| Waste management sites such as landfills,decommissioned animal feedlots,and manufacturing plants constitute a challenging problem faced by city management,especially for regions and locations which have limited land areas to be utilized for such a purpose.The challenges not only come from the constraints of the land space used for waste disposal but also from finding proper reuses of the land after it becomes decommissioned.The current literature has shown that there are various methods of land reuse,including deep burying,incineration,land reconstruction,and others.However,to find out the best land use alternatives,it is crucial for the decision makers to assess the economic value to be potentially accrued either by the recovered resources or by the potential consumers who are directly affected by the land recovery strategies to ensure an efficient utilization of land recovery.Nevertheless,valuing reused land remains complex due to its nature,in which the market price for alternative land reuses is generally not available.Urban parks are a valuable municipal source of and a key element for city sustainability,as they are able to facilitate proper land resource allocation for citizens so as to meet their recreational demands and play other social functions.It has been proven that staying in urban greenery areas,like parks and forests,has positive and restorative effects on people’s mood,peacefulness,concentration,and stress release.Urban parks contribute to the beautification of the city and have positive effects on environmental quality,including air freshness,carbon sequestration,water purity,as well as biodiversity.They thus improve city dwellers’ overall quality of life in areas including physical health,social cohesion,tourism,and consequently employment and revenues.Furthermore,green spaces can act as leisure,sport,and recreational resources,reducing criminal and anti-social behavior as well as cutting down on obesity,since such spaces encourage physical fitness and exercise.The contingent valuation method(CVM)is a survey technique that constructs a hypothetical market to measure willingness to pay or willingness to accept(WTA)compensation for different levels of non-marketed natural and environmental resources.The method involves in-person interviews to clarify any possible puzzlements on the spot.Contingent valuation informs respondents about the tradeoffs they are facing;therefore,CVM is efficient in measuring the use value of a change in environmental quality prior to the policy being implemented and the non-use or passive use values such as the benefits the general public receive from the existence of unique natural environments.To eliminate hypothetical bias in eliciting accurate economic values,a survey method needs to be carefully designed and include three key components:resource description,means of payment,and the elicitation procedure.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the economic value potentially accrued by a prospective city park based on parkgoers’ willingness to pay,and compare it with the costs required to build a park atop the landfill site,in a cost-benefit analysis(CBA).The idea of this land transformation is inspired by a recent debate on the issue of how to address air quality and other environmental concerns over the disposal of the landfill site in the city.Like any other non-market valuation studies,choosing a proper survey method is a critical step for a successful economic valuation study.We adopted a double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method in survey design and data collection,followed by parameter estimation using the logit model.The study reveals—(1)the support of 70%of respondents was estimated;(2)as much as 96%of the respondents are willing to visit the park being presented to the respondents along with the survey questionnaire.The economic valuation indicates that the city residents are willing to pay(?)3.63 per person for the park’s entrance fees,which can be translated into an aggregate of(?)2,867,762.Sensitivity analysis indicates that the CBA results are very sensitive to changes in construction cost.Both alternative scenarios show positive NPV values,the obtained B/C ratios are greater than 1,and the IRR ratios are acceptable.Hence,it can be concluded that the proposed project of building a park is feasible even under uncertain circumstances.The study results contribute both theoretical and empirical literature credible solutions for efficient landfill conversions,non-market resource management,waste management,environmental protection,and novelties among park facilities and payment vehicles.The model presented here can be used as an example for any projects that require a cost-benefit analysis of non-market valuation to alleviate policy development for the management of public resources and financial sustainability at both local and national levels.In summary,the novelty of this study relates to theoretical and empirical contributions.First,this is the first study in Croatia to investigate visitors’ WTP for a landfill-to-park conversion,to assess the total economic value,and to build a comprehensive CBA.It is important to emphasize that data was collected during a two-year period,and interviews were conducted for 11 minutes on average,which lays more confidence in the obtained results.Second,since there is no example of this type of a project in the history of Croatia and South-Eastern Europe,hence policies and laws on the topic do not exist,this case study and policy implications are recommended to be used as an example for establishing standards for future landfill-to-park conversions.Finally,meaningful policy implications were derived concerning non-market resource management,waste management,and environmental protection. |
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