Non-Market Valuation of Water Pollution Remediation and Disaster Risk Mitigation Functions: The Case of Nakdong River Estuary in South Korea

The Nakdong river estuary in South Korea has two important functions: first, remediating water pollution from the Nakdong river; second, mitigating the risk of disaster caused by waves from the open sea. The two functions of the Nakdong river estuary have been continuously threatened due to constant development pressure. This short note tries to investigate the non-market value of the water pollution remediation and disaster risk mitigation functions. For this purpose, 1000 households throughout the country were randomly selected, and a choice experiment (CE) survey of them was implemented in September 2017. The two attributes considered here are water pollution remediation and disaster risk mitigation. An increase in the yearly income tax was also considered as an attribute. The results of applying the CE approach show that the non-market values of a 1%p increase in the water pollution remediation ability and a 1 m decrease in the wave height of the estuary are KRW 105 (USD 0.09) and KRW 501 (USD 0.44), respectively, per household per year. These figures can be used to establish and execute marine spatial planning for the estuary.