers are often interested in how estimates of the value of an environmental asset may be disaggregated into component pieces. This is particularly the case when they are seeking to transfer benefit estimates made in one situation to related circumstances. This is the case for the environmental values of the Fitzroy River basin in Central Queensland. The basin comprises several smaller catchments that share similar development opportunities, environmental issues and water resource constraints. This paper describes an application of the choice modelling technique to estimate values for the basin as a whole and two of the smaller catchments to determine how values may be related. Comparisons are undertaken to assess the validity of the choice modelling approach to benefit transfer issues in environmental valuation studies.

Choice modelling, a non‐market valuation technique, is used to explore framing issues in the context of environmental valuations. Choice modelling appears to have promise in simultaneously valuing a pool of substitute amenities and goods. Describing choices according to component attributes can also help to frame choices according to a number of trade‐offs. The statistical information available helps to determine where framing effects have occurred. Three choice modelling experiments were reviewed to show that framing effects may be more widespread in non‐market valuation studies than is commonly thought.

Irrigated agriculture is an important source of economic activity in the Fitzroy Basin. The issue of what water is still available for development in the basin and how it might be allocated between different interests groups in the region remains topical. The Water Allocation and Management Plan for the Fitzroy that has been drafted by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines caps overall water extraction from the basin, but allows further development to potentially occur in most of the sub-catchments. In this paper the options for allocating the water resources and the mechanisms by which they might be allocated are discussed. The values that society might have for reserving water resources from development are estimated from a Choice Modelling experiment, and compared to the net production costs available from different development options.

In the Desert Uplands region of Central Queensland, many pastoralists are clearing vegetation in order to improve cattle grazing production. A choice modelling study was undertaken to provide estimates of the benefits of retaining remnant vegetation that are appropriate for inclusion in a cost benefit analysis of tighter clearing restrictions. Attributes included in the choice model were reductions in the population size of non‐threatened species, the number of endangered species lost to the region, and changes in regional income and employment. A nested logit model was used to model the data in order to avoid violations of the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition. The estimated benefits are reported for several tree clearing policy regimes that are more stringent than those currently applied.

Choice modelling, a non‐market valuation technique, is used to explore framing issues in the context of environmental valuations. Choice modelling appears to have promise in simultaneously valuing a pool of substitute amenities and goods. Describing choices according to component attributes can also help to frame choices according to a number of trade‐offs. The statistical information available helps to determine where framing effects have occurred. Three choice modelling experiments were reviewed to show that framing effects may be more widespread in non‐market valuation studies than is commonly thought.