Just
how much are people willing to give for a dry basement or a healthy stream?
University of Illinois economics professor Dr.Amy Ando and
her Ph.D. student Catalina Londoño Cadavid sought to answer this question
through their IWRC-supported study: “Measuring Public Preferences over Stormwater
Outcomes in Illinois: Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Help.”
With
its history of stormwater problems, Chicago seemed like the natural place for
an Illinois-based researcher to ask this question. And Chicago is also home to
a large low-income population, which allowed Ando and Cadavid to add an
interesting twist to their research. If people don’t have the ability to pay
for relief from stormwater flooding, would they volunteer time to receive some
benefits of reduced flooding?
Chicago
is starting to employ green infrastructure, or low impact development, as a way
to address its persistent struggle with combined sewer overflows during big
rainstorms. Features like rain gardens and rain barrels have joined a massive
tunnel project, and their presence also means that, in Ando’s words “there are
other ways [besides money] for people to contribute, because maybe rain barrels
need to be checked or rain gardens need to be weeded.”
Ando
and Cadavid worked with Reed College professor Noelwah Netusil to create a
survey to reach 500 Chicago-area residents for their opinions on
stormwater-related flooding and environmental damage. Developed with input from
Chicago-based nonprofit Center forNeighborhood Technology and Chicago’s Departmentof Water Management, the survey measured residents’ willingness to pay for stormwater
improvements with money, volunteer hours, or a combination of the two.
Traditionally, Ando explains, consumer choice studies like this use cost as the
“lynchpin that translates choice into willingness to pay.” But by using time as
a form of payment, the research team was able to push the envelope of economic
methods and include the opinions of lower income residents through scenario
options that would actually be available to them.
While
Ando and Cadavid originally intended to mail out a survey, when the cost became
prohibitive Cadavid proposed Qualtrics. A data collection and research firm,
Qualtrics enlists volunteers on survey panels, where they can then opt in or
out of a survey opportunity to earn points redeemable for prizes. The survey
relies on an online platform, but it also ensures a representative sample of
the population is collected and provides computer access to those without. The
survey was carried out during the fall and winter of 2012, and the collected respondents’
opinions were a bit unexpected.
Few
survey respondents reported any personal experience with stormwater flooding.
For example, only 33% of respondents recalled any flooding event in the past
year, while less than 6% had experienced four or more flood events.
Consequently, few respondents felt that flooding relief was something worth
paying for, either with time or money. Rather, greater value was placed on improving
environmental attributes like water quality and aquatic health in local
streams. People also showed themselves willing to pay much more through in-kind
contributions of time than through direct payments of money (if time is valued
at people’s wage rates). Ando and Cadavid speculate that this could be driven
in part by people gaining value from directly participating in neighborhood
improvement projects.
While
the final results of the study haven’t been published yet, Cadavid did depend
on this study to successfully defend her Ph.D. dissertation this spring and additional
findings were presented at national meetings over the summer. As for
application of the research, Ando calls that outreach the “fun part” of working
in a land-grant university. Not only does she plan to follow up with the
original partners who helped develop the survey, but she also intends to use
the data to help the U.S. EPA generate more complete estimates of the benefits
of green solutions to stormwater problems.
