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Development of a Willingness to Pay Survey for Willamette Basin Spring Chinook and Winter Steelhead Recovery
Citation:
Weber, M. AND M. Papenfus. Development of a Willingness to Pay Survey for Willamette Basin Spring Chinook and Winter Steelhead Recovery. Presented at Oregon Resource and Environmental Economics Workshop, Willamette University, Salem, OR, May 16, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
This research seeks to inform valuation survey methods through systematic pretesting in focus groups and interviews. Iterative changes made to the survey instrument based on insights from sessions with the public are described. Most of these changes address unwanted speculations participants implicitly or explicitly described. For example, people were worried that if hatchery salmon were reduced, there would be important economic impacts for Oregon. Pretesting helped avoid numerous potential sources of error by refining the survey instrument to be more understandable and minimize speculation.
Description:
Salmon fisheries are a high-profile icon of the Pacific Northwest. Spring Chinook and winter-run steelhead are both listed as federally endangered species in the Willamette basin, the most populated and developed watershed in Oregon. Despite being a high profile issue, there are few economic estimates of the value of recovering wild salmon runs. In particular, there are no known published estimates of the total economic value to Oregonians of recovering endangered salmon migrating through Portland, the state’s urban and economic center. Recently, a federally mandated recovery plan for the Willamette watershed proposed two fish recovery abundance levels. These targets were incorporated into a willingness-to-pay choice experiment using choice experiment methodology. The survey was designed for Oregonians and pretested in a series of 7 focus groups and 22 interviews with residents throughout the state. Insights from these pretests will be described including: iterative refinement of survey background to address participant speculations; preferences for the level of salmon abundance; preferences for the timetable of recovery; evidence of non-use values; and perspectives on hatchery fish. Discussion with OREE attendees is planned for remaining survey design considerations.