Contingent Valuation in Korean Environmental Planning: A Pilot Application to the Protection of Drinking Water in Seoul

This paper describes the application of the contingent valuation (CV) or willingness to pay (WTP) survey technique to a problem of public policy evaluation in Seoul, Korea. Matters of principal interest include: the definition of the problem and policy - protection of Seoul’s drinking water supply from disruption by “slugs” of contaminants in the source river (the Han); adjustments to standard CV techniques and assumptions required by the cultural and physical reality of Seoul; the representativeness of the spatially-drawn sample; estimation of the willingness to pay equation as a check on theoretical validity; and the policy implications of the results. The bottom line is asserted to be that CV may be especially valuable in countries such as Korea that have serious environmental problems and a history of not producing data that might be used in alternative (indirect) benefit estimation exercises. Further, it appears that if care is exercised in adjusting to local reality, the method can be made as successful as it has been in the U.S. And northern Europe.